Horns get a bad rap...

[RGA]

But I often wonder what horns people have actually auditioned. Klipsch made the good the bad and the ugly and for the most part most people experiences with horns are what they heard from Klipsch.


So I would like to know the three BEST Horn speakers you have given a healthy audition to over the years. If you liked a horn speaker at $2k but you heard one at $20k then mention that you auditioned an expensive horn.

They don't have to be full horns - they can be quasi horns or part horns etc

My three horny for horns, speakers would be

Acapella High Violoncello II
From my show report 2010 CES Coverage 17: Acoustic Zen/Triode Corporation Ltd/Orb/DEQX, Ensemble, Kingsound/VAC/Ayon, Acapella/Einstein/Bergman/Ypsilon - Event Reports - Dagogo

Silbatone Aporia Fullrange
From my show report 2010 CES Coverage 18: Lamm/ Wilson, PBN/Edge, Silbatone Acoustics - Event Reports - Dagogo

Trenner and Freidl RA Box
From my show report 2010 CES Coverage 19: Classic Audio, Trenner & Friedl / Heed Audio / Viva Audio amplifiers, Sound Lab / Atmosphere, Gershman Acoustics / VAC, Manley Laboratories / Gershman Acoustics, - Event Reports - Dagogo


Some other good ones but if I had to choose these would be my three.

[Poultrygeist]

There are many excellent DIY folded horn designs that few main stream audiophiles ever experience. Here's one using a Fostex full range single driver.

Tubes & Horn - YouTube

[Poultrygeist]

Here are my Frugal Horn's folded horn build anatomy.

[Ajani]

Does a shallow waveguide count as a Horn?

If so then Revel makes my favourite horns.

In general, I think horns get a bad rap because there are not a lot of horn speakers in home audio, so other than Klipsch, some JBL models and pro audio (outdoor/concert) speakers, most persons (myself included) have not heard many horns.

[RGA]

Poultrygeist

I was interested in the Dalek from the FrugalHorn site - as a Dr. Who Fan I had a nice laugh at the name - it looks pretty interesting.

Problem is I have no way to put such a speaker together with zero tools the investment and time - just can't happen. If they build them for you like AN Kits does as an optional extra - they would be interesting however.

[recoveryone]

Does a shallow waveguide count as a Horn?

If so then Revel makes my favourite horns.



In general, I think horns get a bad rap because there are not a lot of horn speakers in home audio, so other than Klipsch, some JBL models and pro audio (outdoor/concert) speakers, most persons (myself included) have not heard many horns.

Those are pretty

[Poultrygeist]

Folded horns are one of the few designs capable of gaining mechanical efficiency and they really come into their own when paired with tube amps.

Those with a rear terminus like the Frugals and Hornshoppe Horns ( Art Dudley's favorite ) need corner loading to maximize bass response.

[RGA]

You'll get no argument from me - Peter Qvortrup's absolute favorite loudspeaker is Lowther based

"The treble and midrange on the Lowthers was one of the best I have ever encountered, and I have owned pretty much everything over the past 35 years, from Voigt's field coil driven horns, Tannoy's original 1950's Westminster's, Siemens Klangfilm and WE cinema systems to B&W DM70s, stacked Quad 57's, Beveridge System 2's, Acoustats, to Hill's Plasmatronics, Heil's full range AMT, Snell A/IIIs you name it, I have at some time or another had them all and what they all has taught me is not insubstantial. (referring to Lowther PM4 running in a folded horn that measured over 32 meters in length with a massive mouth diameter and that had very good bass, and it was 106dB or so efficient to boot.")

And

I rate the Lowther PM4 system and the Siemens systems as the best overall, but they are domestically almost impossible unless you live in a mansion, and very few of us do, so something smaller is needed."

The link also explains why he hates slim narrow baffles and 3+ way speakers - this probably should go in the thread for Feanor who noted they go against convention - probably because they have actually read the books on acoustics and not the marketing spiel of "corporations like oh never mind - I seem in a bad mood tonight so this is my last post today - gee I need a Baily's.

Re: The Dangers of Convension Slavery - Peter Qvortrup - Speaker Asylum

[Poultrygeist]

Here are the Lowther field coils in a folded horn. Even on crappy pc speakers the purity of sound is evident. I'd kill for a pair.

Field Coil Horn at BAF Show 2011 - YouTube

[Feanor]

...

The link also explains why he hates slim narrow baffles and 3+ way speakers - this probably should go in the thread for Feanor who noted they go against convention - probably because they have actually read the books on acoustics and not the marketing spiel of "corporations like oh never mind - I seem in a bad mood tonight so this is my last post today - gee I need a Baily's.

Re: The Dangers of Convension Slavery - Peter Qvortrup - Speaker Asylum

Humm ... well PQ isn't a convincing audio authority for me. There are several statements there that are at least dubious. A big one being that narrow baffles reduce off-axis response: got other authorities on this subject? In basic physics it's the width of the driver itself that primarily that determines dispersion, and provided the width of the baffle is at least 1/2 the lowest frequency produced, dispersion will be good. Another dubious comment is that high-order crossovers "make matters worse" with respect to driver mismatch; high-order crossovers reduce the driver overlap and thus reduce phase and other mismatch issues -- or at least this the conventional opinion of people with actual acoustic science credentials (which PQ does not have).

[RGA]

Humm ... well PQ isn't a convincing audio authority for me. There are several statements there that are at least dubious. A big one being that narrow baffles reduce off-axis response: got other authorities on this subject? In basic physics it's the width of the driver itself that primarily that determines dispersion, and provided the width of the baffle is at least 1/2 the lowest frequency produced, dispersion will be good. Another dubious comment is that high-order crossovers "make matters worse" with respect to driver mismatch; high-order crossovers reduce the driver overlap and thus reduce phase and other mismatch issues -- or at least this the conventional opinion of people with actual acoustic science credentials (which PQ does not have).

Peter is not an engineer - he hires the best ones to get him what he wants - Andy Grove is the guy that heads their design team - and he has the credentials. And before that was Kondo - and I know cables get a bad rap but at least Kondo had a degree in metalurgy and headed Sony designinf the world's best microphones.

To say that Andy and Peter (and just because you don't have a degree doesn't mean anything - as I'll illustrate below) would disagree with the opinions of people who make MUCH MUCH worse sounding gear is not a surprise. The proof is in the pudding - or in this case the resulting sound. I'll read the white paper after I hear the product - if it sucks - the paper is not going to change that.

As for Degrees.

Ah my dad - at 47 was out of work and we lived in Australia - my dad went to British Columbia to find work while my mom and I moved to Wales waiting for him to land something. He caught on with Veterans Affairs for the Federal government. And he went for a job as a manager in the Finance area.

Back in the good old days where companies wanted the best people rather than just looking at pieces of paper - they had FAIR hiring practices. The job came up which requires applicants to write a test of knowledge in the field of accounting - and various managing questions. But anyone could apply - degree or not.

My dad went up against several fellows with University degrees chartered accountants and or CMAs. My dad was the only person to even pass the test. So much for degrees. He got the job. Now if he was only smart enough to quit smoking earlier but such is life.

I have two degrees and I don't hold a candle to what he knew. I would come home from the first day of University to tell him about the history course I was signed up for and over three hours he basically covered the entire course from memory - and he had the names the dates the events - the players, the social climate of the time the political intrigue.

As one friend who got his CMA at 50 once noted to me - brilliant people don't need degrees - degrees are for the average minds to prove to employers that they're their "pretty smart". Granted that is a sweeping generalization but there is a pretty big fat kernal of truth to it as well. The brilliant people are off being brilliant some place not sitting in classes listening to weaker minds telling them stuff they already know (thinking of the line in Goodwill Hunting where Will notes that absurdity of spending $150k in an education while he can spend $30 in late charges at the public library - or a line along this line.

Peter hires the people to attain what he wants - the top guy from Sonic Frontiers, the top guy from Voyd, Andy - whole bunch of people are after him - Quad hired him.


I can't really answer questions that are put to Peter. And I am no engineer. The way it works for me on these issues is this

1) let me listen to it. If it sounds great - sure I'll read your white papers or reasons for how you managed to make great sound - you probably know what the hell your talking about.

2) if your sound sucks - then I don't care if you finished first at MIT like Dr. Bose or work for a massive speaker maker or your a big name etc - if the sound sucks then your papers are meaningless - aka Dr. Bose with his PHD and his M.I.T degree or the Nuclear fission expert that runs Monster Cable (or whatever it is he's an expert in). Eesh.

Like I say - I have met many brilliant people far more brilliant than I'll ever be - they have no degrees - I have two of them - and I did very well in them too. But I'm not in their class - not even remotely so.

Peter's line in engineering seems to be from the following from his reply to the NHT dealer (and man those speakers SUCK compared to the AN E) which may indicate why they went belly up - the engineer there has gotten around to killing a lot of companies over the years!

Peter suggested that the NHT fellow this:

"Since you are clearly a fully paid up member of current fashion club in speaker design, may I suggest that you go back and study two of the original works on acoustics and speakers, or perhaps 3,

a.) N. W. McLaughlin's Acoustics on McGraw-Hill, I believe it was issued about 1934, McLaughlin was probably the greatest mathematician who ever set foot in acoustics.

b.) L. L. Beranek's Loudspeakers.

c.) Any of Harry Ohlsons books.

These books contain the vast majority of what one needs to understand about sound propagation and acoustics, mostly forgotten knowledge as the industry has "progressed" towards commerciality with all its vagaries."

There is a reason why the integration of AN speaker is IME better than anyone else out there that I have heard.

As a single driver nut on AA who switched from Lowther to the AN E mentioned - the AN E is like a lowther but with bass and treble. It's the main reason in fact that people go from Maggies and Quads and single drivers to AN Es - The gain outweighs the very little bit of loss in cohesion.

So when people come out with white papers about crossovers are coming from people who can't get seamless integration themselves - why would I put stock into them - It makes logical sense to put stock into the guy who comes out with something that actually works, no?

Although I suppose it does make sense in a way - after all if Audio Note viewed it the same way as everyone else and had the same banal lock step view then they would not be able to create the generally much better sounding stuff that they create. Indeed, if you follow the same "wrong path approaches" that everyone else follows you could not possibly create anything that is all that much different. Which is why so much stuff sounds awfully similar to lots of other stuff. I'd prefer to follow the people who make the best sound. As Peter noted they run counter the rest of the industry in the video link - "we do what we do - until the rest of the industry,... Peter Qvortrup @ Hi-Files Show 2009 (part 2) - YouTube

[Feanor]

Yahda, yahda, RGA. I'm not saying the degree-less people can't be brilliant practitioners. I've been in that situation myself, (i.e. degree-less but doing the job, (not necessarily brilliantly), when most around me were degreed. Peter Qvortrup is an example of a unaccredited person who often to say things of a highly subjective nature with which accredited experts disagree based on scientific demonstration. It is one thing to be without degree, another thing to fly in the face of science.

Above all what Qvortrup is, is a clever entrepreneur who exploits an eccentric audiophile niche that is susceptible to his particular variety of snake oil.

For me one of the more stupid stances I've heard from Qvortrup say is that digital audio inherently cannot reproduce sound accurately. This is rubbish as demonstrated decades ago by Nyquist-Shannon theorem. With due regard for the true HF limits of human hearing and various practical considerations sound can be perfectly reproduced from digital samples.

[Ajani]

Above all what Qvortrup is, is a clever entrepreneur who exploits an eccentric audiophile niche that is susceptible to his particular variety of snake oil..

LOL

Qvortrup is in the same category as countless other hifi designers like Antony michaelson of musical fidelity: they all believe their products are the way the truth and the life. Frankly, I ignore all their endless bragging and posturing. I could care less about Qvortrup's "closest tolerances in the industry" or Antony's "near state of the art measurements". All that matters is whether the specific product sounds good and meets my needs.

I also don't see why none of these designers can have "professional disagreements" about design. It's always about how their path is the only one and everyone else is just interested in ripping off the masses with marketing. Is it not possible that someone like Kevin voecks of Revel is as passionately convinced that his speakers sound great as Peter Qvortrup is about audio note?

[RGA]

Feanor

I won't disagree with you on the seeming snake oil commentary. If I read before I heard I'd say the same thing - oh wait - I did back when I was about to buy a B&W and Bryston system - as those pieces are certainly "safe" with lots of numbers on their side. Peter puts out a lot of layman talk I suspect because that's easier for him to get his head around it - perhaps what he should do is let his engineers do the talking for engineer readers. Most aren't however. Andy Grove on their Digital technology Audio Note Kits - Why is AudioNote's 1X oversampling unique?

[RGA]

LOL

Qvortrup is in the same category as countless other hifi designers like Antony michaelson of musical fidelity: they all believe their products are the way the truth and the life. Frankly, I ignore all their endless bragging and posturing. I could care less about Qvortrup's "closest tolerances in the industry" or Antony's "near state of the art measurements". All that matters is whether the specific product sounds good and meets my needs.

Well if people only cared about sound quality then they would actually get of their fat asses and audition stuff right? But no what they do is they read a bunch of stuff and then determine what is good and what is bad based on that. I was guilty of that as well - hey my Pioneer Elite was .00025% THD from 20hz to 20khz and put out 125 watts per channel RMS full bandwidth - pretty excellent - Until I brought home a worse measuring Bryston and Arcam that both anhialated it.


As for tolerances - with all the talk of frequency response what would you say about a PAIR of loudspeakers that are off by 3db from eachother? How about off by 6db?

It's all nice to measure ONE speaker in a pair in the middle of a room and provide frequency plots but if the left speaker sounds different than the right speaker - well you have a problem.

Kevin Voecks I might buy into more but he has shifted back and forth on designs over the years - he doesn't seem really clear on what makes the best sound - as you can see over the years with the variety of speakers he's made. Most of which I have not liked.

I certainly understand the marketing pressures - you have to sell a looker - and then with the looks in mind dreamed up by the marketing department - the engineer is then asked to make good sound out of the preconceived looker. That's what happened when the engineers at B&W asked Audio Note for help to make better loudspeakers - several of their engineers wanted to make the change but when forced to change their look dramatically - the answer is - "that look doesn't sell" and so sound takes the back seat. As was pointed out to me on AA - B&W pays all the studios to use their speakers.



The issue with Peter Q is secondary to the discussion and it may be fun to take pot shots at Peter but he never designed the AN speakers - he simply loved them and hired people to make them better. Peter Snell - the guy who schooled Voecks - designed one aspect of the AN E - it was designed by L.L. Beranek - the worlds leading expert on loudspeaker design and acoustics and taught acoustics at M.I.T.

You want an engineer - no one anywhere is any better than Beranek - which is why EVERY book on acoustics references him.

"he managed Harvard's electro-acoustics laboratory, which designed communications and noise reduction systems for World War II aircraft, while at the same time developing other military technologies. During this time, he built the first anechoic chamber, an extremely quiet room for studying noise effects which later would inspire John Cage's philosophy of silence. Beranek remained on staff at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as professor of communications engineering from 1947 to 1958. In 1948, he helped found Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), serving as the company's president from 1952 to 1971.

His 1954 (reprinted in 1986) book, Acoustics, is considered the classic textbook in this field. His seminal 1962 book, Music Acoustics and Architecture, developed from his analysis of 55 concert halls throughout the world, became a classic; the 2004 edition of the text expanded the study to 100 halls. Beranek has participated in the design of numerous concert halls and opera houses. From 1983 to 1986 he was Chairman of the Board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (where he remains a Life Trustee). He also serves on the Council for the Arts at MIT."

The proof is in the pudding - go to Soundhounds (phone ahead) and audition the 20.1 from Magnepan ($15k) or B&W 802D ($23k) or any of their speakers from Dynaudio or Paradigm or Meridian Active directly against the AN E LX HE $5800. Put on any piano (or any acoustic instrument) piece. It should take - oh - I dunno about 4 minutes. the last 3 minutes will be "asking yourself a bunch of questions of how to sell the system I currently have to make space or change my living room around to make corners available. Not that it matters - even positioned badly they still beat those positioned in their perfect sweet spots - and that's because Beranek and Peter Snell had a clue.

There is a reason everyone there likes one speaker above the rest. Beranek and Snell and Grove have a clue. Peter - he just has excellent taste.

[Ajani]

I certainly understand the marketing pressures - you have to sell a looker - and then with the looks in mind dreamed up by the marketing department - the engineer is then asked to make good sound out of the preconceived looker. That's what happened when the engineers at B&W asked Audio Note for help to make better loudspeakers - several of their engineers wanted to make the change but when forced to change their look dramatically - the answer is - "that look doesn't sell" and so sound takes the back seat. As was pointed out to me on AA - B&W pays all the studios to use their speakers.

1) there are always going to be limitations in designing products. If the product is massive and ugly then it will be very hard to sell - I see nothing wrong with customers expecting speakers to both sound and look good.
2) if you're going to make those kind of scandalous accusations against b&w then you really need to back them up with proof. Until then they just aren't credible.

[Feanor]

Feanor

I won't disagree with you on the seeming snake oil commentary. If I read before I heard I'd say the same thing - oh wait - I did back when I was about to buy a B&W and Bryston system - as those pieces are certainly "safe" with lots of numbers on their side. Peter puts out a lot of layman talk I suspect because that's easier for him to get his head around it - perhaps what he should do is let his engineers do the talking for engineer readers. Most aren't however. Andy Grove on their Digital technology Audio Note Kits - Why is AudioNote's 1X oversampling unique?

This is old stuff, but one must grant that Andy Grove comes away sounding more rational then Qvortrup.

Still you get this: "When a set of samples is passed through a digital filter, what you get out won’t be an interpolated superset of the input samples, which is the fundamental premise of the whole technology, they will be an entirely new set of samples.

Therefore philosophically there is something wrong with digital filtering and this is proven in practical listening tests. Hence we do not oversample the input signal or digitally tamper with it at all."

To paraphrase Goering, when I hear "philosophical" in at technical context, I reach for my gun.

Of course it's true that frequencies coming out to DAC that are above half the sampling frequency, (i.e. 22 kHz in case of CD), are noise. This garbage is potentially damaging to amplifier circuits and speakers.

It's also true that steep analog filters cause phase shifts in the audible range, and it's true that the most often used digital filter, (FIR = finite impulse response), is phase linear but causes the "pre-echo" that Groves describes. Two things can be said about that: (a) it's not clear that the "pre-echo" is actually audible, and (b) in any case, other digital filtering options are available, e.g. in case of the Cambridge Dacmagic where the type of filter is selectable.

The Grove/Qvortrup solution is to not filter at all (!!). Instead they rely on non-linear components, viz. transformers and tubes, to filter out the HF garbage. This is yet another example of Audio Note ignoring best practice; John Atkinson always expresses a negative comment when he reviews a non-oversampling or non-filtering DAC.

[Feanor]

...
The proof is in the pudding - go to Soundhounds (phone ahead) and audition the 20.1 from Magnepan ($15k) or B&W 802D ($23k) or any of their speakers from Dynaudio or Paradigm or Meridian Active directly against the AN E LX HE $5800. Put on any piano (or any acoustic instrument) piece. ...

There is a reason everyone there likes one speaker above the rest. Beranek and Snell and Grove have a clue. Peter - he just has excellent taste.

I think "everyone" is hyperbole.

For my part, I wouldn't select a piano recording as a test; my choice would be a medium- or large-scale choral work with chorus and orchestra.

[RGA]

In this case it isn't Hyperbole - there is only one store that sells all of Magnepan, Quad, Audio Note (and did sell Martin Logan) - there are roughly 10 employees in the store - all of them would take the entry level AN E over the top models from those brands. This is no insult to those brands - in part it depends on the music and positioning availability in one's home.

If a system can't reproduce one instrument what makes you think it can reproduce more than one? Piano covers most of the frequency spectrum - it is a full bodied instrument offering up excellent transient and decay behavior. I start with piano, female vocals, male vocals, and something like Beethoven's 5th, some Vivaldi and usually Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Pat Metheny - then I reach for the Rock/Pop/Trance/Country kind of stuff. Usually I don't need to get past the piano and vocals. Creating a large stereo soundstage is irrelevant if instruments sound poor.

There are some other non oversampling CD players and DACs. None are the same as an Audio Note however. And having reservations about the measured response - UHF measured the basic DAC from AN - and I have no problems in saying they don't measure well. Big deal - neither do SET amps.

And yet that same Stereophile with a writer who owns great technical measuring stuff reviewed a system utilizing DAC 4.1x Balanced DAC. Ongaku Means Ecstasy | Stereophile.com

Or this reviewer that owns an SACD player in the $5k price range which is probably better than most players that SACD owners on these forums will ever possess. That same zero sampling DAC

So two reviewers who have had healthy experience and own SACD machines - the first claims that a non SACD machine is the best sound he's ever heard - and better than any SACD fronted room at the show and the latter stopped reviewing and became a dealer he liked it so much. audionote

There is a reason Audio Note is widely and deeply considered to make the best digital replay on the planet. JA has reservations about measurements - that's fine. What is he going to say? Oh by the way for the last 25 years our magazine was wrong and you can ignore the graphs - c'mon - never going to happen.

[RGA]

1) there are always going to be limitations in designing products. If the product is massive and ugly then it will be very hard to sell - I see nothing wrong with customers expecting speakers to both sound and look good.
2) if you're going to make those kind of scandalous accusations against b&w then you really need to back them up with proof. Until then they just aren't credible.

1) I have no problem with people sacrificing some sound quality for appearance. I am not married - if I were I would probably have to make those "compromises" as well. However, I would not delude myself into thinking I wasn't making a compromise.

2) My accusation was hear-say - thanks for calling me on it - I assumed who I was talking to on AA was an engineer in the know and I have now gone back to call him on it. I was a little quick to believe him due to my own bias on my opinion of the sound of B&W and the sound of recordings coming out of Abbey Road. You can read my new reply to him - Problem with your statements... - RGA - Speaker Asylum

[Mr Peabody]

I agree horns do get a bad rap and it's mostly Klipsch's fault, and I agree not a lot of good horns in mainstream audio. At one time I sold Electro Voice and wanted to use them in my system, they sounded awesome, it was early in my marriage and the wife didn't think carpet boxes met our decorum though A recent brush with horns which led me to believe they can be done right for home use was the JBL LS series and Array series, the horns sounded great, although I couldn't get the 1400's to image to my satisfaction in my room. Really not much else horn experience. I've heard several Klipsch.

[E-Stat]

I agree horns do get a bad rap and it's mostly Klipsch's fault...

along with Altec, JBL and every other pro system I have ever heard, except for...

One completely different approach to horn design is taken by Danley Labs. While there are neutral sounding horns available, I have yet to hear a large multi-way one that is truly coherent sounding. Tom Danley's horns output the entire bandwidth from a single "mouth" where all frequencies radiate into the room with the same directivity - much like a full range electrostat. Like the larger Sound Lab stats, they are also designed to be used in arrays for greater lateral or vertical coverage.

Danley Synergy Horns

[tube fan]

I just have to disagree: the best Klipisch speakers can compare favorably to 95% of today's best.

[RGA]

I think Mr. P was referring the big box store shopping mall sold Klipsch speakers. Like I said Klipsch made the good the bad and the ugly.

Most people have never heard the K-Horn - what they heard were those $650 floorstanders with ear bleedingly bright or forward tweeters that were unmatched in sensitivity to their woofers. Compound that by connecting them to those early 14bit CD players and junky receivers and it was truly an abysmal mess.

As for still competing with 95% of stuff today - quite true and Klipsch thinks so too as they are now selling 4 of their best older models - but with new upgraded parts and very likely tightened them up to sound even better. I am quite excited to hear the new (or should I say old) Heritage series. The trouble with judging the old models is that they're old and worn down - hearing a fresh pair is rather intriguing.

Heritage Home Audio-Loudspeakers-Klipsch

[E-Stat]

Most people have never heard the K-Horn...

Every one I've heard honks in the midrange and compromises imaging with its corner placement. Which is why the Heresy was created in 1957.