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Speaker Asylum: Re: Horn Mounted Speakers by artto

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Re: Horn Mounted Speakers

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I believe you mean “horn-loaded” loudspeaker, not “horn-mounted”. Also, horns do not have “lower dispersion” either. Typically they allow the speaker engineer to design a more uniformly controlled dispersion (under the proper acoustic circumstances) which can result in superior imaging. That being said, fully horn-loaded speakers are not common because, as you said, they can be very large in order to produce the lowest frequencies. The best of them are also brutal on inferior or inappropriate associated equipment (ie: amplifiers) and poor recordings. Some, such as the Kilpschorn, were designed with specific speaker placement requirements to take advantage of an ideal acoustic environment, which many audiophiles do not have (even though they may think they have) & do not know how to create.

The fact of the matter is that the fundamental principals of horn technology were developed decades ago. Once you have an patented optimum design, that’s it. Paul Klipsch (USA) and Voight in Europe pretty much wrote the book on horn technology which could be used in a domestic environment.

Many regard horn technology as obsolete. However, even our space program uses extremely large “horn loaded” systems for detecting things such as radio signals from space. Technically speaking a horn is basically a “wave transmission line”, a term that seems completely acceptable to the audiophile community. In the case of the Klipschorn, it could technically be called a bi-furcated, trihedral, multiple impedence, exponential wave transmission line. Corner horn or folded horn is obviously easier to say.

I find it fascinating that horns along with tube amps are both experiencing a “renaissance” at the same time the world has been turning increasingly digital.

So windsorboy, you are not missing anything. Its everyone else who doesn’t like horn loaded loudspeakers because they’ve never heard them under the optimum conditions who are missing something.


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Topic - Horn Mounted Speakers - winserboy 12:08:19 11/10/02 ( 4)