opinions on modern horn speakers

modern horn designs for most part sound o.k. with some types of music but they are unforgiving of all but the finest source components and source material....all in all a bit too restrictive for this old rock and roller,who finds that most of his favorite music needs to be forgiven a bit.

Acapella makes the only full-range (by using hybrid driver techniques) horn that sounds like a single-driver, has all the benefits of a horn speaker and none of the disadvantages (well, except perhaps size). These are the best general-purpose speakers made today (and they do rock-and-roll just fine :-) but like most speakers the better the upstream components are the happier you will be. While "high-quality" solidstate sounds quite good with them, on the bigger ones, with the higher efficiencies, a single-ended triode like an ML2 could be very well be the best pairing since... Rogers and Hammerstein, or Martin and Lewis, or.... the dynamic duo?

-Mike (Audio Federation, Acapella dealer, some time rock-and-roller)

I listened to the Avantgarde Duos quite carefully in a friend's system with good associated equip including SET tube amps. Very dynamic, as they claim, and a fundamentally "pure" sound, probably due to needing very few watts. But in the end I could not live with them. There is a very definite residual horn coloration to the sound. Maybe others can ignore this, as it isn't nearly as bad as older horns were, but I can't get past it. It is nearly impossible to design a (practical) wide-band horn that completely eliminates this, despite what some may claim. The laws of physics can't be revoked, only bent.

In addition, the plastic horn cones themselves were significantly coloring the sound due to internal resonances. I know Avantgarde hypes this material, but anyone with any knowledge of materials science knows that their particular approach is bound to have serious resonance problems. It's economical to manufacture, but lousy for acoustics. There are other horns that avoid this problem by machining the horn from solid laminated wood, for example. Vastly superior and also much more expensive.

Lastly, the physical separation between the various drivers was highly audible to my ears, making it impossible to relax into the music and believe the illusion of "being there".

I don't want to sound too disparaging. They do some things spectacularly well, dynamics being at the top of the list. But everything is a compromise, and I personally can't live with the compromises being made here.

Marakanez, i do not disagree with your take on Beahorn Virtuoso, i believe you were talking about. However, they sure sound way too good, despite those shortcomings! That was the only way i would listen the SET amps!

You have never heard dixieland jazz reproduced well until you hear it through a horn speaker. Just switch to a different speaker for other kinds of music.