What does one purchase after owning horns?

This is all so interesting. I know many people who love music as much as myself, but many of them own a Bose wave radio or something similar to that. And when music plays, they can get up and dance and enjoy it for what it is. We (Audiogon members)on the other hand spend some major dollars on equipment and room set up, to hear these same recordings. If it is not to bring us a more "lifelike" presentation, why do we do it ? The only delusion is when you think it is as good as live music, which it could never be(I started another threat about this recently, but it died very quickly with only a handful of respondents). There are more Audiogon members who strive for great imaging and soundstaging, and if one feels that an artist has just appeared several feet in front to them, slightly left, that does not make them delusional. The Audiogon community is trying to extract any realism from our recordings. So I ask you all, why not simply own a Bose wave radio or something of that nature ?

I suppose we are all deluded if we think our stereo sounds like anything other than what it is, a recreation of other people's musical creations in our homes in a manner that meets our needs and wants.

Mapman says the secret word(s) and wins $50.00!!! Sorry Groucho, wherever you are.

If it is not to bring us a more "lifelike" presentation, why do we do it ? The only delusion is when you think it is as good as live music, which it could never be

Mrdecibel- your use of quotes around "lifelike" speaks volumes. S'phile ran a column/editorial on this subject a year or 2 ago, ruminating on why it is that even from a distance, anyone w a passion for music can tell the difference between music actually being performed and music being reproduced. I have no idea why, but I know through experience that it is true. My wife and I drove up to a friend's backyard dinner party a few years ago and heard electric jazz guitar as soon as we got out of the car, on the street out front. I immediately said to my wife "cool, they have a live musician". My wife could not understand how I could tell, and I couldn't articulate it to her or to you, but I was 100% positive that it was not reproduced music. Obviously no imaging, or soundstaging, but there was not a question in my mind that it was not a recording, even though he was playing a hollow body electric guitar through a small amplifier at modest volume. What we hear at home is, at best, a "lifelike" simulation of a performance. The Audiogon community (for the most part) does not listen to wave radios (except for a few sinners...you know who you are!) because the equipment we use, as you said

"bring(s) us a more "lifelike" presentation"

IMO, this doesn't denigrate the hobby or our passion; it just puts it into perspective.

Very true swampwalker .....

regards,

Swampwalker, I have had the same experience with a piano, but I have had another live music experience. At CES many years ago when it was in Chicago, I went out to dinner at Bergoffs with a wire manufacturer, an electronic manufacturer, a reviewer, and me. They had a live group going from table to table. When they were nearby, I suggested that the bass was boomy with lots of overhang. The others looked at me in amazement, but one said "yes it does." We then got around to saying why that might be, with the general agreement that the room and instrument were probably responsible. I would also note that few live performances are unamplified, the group in Bergoffs had no amplification.

Finally, I would say "as yet" we cannot give the illusion of live, but there is no question for me that we have greatly improved the illusion in most systems in the last twenty years. Horns may be the exception. We haven't surpassed the Klipsch horns or the WE horns. I heard a two tube WE 205 amp driving a single Altec concentric horn system long ago at a VSAT conference and heard what I had never heard before or since. Why did I not buy it? Because there was only one, and I didn't expect that I would ever find another. The dealer wrote later to say he had found a second but was going to keep both for his system. Why he wrote to tell me this, I haven't a clue, but it ruined my day.

"Duke's speaker is not an Horn .... Waveguide !!!!!!!"

A waveguide is a type of horn, characterized by constant directivity, minimum-wavefront-disturbance curvatures, and a lack of vanes or diffractive shapes or features to modify directivity. Some of my models use what I would definitely call a "waveguide", and others use a device that has many (but not all) of the characteristics of a pure waveguide, so I call it a "waveguide-style horn". Macrojack's conical horns, designed by Bill Woods, are probably what I'd call "waveguide-style horns". Others may use different terminology and/or draw their lines of demarcation in a different place. For example, Bill Woods called my waveguide a "conical horn".

Duke