@mahlman --
You touch on something rarely mentioned I fully agree with. Pro gear just has much more headroom and effortless superb output. All I would consider for my own use is now Klipsch pro gear starting with at least a KI-904 or better or older versions at least as good as the KPT-456 or better. Some of my speaker buddies have Danleys and love them. It really boils down to what is most important. Sound or looks and here sound wins. Danleys are darned hard to find and so is Klipsch pro gear but the Klipsch does show up from time to time. I listen to a takeoff of the MWM bin from the MCM-1900 ( stock MWM is 40" deep mine is 60" deep same basic configuration though just bigger) made so it goes down to an honest 27hz and with a Klipsch 402 horn and driver on top out to well past 18khz. This is a true two way all horn system and you just cant beat horns for best sound. It is why I recommended the Jubilee because it too is an all horn system and the gateway to superb sound.
Thanks for chiming in. Pro gear usually has that rugged and industrial look, and with amps and other electronics I actually tend to prefer that look; it’s just more "honest" with a functionally clean, understated and at times even elegant appearance (take the Crown Studio Reference or Macro Tech amps, as an example). With speakers I like it when they’re made of and actually looks like wood (i.e.: not lacquered to glossy death), but that comes expensive. I would though gladly and without any hesitation whatsoever go with the "ugly" pro speaker if it means better sound (and much cheaper at that), because as you say it’s what truly matters vs. mere appearance.
Klipsch pro gear has great offerings - the Jubilee’s among others have had my attention for a while. Going all-horn is a necessary step few are willing to take, but it makes a potential difference the majority will likely never face.
Pro gear is usually where the real innovations are made, like Danley’s Synergy horns. It’s arguably approaching the holy grail in sound reproduction as a single, phase coherent point source per channel - carefully summed by a closely placed, multitude of drivers - that covers down to where the subs take over. It’s brilliant, really.
@atmasphere --
Also the bass got flabby/slow/less present.
@chilli42 One thing to be careful about in the bass department: ’tight’ bass is a coloration brought on by the amplifier having excess damping of the woofer(s). Many audiophiles like it, but out in the real world its a very difficult thing to encounter! [...]
What’s really addressed by the OP here is a lack of coherency; the authentic fullness of bass reproduction that is to be implied by the quoted passage of you above (and that I agree with as something that doesn’t come across as "tight" per se), doesn’t distinguish itself incoherently from the rest of the frequency spectrum above, but rather it "flows" in organically. If that’s what the OP had actually heard - i.e.: named authentic fullness - he’d have known the difference and wouldn’t fault it.
Indeed, a specific term calls attention to itself from poster @chilli42’s description, namely "presence," or a lack thereof. One of the core characteristics of horn-loaded bass is exactly that: presence, and one that is wholly enveloping in a way the direct radiating bass, distributed array or not, won’t achieve in a similar fashion. What’s more, "flabby" and "slow" bass as an antithesis to "tight" is hardly a compelling trait as something associated with natural bass.
This is not about the age of speakers, and that’s not saying the OP should keep his current horn-hybrid speakers. On the contrary, I clearly feel he should replace them and patiently seek out an all-horn approach that will maintain high efficiency, but add in coherency. This has been done for decades by those sufficiently dedicated. What could be a further interesting addition though, and where the latest technological advancement comes in handy, is effectively emulating a point source and achieve coherency in the time domain as well.