I may have missed it elsewhere, but can you describe your unorthodox approach and your system here? I assume you are using compression drivers. 1 1/2" or 2" exit? Do you mind saying which brand or model? Tractrix flare rate on those horns? Are the cone drivers woofers or mid bass drivers with a sub? Passive networks or active?
Sorry to pepper you with so many questions, but these are really cool looking and I'd love to know more about your design goals and your journey to this point.
Thanks for your interest!
By way of background, I like some of the things a good horn speaker does well, and I like some of the things a good dipole speaker does well. (I'm a SoundLab dealer so that's my idea of a "good dipole speaker".)
At the risk of oversimplifying, we're trying to get two things right; namely, the direct sound, and the reflected sound. We're taking a somewhat unorthodox approach to the latter: In addition to pattern control, we use a rear-firing horn in the stand which contributes to and manipulates the reflection field.
We're minimizing the early reflections through a combination of pattern control and aggressive toe-in, the latter to avoid early same-side-wall reflections. The rear-firing horn improves the spectral balance of the reflections, and gives us a generally later-arriving reflection field than would normally be the case with most speakers. So in a way we're shooting for a "best of both worlds", combining the freedom from early reflections and dynamics of a good hybrid horn system with the spectrally-correct, relatively late-onset reflection field we might get from a good dipole speaker. The up-and-back-firing orientation of the rear-firing horn results in a fairly long reflection path length, so we can place the speakers quite close to the front wall and still get as much time delay for the backwave as we'd have from dipoles five feet or more out into the room.
(Imo in addition to the sound quality benefits, there are spatial quality benefits to having a spectrally-correct, relatively late-onset reflection field, but that's a big topic in and of itself.)
The front-firing horn is a constant-directivity Oblate Spheroid designed using Earl Geddes' math. The compression driver is the Beryllium diaphragm version of Radian's biggest-magnet 1" compression driver, the 475. The entry angle of the horn matches the exit angle of the compression driver, and the 1.4 kHz crossover is where the midwoofer's pattern has narrowed to match the 90 degree pattern of the horn.
Now the midwoofer's pattern is widening below the crossover region, so at far off-axis angles there is a relative scarcity of energy in the top half of the spectrum. That's where the rear-firing horn hidden in the stand comes in. It's the big 1.4" throat Faital horn with one of their polymer-diaphragm compression drivers. Its power response is "voiced" to fill in the "missing" off-axis energy in the front-firing horn's range and partially down into the 10" midwoofer's range. It fires up-and-back at a 45-degree angle, so that it has a nice long reflection path (off the wall and then off the ceiling) before its energy reaches the listening area. The rear-firing horn's spectral balance and level are user-adjustable for different room acoustic situations.
The midwoofer is a custom unit that uses Eminence's Kappalite motor, which is imo one of the best motors out there. I can't explain this from the specs, but my bass guitar cab customers consistently report that the Kappalites "hit harder" than other woofers which may look better "on paper". I presume it has something to do with how Eminence manages the magnetic field in the motor.
Four small subwoofers distributed around the room handle the bottom couple of octaves.
The crossovers in the main speakers (and the highpass filters in the stands) are passive, and the subwoofer amp has active filters. We don't normally use the highpass filter in the subwoofer amp to roll off the bottom end of the main speakers. Instead, the main speakers normally run "full range", as they have enough excursion to do about 114 dB @ 1 meter broadband before they need a protective highpass filter. The passive crossover in the speakers takes advantage of the horn depth, which is about 1/2 wavelength in the crossover region, allowing us to connect the compression driver in "normal" polarity (which seems to benefit imaging).
Let me know if you have questions about any of this.