Attention Horn Owners

@earthbound 

I’ve had a pair of AN-Es with custom crossovers from Vu for years.  I also have a pair of restored/modified Altec Santiago horn speakers in another system, so I have a few thoughts:

1) For deep bass, unless you have them in the room corner, per AN recommendations, AN-Es will not have nearly as much bass as a DeVore O/96, and the DeVores are more room friendly (unless you want to plant them in a corner).  The problem with AN corner placement is you don’t get great soundstage, so if that’s important to you… I would also note that Art Dudley replaced his Es with DeVore O/93s a number of years before he passed.

2) Someone mentioned Cessaro speakers - they’re sublime, and expensive.  If you want to have a good time, visit Jeffrey Catalano of High Water Sound in NYC.  He carries amazing stuff.  

3) Tennessee - you need to visit Gestalt Audio in Nashville if you’re doing a road trip.  They carry a number of really top-notch, highly efficient speakers, including some horns, that you could listen to (e.g., Wolf Von Langa, Zeiler, Horning, Cinnamon, etc.). They also carry Cessaro!  And if you’re gonna see all of the state, there’s a dealer in Kingsport, TN called YFS that carries Aretai speakers, which is an interesting horn design.

Good luck!

My experience of them is limited to show conditions, so take with a grain of salt.  But I would say they definitely have energy below 30hz, which is quite good.  And if you take a look at Atkinsons measurements in the 2006 stereophile review, he shows the bass response of Art Dudley’s AN-Es vs. O/96 in his room (ANs in corner, 96s out in the room), the responses were identical.  There’s a relatively new DeVore dealer in Brooklyn, btw.