What does one purchase after owning horns?

Mrdecibel, I suppose this all could be boiled down to damping characteristics. How you would have to view it is like this:

1) some speakers like lots of damping and others don't.
2) Some amps have lots of damping and others don't.
3) Don't mix the two or the combination will not sound right.

Its my opinion that our ears are the most valuable things that we have as audiophiles, and that our ears are the most important thing in audio (I guarantee we would not be playing with audio gear if we had no ears). To that extent it is also my opinion that the more we design our equipment to obey the rules that our ears are using the more our equipment will sound like real music.

It is this latter point where things get dicey. In a nutshell, if you were to guess, what are some of the more important human hearing rules? Duke has pointed at some of them, and I'm on record saying that how we perceive the volume or sound pressure of a sound is the most important hearing rule. If the equipment violates this rule the resulting sound will not be perceived as real no matter how good the system handles everything else.

Dr. Herbert Melcher, and Nobel Prize laureate neuro-chemical scientist, has documented that if the system violates certain fundamental hearing rules, there is a tipping point where the processing in the brain moves from the limbic system to the cerebral cortex- the difference between emotional and intellectual response. He has some pretty hard numbers on this- essentially documenting the subjective experience. I am hoping he continues this research!

So, based on Ralph's comment, "if you already have an Avantgarde and you are trying to use tubes with it, now you know why its been so hard to find something that makes the drivers/woofers blend properly", if Renmeister had used something like one of Nelson Pass's First Watt amps while he still owned his Unos, perhaps this entire post would never have existed. ;-)

PS, I note that Avantgarde has now introduced their own SS amp to match with their speakers.

Atmasphere, I appreciate your response. And yes, the ears are what we use to determine the sound we like. I always found that inefficient speakers (I owned many and am familiar with many)required an amp with greater damping, and in my experience, this has led to ss. And I believe the point Mapman made about the efficiency of a horn being a benefit,is valid. However, some of your previous explanations is just beyond me, even though I am somewhat educated. As far as hearing rules, I have not paid much attention to what has been written. But I have always listened with peaks at around 100db, which is a reason I own horns. They show the difference between the "soft" in music and the "loud". All with a small amp. I am aware of the danger to exposing oneself to loud sounds. I am not concerned.

Just an add on. I have always placed dynamic range as the most important virtue of any system. However, prat is very very close in importance to me . I need to follow the "playing" of the musicians. There is tonal coherence and agility coherence. By improperly matching damping characteristics between amp and speaker, you can ruin prat.

Ralph, Can you elaborate on exactly WHY the Avantgarde speakers are "meant for" SS amps? And is there an SS amp-type which would work similarly to a tube amp (or at least in a way such that the speaker would think that it was looking at a tube amp)?

I ask because I recently tried SS amps (zero NFB, Class A) on my horns and found myself enjoying the combination. I have not spent enough time since the earthquake here listening critically to get a handle on them yet and my ultimate goal is to bi-amp, but so far so good.