horn or line array?

Horns!

Always my all time favorite even in car audio which I have done quite successfully a couple of times. Currently remodeling our full time RV, added 1.5 ft to the length for more room for the system. I will test my beloved and highly modified Edgarhorn Slimline, Building some XDS open baffle to test as well and have some small KEF line arrays we used for years in RV's.  A tough challenge to make anything work well in the RV but going to make a go of it and hope the EH work as Doc Edgar was a freind of mine.

Rick

I have plenty of good drivers to build some test sealed or ported box speakers, subs, etc and doing a lot of room treatment and DIY cables. I wired two separate dedicated and fully shielded AC lines and moved the breakers around to put all the noisy stuff on the opposite leg.

Just pointing out I am dedicated to make this the best RV system I possibly can, not spend a fortune on it, not needed when done right and I know the limitations I face but also I have had incredible success in vehicles much smaller than this so hope to make the HORNS work:)

A line array of bass horns is what I'm using - four horns stacked on top each other to the ceiling in each corner. That can get you truly horn loaded down below 30Hz.

I'm a horn lover but I can understand why some people aren't. You'll have to do some listening for yourself to decide which you prefer.  

I have had both and once I purchased a good horn speaker I will never go back to anything else.  The soundstage is wider, easily driven, most realistic sound for me.  

As others have correctly said "the implementation matters". The room in which they will be used in is very important. How directional the speakers are and how reverberant/damped the room is will largely impact the sound. Will the setup yield a more direct field where the source contribution dominates or a reverberant field where the room's reverberant contribution dominates. Horns will typically be more direct field and line arrays more reverberant field. OB line arrays definitely more reverberant field. Horns and line  arrays are very different. Pros and Cons for both designs.

We designed our OB line arrays with a relatively wide baffle to influence the directional characteristics and to control the rear sound. They are rated at 105 dB 1w 1m. Interestingly, a person at last year's CAF show commented that they sound like a cross between planars and horns. Not sure what he meant.

I say all this to point out that there are many, many different implementation of both designs. You will have to spend lots of time listening to both designs in different room to really know which you prefer.

If anyone wants to send us a pair of reasonably sized horns we will gladly set up a demo to compare the two designs. Might be kind of interesting.