How do Klipschorns compare with modern designs?

Jm I realized that I neglected to answer your stage & image question. Results in that regard are mixed & somewhat confuse me. Depending upon the source equipment & even moreso the associated cabling, I've sometimes had poor staging & at other times it has been unbelievably huge, like I moved the speakers right out of the house & into the front yard or somesuch.
However I do not have the corner horns, but the Belles (which use the same crossover & drivers & even a folded horn bass cabinet) but are made to work without the corner. So of course mine are not positioned at the room corners, they're practically nearfield at about 7' distance from the listening position & dividing the long wall into thirds. This works out well for me because our living room arrangement doesn't allow for speakers being pulled well out into the room. Spacing from the backwall is at an angle & only about a foot or so away, not a good situation but I can get away with it because the Klipsch are designed to work close to backwalls. I realize that this layout hurts staging but it can still work very well with proper setup.

Most of the "horn colouration" that you folks hear is due to the horn body itself "ringing". Believe me, they ring like MAD. If you completely damp the throat of the horn ( the ENTIRE "body" or "casting"), the sound will DRASTICALLY change. Minimize the diffraction taking place at the mouth of the horn by chamfering the cabinet to an equal flare ratio or flush mount the horns and the imaging and soundstage will also improve quite noticeably.

As to the bass horn itself, stiffen the cabinet with small internal braces ( large diameter dowel rods unevenly spaced ) and "round" the internal corners. Just like a mid or tweeter horn body, the bass horn should have smooth flares with a gradual radiused flare for best results. Squared corners produce "flat spots" in air turbulence and create internal nodes within the horn that do not help us at all. This mimizes the "boxy" or "hollow" characteristics in vocals that you hear. Most of this is due to the drastic reduction of the box "talking" and the reduction of standing waves and reflections WITHIN the horn body itself.

If you REALLY want to get serious, play with the size of the opening that the woofer feeds into. It is MUCH smaller than the driver itself, creating what is known as a "compression" effect. While this does increase the velocity of sound waves and play with SPL levels generated, it too can contribute to the "boxy" vocal effect. I don't recommend this for the mass majority of "diy'ers" or "tweakers" though.

Improving the wiring in ALL Klipsch speakers can make a HUGE difference in sound quality. My experience is that solid wire works best here, but everyone has their preferences.

As i mentioned in another thread recently, check the polarity of the drivers. Some earlier Klipsch designs fed the "squawker" ( mid horn ) out of phase when compared to the polarity of the woofer and tweeter. Try it both ways and see what sounds best to you. I and several others have always preferred the "in phase" approach as it sounds much more natural. Sean
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This thread really has helped me with my longstanding love-hate relationship with horns. Many of the phenomena I've noted over the years have been discussed, reassuring me that it ain't just my aging ears.

I don't think I've ever heard a set of horns, from Khorns to Avantgardes that really satisfied me with the female (and often with the male voice), even when everything else seemed nicely reproduced. Have others had the same experience? Why would that be?

Most horn based systems, even those with direct radiating woofers, tend to suffer from the following problems:

1) The frequency chosen to cross between the woofer and mid is in a very critical area. This creates un-natural peaks, dips and overlap between the drivers.

2) The woofers are typically too large to do upper bass and lower mids real well, so the sound comes across as slower than if a smaller, faster driver were covering the same signal.

3) The designer counts on the involvement of the horn throat to lower the "effective operating range" of the mid driver, in effect using it below the point that it would perform optimally. As such, they need to realize that there is a BIG difference between "usable output" and "high quality output".

4) The crossover point further confounds the issue by playing games with the harmonic structure of the human voice. Since the signal is divided between the two drivers ( woofers and mids ) with different transfer characteristics, you experience two different levels of speed, dispersion and placement within the soundstage.

Are you following along here ??? I think that you get the idea. It is not the horns that screw things up, it is the overall design and how it is implimented : ) Sean
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Gotcha, and thanks.