Attention Horn Owners

I like the Klipsch heritage speakers even though they don't come close to some custom systems using truly great vintage compression drivers.  Drivers of this quality haven't been made since the 1960's.  Klipsch makes do with what one can find of modern drivers at modest prices.  Likewise Volti, and I like what Volti does even more with modern drivers. 

But, for my taste, a truly great horn has to use some of the old compression drivers and horns.  This weekend, I heard a just finished custom speaker that utilizes a Western Electric 713A driver and a Japanese horn from the 1950-60 era.  The woofers and tweeter are modern, the crossover is new, but filled with vintage parts.  The internal wiring is, I believe 1940-50 Western Electric wire.  The crossover point is lower than the original Western Electric specification, but, the builder said that because this speaker is not being used as the sole speaker in a theater (original use of the driver), it can be pushed down a little.  The sound was fantastic--a surprising amount of detail and texture to instrumental sounds came through without the sound being thin and harsh like some other "detailed" speaker.  It had all of the other characteristics of a good horn, except for the enormous sense of "scale" that one only gets with truly enormous speakers (these were quite compact by horn speaker standards); still they are better than most in this respect as well.  

The only way to know is to do a trial.  Any change in sound could be for better or worse, depending on one's taste and the set of other components.  If you are really able to get vintage Western Electric are, you are looking for old, multi-strand wire with cloth insulation.  I know a builder who, when he finds the stuff he likes, will pay well north of $10k for a 6" spool of the stuff.  This builder generally builds with Western Electric or Audio Note speaker wire, and both options are very expensive.  

I really love the Charney Companion too, particularly with the AER BD 3 driver (I also heard them with the Voxativ driver option).  I do generally prefer them over any of the Volti speakers I heard (and I like Volti a lot too), but, they are not the most punchy sounding speakers in the bass region.  The Volti might offer a bit more in that area of performance.  Still, it is well worth a trip to New Jersey to hear them.  The Charneys are more efficient than any Volti model, so they will play nicely with pretty much all low-powered tube amps (the best kind of amps).

My number one pet peeve about speaker manufacturers is the lack of driver controls on multi-way speakers.  Do they really think the levels they chose are optimal for all listener preferences, all rooms, all locations of the speaker, all upstream equipment choices?  I know that some manufacturers hated controls not just for the extra cost of an L-Pad, but also because it is too easy for owners to mess up (the optimal choice often involves making incredibly small changes, and change in one control often also requires changes in the control of another driver.  Still, I require such control.  It might well be the case that Volti's way of allowing control, but not making it easy, is a good choice.

I too like the Avantguard speakers but was trouble by the lack of bass integration.  Voltis are much better in that regard, though it is a bit of an issue with their speakers too.   

I have never heard a Zu speaker that I could stand--very bright, lean and harsh sounding.  I think it gets attention because it is extremely lively sounding, and that is a BIG contrast with most modern speakers which tend to sound lifeless.  

As I mentioned above, I have not heard your amps, but the description suggests that it is very well done--the construction is good, it uses an interstage transformer to help drive the 300B properly, etc.  Nonetheless, if you find the sound is not quite what you want, it is worth exploring alternatives.  I would not automatically assume it is the speaker that should be replaced, particularly since it is not that easy to find speakers that have all of the positive attributes of the AN-E.  I would at least try different speaker placement, room treatments, perhaps different tubes in the amp, even different amps if you can find loaners.  In looking at different amps, don't automatically assume that SET amps are "magical" and cannot be touched by other topologies.  I've heard great pushpull amps that also sound great with high efficiency speakers and OTL amps that also deliver killer sound.  

At Deja Vu, I've heard the AN-E's with Synthesis Audio amps (pushpull KT66) and prefer them over Audio Note amps because they have a punchier sound.  Perhaps you can find something like that to try.