Does anyone else run there HT sans center speaker?

[E-Stat]

You have never heard of the Klipschorn? It is a full range horn design.

Oh, I have most certainly heard K-Horns. I'll pass on their honky midrange and limited range at the frequency extremes. If you re-read my post on the topic of coherency, you'll find that I am talking about single driver systems, not three way speakers with three decidedly different drivers with three decidedly different radiation patterns and multiple sets of crossovers that further reduce their ability to sound as one.

You seem to think that all horns are exactly alike, and exhibit the same characteristics. Not all horns are made by JBL or Klipsch.

I find all multi-way speakers share the same challenges when the topic is coherency due to obvious reasons.

Have you heard Klipsch's new top of the line speaker?

I thought the K-Horn was that model. The Avant-Garde is very clean sounding with excellent resolution whose bass sounds like it belongs to a completely different speaker. That is the discontinuity I hear with virtually all multi-way horn/direct radiator hybrids.

The point I am trying to make to you is you have not heard enough of the current implementation of hybrid cone/horn loaded technology that does not sound horn like, exhibit a saddle in the impedance curve, or changes the phase at the crossover.

My complaint for the better ones is not that they share the honky, metallic sound of Altec and Klipsch horns, but to point out the obvious discontinuity between the dissimilar drivers. Play solo voice, piano or guitar and you'll hear what I'm referring to.

Yes, it is called the ball by Blue Microphones. It is a dynamic design with a frequency response of 35-16khz, and a dynamic range of 162db. Another is the Heil sound PR-40 dyanamic microphone with a frequency response of 28-18khz.

Are you aware of any recording labels that use these? Do you notice these are also full range designs? Why do you think that is the case? Shoeps and Neumann has dominated the recording industry for decades.

Single drivers especially electrostatics have one big deficiency, total output and sensitivity. They make good music speakers, but are not so good for hometheater application where the SPL go well into the 100+db region.

Indeed, it takes lots of radiating area and power to provide high output. As for me, I have zero desire to go "well into" the hearing damage range you prefer. As an aside, I always wear earplugs or sound deadening ear buds when I work in the yard for the same reason. I overwhelmingly choose quality over quantity. If you recall, we differed a while back during a conversation about two channel vs multi-channel systems. I continue to aver that one must necessarily compromise the quality of a MC system unless one has a huge multi-hundred thousand dollar budget. Naturally, had I access to an astronomical budget, I would choose Ray Kimber's idea of doing it right:

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