What does one purchase after owning horns?

Could you point us to examples of manufacturers or models that are well suited to a low damping factor amp (as a proud Atma-sphere S-30 owner I am quite interseted in your suggestions).

I've heard Ralph's amps sounding great with Classic Audio speakers (John Wolfe), on a few occasions. Oh my god, and they're horns too. I guess I need some Q-tips or a hearing aid, or else I'm just going to speaker hell (surrounded by horns of course).

Seriously - a fine combination with great synergy.

Jax2....Easy does it fella.....lol

The effect on a bass system of a low damping factor amplifier is the same as raising the electrical Q of the woofer. If the bass system is designed in anticipation of this higher electrical Q, then the result is proper bass response. If not, then "muddy bass" will likely result. So the fact that muddy bass is the result in some instances DOES NOT MEAN that such will be the case where the system is designed to work well with that type of amp.

Or to put it another way that may be more consistent with audiophile terminology, speaker/amplifier matching is important. And not just in the bass region - the interaction of the amplifier with the speaker's impedance curve has implications across the spectrum. But that's another topic for another thread.

Pryso, I did not mean to imply that a good horn system has a small sweet spot when set up properly. In fact, I believe that a good horn system is capable of having an exceptionally wide sweet spot if it's designed with that intention.

To try and put this damping factor in context for this thread, I had a very high damping factor amp (<1000) and popped in an SET with very low damping factor on the AG.

On the AG Trio, like most AGs, which use active subs driven at speaker level or line level, the damping effect was quite obvious. I could not say one was terrible and the other glorious, but I could say that for some types of music one could work better than the other.

The high damping factor made extremely tight low bass which had an air around it and gave an impressive listen, especially with electronic music.

But I must say when an SET with little or no damping factor was put in it had another effect. Yes the bass was less controlled, but the extra texture and ease of listening more than made up for the loss in grip. If listening to more acoustic music the low damping factor was quite desirable.

I couldnt say the bass was just muddy as it had a much more natural texture the high damping factor amps could not really do. Maybe some of this could be put down to the quality/capability of the amps. But all the amps I tried were up there!

The effects of a simple amp like a 45 tubed SET on speakers with this kind of sensitivity should not be underestimated. For all the talk of trying this speaker or that, it is one of the great freedoms of horns like these. Something which seems to be lost on most people. Very few can really enter this world without too many drawbacks with power.

As I explained before, if bass integration was the issue, then move up the AG range. You loved the AG you had apart from the integration of the sub. Besides why not add room correction to control any other possible bass issues?

There is an AG Duo here on the Gon for 8k. You will be done then.

Here is some info on horns. Non-linear distortion in the compression chamber rises with output as well as with higher frequency and is exacerbated by long horns with less flare. Distortion can be as high as 20% or more in 2nd and 3rd order harmonics.

The non-linear characteristics may explain some of the challenges of integrating horns with a conventional (linear) sub woofer. As the level of the music changes from high to low SPL there will be a sweetspot where the balance is good. However, outside this range the balance may be off by a little.

This is simply for information JBL

The OP might consider horn designs with a much wider flare (or simply a waveguide) and accept a lower efficiency design (less compression). These type designs are more likely to integrate better with the bass over a broader range of operating SPL levels (less changes in tonal balance).