What does one purchase after owning horns?

Macrojack, this is a cat that can be skinned more than one way.

At first glance, it looks like a crossover of 350 Hz between a fairly narrow-pattern horn and a direct-radiator woofer would not have a good radiation pattern matchup, and I think is probably the case (though the horn may be unloading somewhat down that low, resulting in some pattern widening). But it may not matter if the crossover is done right.

You see, below 500 Hz in most rooms, the ear is not very good at hearing radiation pattern discrepancies as long as the power response is good (this is my understanding of Earl Geddes on the subject). Bill Woods knows far more tricks of the trade than I do (he has many fine prosound designs to his credit, some of which show up in home audio systems because they're so darn good). So I'm sure he has this transition worked out very well.

Turning now to the realm of dynamic matching, Bill uses woofers that have excellent dynamic capabilities and so their thermal compression will be negligible at any SPL remotely likely in a home audio setting, thus matching the compression driver in that regard.

Duke

Lrsky, I am primarily centering on horns with compression drivers, such as GoTo and old Altec systems. But I am talking about what I heard when I first heard horns. The were Klipsch corner horns sitting in the storage room in a dealer's shop. I sat on a stool as he prepared to demonstrate them with a Stereo 70 amp. He put on a snare drum recording. The volume was pretty high, but the first impact about blew me off the stool. I have always recalled that experience, especially listening to recordings with drums. My grandson is a drummer. I asked him if he had ever heard an accurate recording of a drum. He simply said, no.

I don't have compression horns now, so I could not tell him to listen to drums on them. I don't think they would equal to real, but a hell of a lot closer to real than any other speakers. I think pianos are another example. Yes, I am a leading edge freak.

Duke why the midbass horn is so important to a proper horn loaded design. And probably the hardest of all to get right.

This is an interesting thread with a lot of good information. For me, whatever the shortcomings of horn systems may be, and they surely have shortcomings as all speaker systems do, the (relatively) greater dynamic freedom gives the music a sense of reality that is missing when you listen to many otherwise good non-horn loaded speakers. I am just glad to see that the stigma is being lifted from horn based designs in the last 10 years or so, and that the technology is advancing.

Duke - I started out with the JBL woofers that were native to my L-200 which are the LE15B. Bill suggested that I would get better efficiency and a lower XO point by switching to the RCF L15P530 drivers. These, by the way, were a nightmare to locate as they had already been discontinued by the time Bill recommended them to me. It turned out that they had been bought mostly for car stereo subs even though that is not what they were originally designed for. The replacement apparently was not as good according to Bill.

If I ever get to the point of selling my horns, I have a vintage pair of 12 inch drivers that I will use as single drivers in a simple cabinet - so I guess that's my answer to the original question.