I have heard horns of extreme efficiency that can play very loud with very low distortion. They also happen to be in the most resolving system I have heard. They also have very natural imaging. These conflicting attributes may be quite common, and I get what you are saying, but there are the rare speakers that do seem to be able to do it all and sound like music. It is possible.
Paul McGowan on Horn Loudspeakers
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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I have heard horns of extreme efficiency that can play very loud with very low distortion. They also happen to be in the most resolving system I have heard. They also have very natural imaging. These conflicting attributes may be quite common, and I get what you are saying, but there are the rare speakers that do seem to be able to do it all and sound like music. It is possible.
Again, it is important not to dismiss a technology just because one has heard a poor example of it. Inherently, horns have certain advantages over other types of transducers. Distortion of compression drivers is as low as electrostatic panels, especially if field coils are used. The reason is because of the very small diaphragm excursion. The speed too, with very light and stiff diaphragms such as beryllium. As mentioned, horns with different directivities and dispersion patterns can be chosen according to the acoustic environment. Horns for the high and mid frequencies are really not difficult to implement. Personally, I use a reflex bass cabinet, With a strong field coil motor and light, stiff cone, it is not difficult to match with the high and midrange horns, and I drive the bass with a fast transistor amp. The human brain has a much lower sensitivity to distortion at low frequencies, and so I have less issue using high power transistor amp in this position. For the high frequencies, I find the plasma driver from Acapella a perfect match with the field coil midrange. There is no issue matching the speed of the drivers, and the directivity of both horns means a narrow sweet spot but very little room interaction and excellent imaging. I used the Quad ESL for many years, and I can get the same level of transparency and speed with this horn set up, but with much better dynamics and bass extension. This is almost as if I can have my cake and eat it too !
Not sure where these opinions come from but one is 100% incorrect! Horns, properly set up will provide astonishingly accurate imaging, albeit at a small listening sweet spot.
I have never experienced better imaging than my Avantgarde's provide, although electrostatics follow closely. I was listening to a friend's ½+M set-up recently - it was great but the imaging was decidedly lacking.
Some while ago, I had thought I should consider onmis in my difficult room and visited showrooms to listen to MBL and German Physics systems. Both sounded great with the obvious advantage of a huge listening area, but at the cost of imaging. No way could I close my eyes and point at the soloist, let alone the individual instruments in the unequivocal way I can with my horns.
I have never understood the rationale for omnidirectional dispersion pattern. The idea is to have a uniform off axis response so that listeners not placed equidistant from the two speakers still get a tonally correct sound. However, this does not provide a stable stereo image, since the brain perceives positioning of sound by the phase as well as amplitude difference of the signals between the two ears. An omnidirectional pattern of dispersion does not address these issues. And as already mentioned, there is a lot more interaction with the room, and the room acoustics play a much bigger role in how these speakers sound. Even though my listening area was designed from scratch by an acoustical architect, I still prefer to have well controlled dispersion from my speakers.
I have no problem trading less than optimal imaging for optimal tonality and dynamics. Tight imaging is an 'audiophile virtue' that, with eyes closed, is limited in the concert hall. Granted that imaging in a listening room is entertaining.
As a relatively recent convert to horns — I bought a pair of Klipsch La Scalas earlier this year — I am amazed by every aspect of their sound, including imaging. I have owned every conceivable type of non-horn loudspeaker over the past 35 years, including dynamic moving coils, Magneplanars and electrostatics. In house, I still have three pairs of Quads (57s, 2805s, and 2905s) and a pair of Harbeth Monitor 40.1s. I have in the past owned B&W 800 Diamonds. So, I’ve been around the block, as they say.
I bough the La Scalas with some trepidation. They are 200 pounds each and not easily moved. They look nice, but as nice as a pair of medium sized refrigerators in wood can look. I knew I’d have to stick with them regardless. They’re also incredibly efficient, 20 dB more efficient than my Quads.
But, with the right (SET) amplification, they sound gorgeous, smooth in the midrange, imaging is wall to wall, extending several feet to the left and right outside region of each speaker and their dynamics is of course impressive. I find myself listening to a lot of complex choral music, for once not worrying if a crescendo will cause my Quads or Harbeth’s to distort. It’s amazing that such a huge monster can be driven so well with 2 watts.
And best of all, they have very low distortion, around 0.1% at 100 dB, which is beyond what most dynamic speakers can hope to achieve (which generally have 5-10% distortion in the bass).
But there are trade offs. One, there is very little deep bass. Almost nothing below 40 Hz, even though each speaker uses a 15” woofer. Quite rightly, the genuine Paul Klipsch chose to optimize efficiency, not range. Anyone can design a boombox that goes down to 20 Hz (any cheap home theater sub will do this), but the distortion of subwoofers often exceeds 10-20%. It’s very hard to design a sub that has 0.1% distortion at 100 dB. Second, you lose phase coherence. The Quads are phase coherent. They will reproduce a square wave with perfection. The La Scala will not. You can DSP equalize the woofer and time align it, if you want.
They are not for everyone. I have mine set up in a large 6000 cubic foot room with 10’ ceilings with ample overstuffed sofas to dampen their sound. I have them spaced out 12’ feet apart. There’s no easy way to describe their sound. It depends on how you drive them, where you place them etc. I use high quality tube electronics including a Lampizator Pacific DAC. They demand the best electronics. I would avoid bright solid state equipment. They reveal a lot.
I bough the La Scalas with some trepidation. They are 200 pounds each and not easily moved. They look nice, but as nice as a pair of medium sized refrigerators in wood can look. I knew I’d have to stick with them regardless. They’re also incredibly efficient, 20 dB more efficient than my Quads.
But, with the right (SET) amplification, they sound gorgeous, smooth in the midrange, imaging is wall to wall, extending several feet to the left and right outside region of each speaker and their dynamics is of course impressive. I find myself listening to a lot of complex choral music, for once not worrying if a crescendo will cause my Quads or Harbeth’s to distort. It’s amazing that such a huge monster can be driven so well with 2 watts.
And best of all, they have very low distortion, around 0.1% at 100 dB, which is beyond what most dynamic speakers can hope to achieve (which generally have 5-10% distortion in the bass).
But there are trade offs. One, there is very little deep bass. Almost nothing below 40 Hz, even though each speaker uses a 15” woofer. Quite rightly, the genuine Paul Klipsch chose to optimize efficiency, not range. Anyone can design a boombox that goes down to 20 Hz (any cheap home theater sub will do this), but the distortion of subwoofers often exceeds 10-20%. It’s very hard to design a sub that has 0.1% distortion at 100 dB. Second, you lose phase coherence. The Quads are phase coherent. They will reproduce a square wave with perfection. The La Scala will not. You can DSP equalize the woofer and time align it, if you want.
They are not for everyone. I have mine set up in a large 6000 cubic foot room with 10’ ceilings with ample overstuffed sofas to dampen their sound. I have them spaced out 12’ feet apart. There’s no easy way to describe their sound. It depends on how you drive them, where you place them etc. I use high quality tube electronics including a Lampizator Pacific DAC. They demand the best electronics. I would avoid bright solid state equipment. They reveal a lot.
I have no sympathy with that argument even though there may be some truth in it. An onmi speaker is rather like an orchestra - its sound is widely dispersed so that listeners in all parts of the auditorium (not just centre stalls) can fully enjoy the music. This is surely the main aim of an onmi system? The guy sitting in the ideal listening spot gets no significant advantage over those in other parts of the room.
The reason I considered a move to omnis can be illustrated by my room's layout. The sound received at my dining or kitchen area is not at all good from my horns. There is little top end and all excitement in the music is lost. With omnis, the sound in these areas should be similar to the sound in the main listening area.
However, as I mentioned earlier, the loss of imaging (even at the best listening position) with onmis is not something I'd put up with.
Also I suspect the only type of speakers that can cope with the room’s physical features (acres of curved floor-to-ceiling glass, etc) without resorting to unwanted signal processing is the very directional horn.
I think this is a feature of Klipsch speakers. I'm not particularly familiar with the Scala design but does it feature beefy ss amps for the bass drivers? If not, perhaps the output from a low-powered SET just can get that big driver going.
My speakers are Avantgarde and they include powerful bass amps that deliver more than enough bass (and deep enough too) whether from my current Duo XDs (with twin 12" drivers per channel) or the earlier ones (with twin 10" drivers)
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Unfortunately, many audiophile confuse what happens in stereo with what happens in real life. With an orchestra, the sound coming from, say, a violin, comes from one point in space. The audience can tell where the sound comes from because the sound reaches the two ears with a difference in phase and amplitude, and this difference is further enhanced by the diffraction pattern created by the head and the acoustical cues (such as reflections coming off surfaces) from the hall. The brain has learned long ago to analyse all this data to arrive at the positioning of the source of sound. A live sound source is of course omnidirectional, and this is how the brain has learned to process the information. If you put up baffles around the violinist to narrow the radiation pattern, it actually confuses the brain of the listener and alters the positioning of the sound. With stereo, we are trying to create this image using two speakers. This is a totally artificial illusion created by the recording engineer. This is why we have different microphone patterns; omni, cardioid, figure of eight etc. Different stereo techniques employ different combinations of microphone patterns to try and recreate this illusion. On the playback side, different speaker response patterns excel at recreating different stereo recording techniques. Therefore, dipole speakers are better at recreating the stereo recorded with the Blumlein technique (which employs figure of eight microphones), for example. The most extreme example would be using headphones to recreate binaural stereo. But even then, the movement of the head shatters this illusion, because in a live environment, shifting the head changes the phase relationship between the two channels, whereas this does not happen with binaural recordings. When using speakers, this is further complicated by the room effects. No stereo recording technique takes into consideration room effects during playback, as far as I know. Therefore, you have a better chance of obtaining better stereophony by minimising system-room interactions.
I have owned and listened to more speakers than I can count. I used to be anti-horn after having heard some poorly designed ones.
I currently run a pair of Klipsch La Scala's we had gotten in for review and I bought them.
Are they perfect? Heck no.
But they offer a level of realism and you-are-there dynamics I can't get with other speakers.
Simply put this speaker sound less analytical and more like music and put a bigger smile on my face than others I have heard up to this point near the price point.
I currently run a pair of Klipsch La Scala's we had gotten in for review and I bought them.
Are they perfect? Heck no.
But they offer a level of realism and you-are-there dynamics I can't get with other speakers.
Simply put this speaker sound less analytical and more like music and put a bigger smile on my face than others I have heard up to this point near the price point.
The usual non proved arguments against dynamic drivers that some horn aficionados love. All the pseudo problems that are being enumerated would be easily measured with instruments, but we never saw any proper data taken in the loudness conditions of typical audiophile spaces. Interpolating from data of professional audio, operating at very loud levels in enormous spaces is misleading and false. But we have data from speaker manufacturers, such as Dynaudio, used by the high end people showing that in the full operational range of their units there is no thermal compression.
BTW, it is surprising to read from a community that usually does not care about measurements, in part to protect their beliefs about tube electronics and vinyl, argue on speakers using distortion.
Anyway, a new interesting statement - " With sophisticated computer aided design, 3D printing and other advanced manufacturing technologies, most if not all the problems associated with horn coloration can be overcome." - there is hope that the high tech people will solve the problems that knowledgeable and skilled designers were not able to get rid off!
Horn or dynamic drive is mainly a preference, sometimes also supported by listener biases. They have different sound characteristics, we can compare them according to our taste, always remembering that in this hobby there are is best and fundamentalism does not lead anyway.
You are addressing some of the known problem of the stereo system - single optimum position and dependence on room reflections to create apparent source width and listener envelopment, as well as 3D localization, something needed for better enjoyment of sound reproduction. As our rooms and speakers are not standardized the recording engineers do not know what they will exactly expect and balance their recordings to a "typical" room, something very undefined and variable. It is therefore listener task to establish what he prefers.
This topic is abundantly covered in the research about audio and lead to extremely different, even opposing theories. A great site about this fascinating subject, strongly favoring dipole speakers:
https://www.linkwitzlab.com
Lol , do you reckon 2023 will be the first year without the typical Horn versus Cones or Sets versus solid state and analogue versus digital discussions .
(I m afraid thats a step to far for humanity
)Lol , do you reckon 2023 will be the first year without the typical Horn versus Cones or Sets versus solid state and analogue versus digital discussions .
(I m afraid thats a step to far for humanity
Do you suggest we focus on cables and tweaks?
Do you suggest we focus on cables and tweaks?
Sure why not , it keeps the mind busy( without ever solving anything)
Lol , do you reckon 2023 will be the first year without the typical Horn versus Cones or Sets versus solid state and analogue versus digital discussions .
(I m afraid thats a step to far for humanity
Given that different typologies are chosen for various reasons, is it possible that each is the solution to a different question?
We discuss and argue their differences under the premise that they are various attempts to solve the same problem.
The directions of the discussions are often not about solving a problem , it results mostly in the conclusion me / my group is right and you / your group is wrong .
Schoolyard level
entertaining to a certain extent but kinda boring after a whileThe directions of the discussions are often not about solving a problem , it results mostly in the conclusion me / my group is right and you / your group is wrong .
Schoolyard level
Perhaps I don’t understand your response, but I think we’re talking about two different things. The discussions are not about solving a problem, I mean that the actual typology or technology involved in the amplifiers or the source or the speakers is the solution to the problem.
I am raising the possibility that the different typologies are in fact solutions to different problems. For example, the record player and the CD player are solutions to different problems just as horn speakers and cone speakers are solutions to different problems.
I am suggesting that audiophiles argue because they think the typologies are different solutions to the same problem.
I m simply suggesting a lot argue because they have nothing better to do lol.
Ps
Different product designers use different technologies but they all try to achieve accurate sound reproduction .
The goal is the same afaik .
The technique / execution is different but discussions as to which technologie/ execution is best go nowhere usually .
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