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Horn listeners - Do you have trouble listening to others?

Hi peeps,

I just had an interesting experience out of my home. I listened to 3 pairs of speakers:

McIntoshMagicoSome unknown theater speaker during Aquaman

And one characteristic followed me: strident / glare
No matter which system played I heard them get glaring at high volumes. Like distortion rose rapidly. I'm wondering if this is because I have become accustomed to high-quality AMT tweeters which are remarkably free of distortion or dynamic compression.

The reason I'm asking you horn peeps this is that dynamic range is one of the main selling points for horn speakers. Do you feel uncomfortable in the same ways?

If so, this is good evidence that we are hacking our brain when we listen. That we are learning to hear in certain ways based on the gear we listen to.

Best,
E
erik_squires
jimf42's avatar
jimf42
62 posts
 
I am a panel speaker listener and I have trouble listening to others...
erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
AMT tweeters give me a headache. The sound of stressed plastic is fatiguing...

@sciencecop

IMHO, this eally depends on the quality of the AMT and the implementation to me. This is what Golden Ear speakers sound like to me. My AMTs at home sound nothing like that.


I will say I’ve heard a few speakers lately that were not AMT’s but really liked to accentuate the reed sound of horns. Made it sound like the instruments were made of a food storage plastic container.

Best,
E
schwartz36
6 posts
 
@ erik_squires
IMHO, this eally depends on the quality of the AMT and the implementation to me. This is what Golden Ear speakers sound like to me. My AMTs at home sound nothing like that. 

Can you give me a couple recommendations on ATM speakers to listen to?  I auditioned a pair of Golden Ear speakers several years ago and as a result have completely dismissed ATMs form consideration since then.
erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
@schwartz36

I made my own speakers with Mundorf drivers, and the only other commercial AMT drivers I’ve heard were Golden Ear. The difference in quality was gross.

As for what I would want you to listen to so you could get a better idea:

ESS has the original AMT driver designs and are producing new speakers based on them. As far as I’ve read, they sound as good if not better than the originals, which never had the kinds of issues the cheapies had.

I’d also be curious to listen to Legacy, Martin Logans.

Perhaps the most ambitious speakers I know of with AMTs are from Gryphon. They use the same model of Tweer I do in a couple of their designs, but at $20K and up !!

I can tell you that measurement-wise, the Mundorfs are superb transducers, not only with a smooth frequency response, but fantastic time domain behavior, very low distortion, and incredible dynamic range and power handling. Those are all characteristics which describe a world class tweeter. I’d put them up against the best Be or Diamond drivers anywhere.



Best,

E


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