Affordable horn speakers

[tuga]

Ready-made multi-way horn speakers (e.g. Cessaro, Avangarde, Odeon, Living Voice) tend to be extremely expensive.

Marc Henry's KornHent (formerly known as La Grande Castine) is a 3-way model using the Le Cléac'h profile which can be had for around €14,000.
It needs a complementary subwoofer or two, also available from the same manufacturer.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

It would be interesting to know how many systems like this get sold, and to whom.

 

[DSJR]

Why?

They look hideous...

I'll get me coat!

 

[mhardy6647]

Well... I mean... ahhhm...

Col. Paul W. Klipsch's -- umm -- iconic* 1940s product is 1) still available and 2) not obscenely expensive (although it's been drifting steadily towards the salacious if not full-on pornographic, price-wise). Plus, there are quite a few in circulation, since they've been in more or less continuous production since the late 1940s).

The K-horn isn't even half bad sounding -- especially when compared to its "Heritage" cousins.

https://www.klipsch.com/products/klipschorn
___________
* My use of "iconic" is of course ironic, since the term, as applied to loudspeakers, absolutely belonged to JBL and Altec.

(borrowed images all)

 

[tuga]

Well... I mean... ahhhm...

Col. Paul W. Klipsch's -- umm -- iconic* 1940s product is 1) still available and 2) not obscenely expensive (although it's been drifting steadily towards the salacious if not full-on pornographic, price-wise). Plus, there are quite a few in circulation, since they've been in more or less continuous production since the late 1940s).

The K-horn isn't even half bad sounding -- especially when compared to its "Heritage" cousins.


https://www.klipsch.com/products/klipschorn
___________
* My use of "iconic" is of course ironic, since the term, as applied to loudspeakers, absolutely belonged to JBL and Altec.

(borrowed images all)

The K-Horn has a few -- umm -- issues. So not quite in the same league.

It looks nice(r), though.

 

[mhardy6647]

The K-Horn has a few -- umm -- issues. So not quite in the same league.

It looks nice(r), though.

Oh, I don't disagree. Value-wise, though, maybe a wash. Maybe not, at 2021 K-horn prices.
Yeah, the current Heritage Klipsches look pretty nice -- and are reputed to sound considerably better than their forebears (which were pretty rough 'n' tumble).

It may be recalled that I am a... ahem... Klipsch "survivor". (1974 Cornies Cornwalls)

dampedcornyhornies by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[tuga]

Oh, I don't disagree. Value-wise, though, maybe a wash. Maybe not, at 2021 K-horn prices.
Yeah, the current Heritage Klipsches look pretty nice -- and are reputed to sound considerably better than their forebears (which were pretty rough 'n' tumble).

It may be recalled that I am a... ahem... Klipsch "survivor". (1974 Cornies Cornwalls)

dampedcornyhornies by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

What did you use as damping material for the midrance horn?

Have you never felt like trying your compression drivers with some more modern higher performance horn profiles?

 

[mhardy6647]

The horn is undamped but is of pretty sturdy construction. It would be better mounted on a nonresonant baffle/support, though.
I have tried many modern and not-so-modern horns. In terms of what I can afford, the EMILAR EH500-2 is very, very good.

Now, this isn't me, but Joseph Esmila's done a fair amount of fiddlin' with horns.
https://jelabs.blogspot.com/search?q=EMILAR

 

[Doodski]

It may be recalled that I am a... ahem... Klipsch "survivor". (1974 Cornies Cornwalls)

I sold Cornwalls before and had the chance to compare them to Polk Audio, Paradigm, Axiom, Sony APM and the usual Japanese package speakers of the early 80's and the Cornwalls where really good at rock and roll very loud with a couple of hundreds watts per side available. I liked them for that.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I sold Cornwalls before and had the chance to compare them to Polk Audio, Paradigm, Axiom, Sony APM and the usual Japanese package speakers of the early 80's and the Cornwalls where really good at rock and roll very loud with a couple of hundreds watts per side available. I liked them for that.

Driving them with a couple hundred watts, I'm amazed your eardrums lived to tell the tale.

 

[Doodski]

Driving them with a couple hundred watts, I'm amazed your eardrums lived to tell the tale.

I was testing them out one day with a turntable. Somebody was fooling around and left the volume control at maximum and the subsonic filter turned off. I was young and not as careful as I should have been and dropped the needle on the record. I was scared trembling from the onslaught of sound that shocked me to my senses. The boss giggled and said will you forget to check next time? He was good that way. Very tough speaker in my opinion.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I was testing them out one day with a turntable. Somebody was fooling around and left the volume control at maximum and the subsonic filter turned off. I was young and not as careful as I should have been and dropped the needle on the record. I was scared trembling from the onslaught of sound that shocked me to my senses. The boss giggled and said will you forget to check next time? He was good that way. Very tough speaker in my opinion.

Mistakes happen, which gets back to the point I was making in some other thread (or was it this thread, I don't know at this point) that with very efficient speakers, especially ones like mine with rather delicate voice coils, a high power amplifier could blow them to smithereens with an errant volume control. That's why I use low power amplifiers, to save me from drunken rages of excess.

 

[mhardy6647]

I sold Cornwalls before and had the chance to compare them to Polk Audio, Paradigm, Axiom, Sony APM and the usual Japanese package speakers of the early 80's and the Cornwalls where really good at rock and roll very loud with a couple of hundreds watts per side available. I liked them for that.

Pretty good bass but ear-gougers to me. They are lively and can even sound good with some program material, but there's also much music (especially but not exclusively over-produced pop music) with which they were borderline unbearable (and sometimes full-on unbearable). Bear in mind that mine were 1974 vintage, horizontal horn Cornies.

I believe that the ones I had, with "a couple of hundred watts per side", playing, e.g., Boston's eponymous/first album would violate the Geneva Convention.