Why not horns?

Yes Gawdbless,

A pity it took you this long to figure that out :)

Still open to this eye awakening episode . I'm not adverse to being proven wrong, give me a name of the horn speaker combo i need to be listening to 2 and i will attempt to do so, maybe all the ones from my list were never setup right,


I should also inform you, that most of those with the horn
systems listed were all exposed to what a good dipole system can do and to the man , they have all admitted not being there with their Horn setups, the last one as recently as last month, from a friend who is a recent horn convert and less just say after the comparison they are still tweaking ... LOL...

Convert me guys, Please do , i will enjoy the journey,,,,

regards,

We: will you not share what speakers you listen to and that what floats your boat?

I have heard a few of the speakers you list, and I would say my Impulse H1's can be held in the same company as any of them and, any speaker regardless of price or type of speaker whether it be a planar or boxed sealed type without fear of deemed second rate. Alas, as there are only 19 pairs of my speakers on the planet, you probably have more chance of going to Mars on a PanAm plane than you have of hearing a pair, lol. The testament on how good they are is that there is never a pair for sale on the used market, why? A well respected hi-fi reviewer has had his pair for 20 years, why? because, they are bloody marvelous hi-fi speakers that satisfies the soul musically (for me anyway). You will have to believe my ears when I say nothing sounds bad through them, and I am sure you would like them just a little if you heard them, they may not be your cup of tea, but I am sure you find them very engaging musically, you never know, you may even be a convert to horns! lol.

Learsfool, the golden age of classical recordings may have used many horns, but that was because other speakers of the time weren't viable due to amplification constraints and the yet to be developed alternatives.

Gawdbless, I philosophically disagree with you, as I don't believe it's reasonable to expect speakers to "enhance music". If a speaker accurately portrays a recording for better or worse, I think it very fair to blame the recording in some instances. If one needs to tamper with a recording to make it palatable, I think there are better devices with much more specific controls available to those that feel the need for such things, than speakers. One good example of a recording that that can sound a bit hard is Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain".

06-28-10: Gawdbless
We: will you not share what speakers you listen to and that what floats your boat?

I have heard a few of the speakers you list, and I would say my Impulse H1's can be held in the same company as any of them and, any speaker regardless of price or type of speaker whether it be a planar or boxed sealed type without fear of deemed second rate.

We:

Well have to admit , i have never heard of them , much less heard them , yeah , so you are right , i did find this description.....

# Impulse H1: The big hit, and an evolution from the HT1, H2a and H3 models to the archectypal 'Impulse' truncated horn design. Folded exponential bass horn, tractrix midhorn with driver open to rear. Sensitivity 94dB/W, 8ohms. Drivers: 8.5" Seas bass; 4.5" Seas mid; Focal TD90K tweeter.
# Crossover ponts: 800Hz; 4Khz; 2nd order summed response.
# Size: 1100mm H x 350mm W x 685mm D
# Finishes/ cost: Approx. £2,800: built to order, customer-specified veneer with cloth inserts.
# Weight: if you have to ask...
# Available 1988 - ?

Reviews:Jimmy Hughes in HiFi Answers, February 1989. It's a bit of an odd review, for a rave write-up...
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 (GIF format, 120-220K per page)

http://www.acoustica.org.uk/impulse/impulse.html

If this is your speaker ?

If it is, then it is not the typical horn stuff now is it, Yes i can see this speaker sounding much different from what macrobaby has....

I have also disclosed that i was involved in the audio field for years, we sold speakers at the high-end, so i listen to my own stuff and since we have always done di-poles (dynamic driver versions since 88 and ribbon hybrids later) I do have different versions of speakers available to me from mini-monitors to full large scale ribbons for listening....

Currently my main is a 3 way, 4 column full ribbon in both the bass, mid and highs, not planer magnetic as apogee used to be or maggies currently .

They work for me and work for most who have had the pleasure in hearing them, including my recently converted Horn speaker friends....

Again to each his own , i know what i hear and like between the different speaker topologies and ribbons done up right works for me, I'm sure yours work for you and sound good 2, as it does for many others here.

Enjoy the journey ....

Regards,