Why not horns?

JohnK perhaps the horn enthusiasts should temper their excitement as well. Newcomers are just as easily influenced by the hyperbole as well. The opening of this thread practically invited the negative reaction.

Weseixas, Sorry for the misunderstanding. It is all good.

You leave out one critical part of your thesis, planers radiate sound from both sides , this ability helps to create the required space and time of a recording far more accurately than any monopole transducer.

Horns will always sound like hi-fi, never real , they project sound in a manner where all instruments and voices have the same projection and size. The best you can say is that they sound just like an amplified concert 40 ft away. Unfortunately we listen to recordings of live music and not live music itself , as such Horns do not convey this as accurately IMO.

If you cannot get the speaker far enough from the rear wall, the first comment is moot. Duke has built systems that are rear-firing and they seem to work fine...

The second comment is simply absurd! Horns image and present soundstage images as well or as badly as any other speaker technology.

Atma,

I understand why you reject the pejorative comment re: horns and imaging, but I will take issue with your specific rebuttal. Planars and omnis (properly set up) image differently than horns (or any other monpoles). Some may prefer that presentation. Some may feel exactly the other way. I won't attach a value judgement, but either way, IMHO, imaging is one area where people can draw sharp distinctions between monopoles (including horns) and dipoles/bipoles/omnis.

Marty

IME, horns are capable of producing a very good sound stage, but not very good imaging.