How much of High End Audio is Horn Speakers?

"Is it the Klipsch name that illicits this type of response (1) or is it Horn speakers in general? (2)"

[please excuse my bad English]

I am afraid it is the #1 answer.

But there is nothing wrong with your choice; after all, it has to suit you.

I heard the Klipsch Cornwall again recently at a show. I personally would not use them for my favorite classical music works (or any acoustic instruments recording), but with all other genres (especially rock & pop), I admit they can provide a lot of fun.

I usually hate horns. Nevertheless, I recently discovered some horn speakers that sing like divas (but are as pricey as a car).

Enjoy your music, whatever the speakers and others opinions.

Have had Rectilinear, Visonik, ADS, Maggies, Thiels, Acoustat, M&K, Salk (still have these), and probably a few others I've forgotten, and have no complaints on running Forte IV's in my main (of 3) system.

Plenty of people enjoy their horns stock, others enjoy modded. Now, what exactly is wrong with horns, seems like all these people are satisfied. Unless we're all masochist and only fooling ourselves.

Perhaps the ease with which horns are amenable to diy or off the shelf mods is part of the appeal.

By the way, I've modded box speakers, open baffle and horns, I like my speakers to fit my exact needs. Nothing inherently wrong with any of these designs.

I have had horn speakers in my life from the very first purchase and now as possibly the last in my systems and loved them. I started as a kid in 1976 with a pair of B.I.C. Venturi. For $79.95 and now have JBL Array 1400s. Super happy with them! The accents horns give to vocals and guitar music’ richness is second to none, IMHO. These are very non-fatiguing to me, can listen to for hours. I traded my B&W 802s for these and haven’t looked back since. They are super unique looking, and are very neutral in most music. I power them with a Mac SS power plant, and Mac tube Pre which adds to the non-fatiguing effect. They ran me about $6k used which is half of retail and they were only a couple years old, so I felt it was a steal. The guy who I bought them from was jonesing for the JBL K2s, so he wanted more horns to replace them. Even though the midrange and tweeters look like horns they are actually compression drivers with horns for dispersion, and they do an excellent job of that. I don’t think you made a mistake with your Cornwalls though…if I bought Klipsch, those would be for me. Enjoy your purchase no matter what people say…

Nice write-up @cohicks4 , but I’m a little confused:

Even though the midrange and tweeters look like horns they are actually compression drivers with horns for dispersion

Most horn mids and tweets I know of ARE compression drivers. I think you may be thinking of horn loaded bass cabinets as a "true" horn speaker, but in my experience, both are considered true horn speakers. Just different drivers attached.

I wouldn’t say "even though ... look like horns..." because they really are horn speakers. If they lacked the compression driver they might be called "wave guides" instead, but potato potatoe.

Using compression drivers attached to a horn is 100% pro horn speaker construction.  Nothing illegitimate about it.