Why horns? Because they can deliver a sense of "weight" and scale that few other kinds of systems deliver. When people talk about how small monitors, for instance, can deliver a really expansive and impressive soundstage, I agree, but, while the soundstage may be wide, one senses that the individual instruments are miniatures. One gets a better sense of scale with big speakers, and most horn systems qualify as big. Yes, good horn systems are expensive and impractically large in size, but they deliver certain aspects of performance that even a decent system using wide-band conventional drivers rarely can match.
I have not heard the biggest Charney Audio offering, so I don't know if it gets there, but, their smaller Companion speaker is the closest thing I've heard in the wide-band driver world to a good horn system; a friend who heard it liked it, but thought it did not have enough weight to the sound.
I have not heard the biggest Charney Audio offering, so I don't know if it gets there, but, their smaller Companion speaker is the closest thing I've heard in the wide-band driver world to a good horn system; a friend who heard it liked it, but thought it did not have enough weight to the sound.