Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?
I ended up with Viking Acoustic Grande Voix dual horn speakers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Found it $28k, weight..who knows, I am sure well over 100lbs each speaker. has dome tweeter https://www.viking-acoustics.com/grande-voix-1 |
larryi2,502 posts02-21-2019 5:21pmI've heard dozens of horn systems. Of the complete systems, I like: the Edgarhorn systems I've heard; some of the Volti systems I've heard were okay, but not that great for my taste; Klipschorn and Lascala not my favorites; Altec Voice of the Theater not my favorites; Goto-good, but big and expensive); and a few more that I can't remember who built them. Back-loaded horn systems include: Beauhorn, Rethm, Charney, and a few others. Mostly, I've heard custom systems built around Western Electric, International Projector Company, Yoshimura Laboratories, and Jensen --drivers and horns. I've heard systems that use new drivers from G.I.P (Japan) that are replicas of old Western Electric drivers that sound terrific (they ought to, given the prices of these drivers). My own system is built around a horn-based system from Strumenti Acustici de Precisione (twin 12" Alnico magnet woofers in an Onken cabinet, compression driver and horn midrange (I swapped out what came with the system and replaced the midrange with a Western Electric 713b driver and a 12025 sectoral horn), and a bullet tweeter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THis is a great post, informs us to whats out there and your fair opinions.\ YOur WE horn system sounds fantastic. I bet it is so accurate, no distortion, just clean pure music. But at that price, few of us could afford. WOW twin alnico magnet 12 inch woofers, Thats a ALOTTT of bass. My room is small, so a pair of W18's at 87db is really sufficient for my listening needs. I have a AMT ribbon/Neo magnet arriving off a ebay/china site, $75 a pair, Lets see how they sound next to my Magnovox Alnico tweeers, |
I refer to my system as a "Japanese" system (in fact, the Western Electric drivers came from Japan) because it is much like systems you will see in Japanese audio magazines. Such systems are crammed into tiny Japanese apartments. What they excel at is sounding lively and full at LOW volume levels, which is a necessity given the thin walls of these apartments and the extremely polite and considerate culture of the Japanese. My system actually has very modest bass output and does not go very deep. The drivers are light weight, and have a pleated paper surround that limits excursion. These drivers excel at delivering clean and tuneful bass; just not that much of it. I've heard systems with twin 18" drivers based on similar designs that also have somewhat limited bass. Even when playing music with powerful bass, you can barely feel the cones moving in and out; they vibrate but to not pump in and out very much. |
