Calling all Horn lovers

I agree with Shakeydeal. After listening to horns, there are few speakers that I find have sufficient dynamic headroom. They give you the feeling that the sky is the limit dynamically; but of course, if the recording is compressed, it still sounds compressed. They can't create dynamic range, just reproduce it. The other part that I like is the speed. There is no sense of sluggishness.
What I like least about mine is the limited top end. I would love to add a pair of Townshend supertweeters. I think it would be amazing. Saving my pennies...

1. Extremely low distortion at the same SPL as other speaker types
2. Very realistic dynamics at both the loud and soft ends, and the loud can be achieved with a very low powered amp, too
3. Clarity, and great transient response, and accurate reproduction of subtle differences in timbre
4. They direct the sound where you want it to go, and keep it from going where you don't.
5. Placement is much easier than other speaker types, which can be much more fussy
6. Easier to drive - you can drive them with pretty much any amp you want
7. Very life-like presentation - you can feel the music

About the only negative I can think of is their size, if your room is small.

I don't currently have horn speakers in my system but I agree with the
comments made so far. When 'done right' a horn can be very realistic and
natural. A poorly executed horn speaker can sound disappointing. I love
the fact that they allow the use of really good but low power amplifiers.

I'd rather have that combination than the popular alternative of lower
efficiency speaker driven by a high power muscle amplifer. Lower power
tube amps (high quality) just sound better to me .

A couple of things to be careful about, though, before introducing horn speakers into your system:

1)Hiss, hum, or other noise that may be generated or picked up at points in the system that are downstream of the volume control will be reproduced at much higher levels than with most other speakers, due to the high efficiency of horns. So you need a quiet amplifier and preamp, and no ground loop issues between those two components.

2)If the overall gain structure of the electronics in your system is on the high side you may find yourself having to operate the volume control undesirably close to the bottom of its range, especially with digital sources.

Regards,
-- Al