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What does one purchase after owning horns?

I have owned Avantgarde Uno's and sold them because of the lack of bass to horn integration. I loved the dynamics, the midrange and highs. Now faced with a new speaker purchase, I demo speakers and they sound lifeless and contrived. The drama and beauty of live music and even the sound of percussion insturments like a piano are not at all convincing. I have an $8k budget for speakers give or take a thousand. My room is 13'X26' firing down the length. Any good ideas will be appreciated. My music prefrences are jazz/jazz vocalist.
renmeister
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,739 posts
 
"martin collums measured THD at 110 db"

For those kinds of volumes, except perhaps in the case of smaller rooms, good horns in particular, like Avantgarde should shine and be a safe choice.

Again, the advantage is efficiency and the ability to GO LOUD as a result IF DONE WELL.

Of course there are many forms of distortion. THD is just the most common standard measure applied.

I should measure how loud I listen. I think it is pretty loud sometimes but does not ever approach 110db, so that might be overkill.
duomike
76 posts
 
I think it was measured at 1 m distance, at a typical distance of 3 meters the volume would be down by a few db so the measurement was not that unrealistic. Guess he had to crank the volume up that much to get any thd to measure.
IMHO horns even played at peaks of 90 db only (which even a decent planar can reach) sound more dynamic than other speakers. they just seem to be able to follow the volume swings of dynamic music more correctly. one reason might be that because of their inherent efficiency the voice coil never sees large currents and heats up.
chadeffect
586 posts
 
My usual listening daytime level on the AG Trio at around 4.5m, peaks around 90db. Effortless with 1.5 watts. My Apogees at that level were great too, but with 1,000 watt/channel amps and dual active subs...

The Apogees even with the wonderful new Graz ribbons and SOTA cross overs could not do that weight and 3d presentation. Sorry to repeat myself, but the Trio is like the best planar on steroids. A logical progression if you love that planar presentation with the Duo not far behind. The separation and impression the sound is coming along way in front of the speaker is marked.

I personally cant go back, even though I had magical listening sessions with Magnepans, Apogees etc... Avantgarde have something right and should not be thought of horns sonically.

I am sounding like an advert but I have yet to hear better across the board. Which is why the answer to the post is better horns... I wish I could say something small, interesting and cheap. I guess what you spend on the speaker is saved on the amps!
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,739 posts
 
"the Trio is like the best planar on steroids"

Funny, but I have heard some planar users that switched to OHM Walsh speakers (like myself) use that same analogy.

Having heard all kinds of speakers over the years, including some really good modern horns, I am convinced that a pair of big, expensive high efficiency horns like AG or similar are the only ones that could tempt me to change, if I could afford them and had the right room.

I would never be tempted to go with anything more than a small and easily maintained tube amp and would not want to rule out SS.

I learned a few more things about Avantgarde here that will keep them on my list of potentially coveted audio gear down the road I would say!
audiokinesis
2,763 posts
 
Ime THD does not correlate well with subjective preference. Imo THD is not the right yardstick to be measuring with; a horn or amp or whatever can have excellent THD numbers and still sound pretty bad, or have bad THD numbers and still sound excellent. I'm not horn-bashing here; I'm THD-bashing.

Better yardsticks have been proposed, but the industry has ignored them.
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