How do Klipschorns compare with modern designs?

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.

the k-horns are probably the finest speakers ever built,modern or otherwise. If you dont like the way they sound,look at the associated upstream components as they are revealing to mis-matches in electronics. Conventional drivers and cabinets can never even come close to doing what a good horn setup can do.Sure,there are some great designs out there[Frieds and Bozaks come to mind]but they are all just pretentious posers compared to horns.
If anyone really doesn't like their k-horns,please ship them to my house pronto and I promise I will use them every day!

The Heritage line of Klipsch speakers, I have had Khorns for 37 years, have a classic big sound with very little amp requirements. I have run them off the output of a iphone headphone jack and sound quite good. Try that with a pair of BW 800 series. Just having this discussion with a bud who has a $30,000 BW system three subs, DB1’s and 800 D3, Bryston power. He sounds better than my Khorns and I have with a $1,000 integrated amp. Do the cost analysis. I still sound live, his sounds like a really great stereo!!! I paid $2,100 for my Khorns 1981. Upgraded power many times since then. Soundstage, and imaging are very room and placement dependent. Larger the room the better. The sweet spot is small but worthy.