Horn Speaker Recommendations

I dont know of a single horn enthusiast who has been around the block more than once that considers Klipsch viable or competitive. Kind of the like the McDonalds of horns. The criticism of my JBL comments may be appropriate if they dont sound like their older designs which logically they should due to the past success of this company. In any case my opinion is now known for what its worth.  

Hi @atmasphere ,

It is true.
When I bought vintage Altec 604 "e" from mid 60x, coaxial with horn tweeter and ~98dB sensitivity.
I used it with McIntosh MC30 amp from end of 50x.
Some vintage lovers thing it is a great idea to use components designed and made in similar time. But they are wrong!
I used MC30 with Spendor 2/3 speakers  (88dB sensitivity). They sounded great together.
Altec 604e worked OK with MC30, but I discovered a real Altec's capability only when I started use them with 300B SET amp. McIntosh with 5 tubes stages, a number of local feedbacks, a global feedback and dumping factor 12 - was great with mid-sensitive speakers but sounded rough and sloppy with high sensitivity horn speakers. In contrast SET with zero feedback and dumping factor 5 sounded smooth and transparent with Altec 604e.

I think the other drawback of global feedback - it is reduce sense of real life dynamic and micro dynamic. But, despite this, I steel use phono stage with feedback RIAA correction based of EAR 834p schematics. 

Regards,
Alex

Klipsch Heritage speakers are absolutely considered viable and competitive by many discerning ears, and those who've "been around the block" should maybe get off the street, go back in the house, and listen to these things. If it's clear and coherent sound that represents an ideal relative to other designs, Heresy IIIs have that in spades...It's obvious that nothing penetrates a closed mind, and I admit my experience hearing horns of various designs in friends hifi rigs and at shows over the years still kept me somewhat in the elitist, price driven world of dismissing Klipsch as being second rate ("nice, but not expensive enough")...until I listened to Heresy IIIs in my own rig...they're world class regardless of the dismissive nonsense from the clueless.

I’ve most likely owned more Klipsch than anyone posting about it as well as much of what’s available I even have some of Paul's RCA test equipment and 1 of his RCA W bins from Klipsch museum many may not know but K horn was inspired and based on Olson's work for RCA. I stand by my entry-level horn comment many heritage owners run-heavy mods Klipsch is cheap and easily available it also floods the used market and Klipsch owners by far out num other type owned and are very vocal in forums due to this. The only Klipsch I could see owning is the fully horn-loaded theater systems many of those are better than audiophile offerings of great cost and it seems are no longer offered since Klipsch was purchased by Harman. But sadly with horns, the audiophile market isn’t offering many worthy of purchase unless you want a hybrid horn and honestly if I had to go that route I would buy a conventional dynamic. If one really wants great horns you have to know a good amount about it and be able to DIY to some degree since even if complete a great sounding full horn system will be in parts that owner must somewhat assemble. And as mentioned one should consider it as a system that includes amps crossovers room etc and all should be matched to each other.