Anyone here enjoy horns? [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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www.records
02-20-2006, 06:52 PM
I did a search and found very little talk about horn speakers. I have an old pair of Altec 604-8G Model 17's as my main speakers and enjoy them alot, especially since acquiring some McIntosh tube amps. I just wondered if anyone else here enjoys horn speakers?

I know they are not for everyone, but I enjoy mine very much.

RGA
02-20-2006, 07:20 PM
I did a search and found very little talk about horn speakers. I have an old pair of Altec 604-8G Model 17's as my main speakers and enjoy them alot, especially since acquiring some McIntosh tube amps. I just wondered if anyone else here enjoys horn speakers?

I know they are not for everyone, but I enjoy mine very much.

Deopends on the horns. My Wharfedales are horn loaded and I generally prefer high efficiency designs because IME they have a life like live presentation with gutteral visceral impact that when it is not there no matter how "uncoloured" or audiophile approved sound artificial. I am unfamiliar with the Altecs but if you want to talk to like minded individuals on horns and HE speakers in general I would recommend the audioasylum's High Efficiency forum http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/bbs.html

www.records
02-20-2006, 08:31 PM
Thanks for the reply RGA. Yes, I have spent alot of time on the AA site. There are several there who own Altecs and are quite knowledgeable about them. They have been very helpful, but I do much more reading on the HE forum than posting. I do most of my posting on the vinylasylum.

The 604's are 99db efficient with each containing a large 38# magnet, and in 9 cu ft. cabinets they are quite large and heavy (approx. 150# each). They are apparently very popular amoung the SET crowd, which I have not tried. I run mine with 40 watt monoblocks. Definately lots of headroom and they are very dynamic.

I am a very budget oriented audio guy out of neccessity. I found these at a church yard sale last summer for $150, so I feel quite fortunate to have them. At their worth price, I would never be able to afford them. I did have to replace a HF voice coil in one of them, that I was able to get from Great Plains Audio for about $90. Now they sound excellent, especially with vocals, jazz and accoustic music.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I am new to this forum and wondered if anyone else here had and enjoyed horn speakers.

Steve

RGA
02-20-2006, 08:56 PM
I would also suggest audiokarma http://www.audiokarma.org/ as the folks there seem to have older speakers as well or at least discuss them more. This board has problems starting with the moderators.

www.records
02-20-2006, 09:27 PM
Thanks RGA, I am a member of AK also. Thanks for the heads up, apparently vintage audio is not along the lines of acceptability on this site?

I am kind of surprised with the number of members, there isn't more activity and posting. Just curious. I searched this site fairly extensively before I posted anything, to try to get the feel of the place and didn't run across any major occurance of previous trouble. Is there some kind of dissention amoung the members here?

Maybe I should slowly back towards the door?

Steve

RGA
02-20-2006, 10:06 PM
I can't comment on how you or anyone else will react to a forum. This is not a vintage rich forum and chances are if you like horns and boxed speakers you will be poo poo'd eventually - especially since you enjoy what you have.

If you're already on three other forums -- I would suggest you pick up chess to fill your time rather than going for a fourth or more.

Though to be even handed about it -- I am targeted by many much of the time so your experience may be entirely pleasant.

Bernd
02-21-2006, 12:30 AM
I do. I have Zingali Overture3 and love them. Unfortunatly my room is too small to use the Zingali Home Monitor as my next step up on the ladder. So I will go back to ART. The ART Emotion is a speaker that does what my Horns do just more so without taking up too much real estate.
I too place great importance on a lifelike dynamic presentation with scale (so hard to capture). So I am awaiting the arrival of the new Speaker with some excitment.

Bernd

jtgofish
02-21-2006, 02:13 AM
I did a search and found very little talk about horn speakers. I have an old pair of Altec 604-8G Model 17's as my main speakers and enjoy them alot, especially since acquiring some McIntosh tube amps. I just wondered if anyone else here enjoys horn speakers?

I know they are not for everyone, but I enjoy mine very much.

Well I have spent hundreds of hours playing with and building horns.I have a pair of 8 ft high double barrel back loaded horns in my shed gathering dust.I also have used the Edgar midrange horn which is actually very nice but hard to get to integrate perfectly with woofers.This always seems to be the problem with horns and it is related to phasing problems and efficiency differences through the frequency ranges.[the horns amplify some frequencies more than others]
My advice is not to go there.Much of the magic of horns is their high efficiency and I really think you are better off pusuing high efficiency in a more normal dynamic box type speaker.Also I would not waste my time with the Fostex type full range drivers-in a horn or not.I have been down this path too and these things are very cold and coloured as well as lacking convincing bass.
If you want a taste of high efficiency speakers I can recommend the Klipsch KG4 which only have a horn loaded soft dome tweeter .These are regularly on US ebay and although getting old now represent brilliant value.You will need to stand mount them [open frame stand] and they do benefit from an added ribbon super tweeter[Fountek JP2 with a 1 or 1.5 mF capacitor on the positive lead works well]

JT