Horn speakers for vintage sound

You will get vintage sound from horn speakers all right.  Useful for bass, correct exponentially derived horns are hard to get neutral.  The purpose as you know is to minimize diaphragm excursion so it stays in the linear range. On the flop side they are efficient, but not as good as quarter wave.  In the end, I find the sound fatiguing but you may like it.

I have a Soundcraftsmen 2640TX coaxial speaker (with brass horn) housed in a vintage wood cabinet.  It sounds great with mono and 78 rpm recordings.  Found it at a Los Angeles thrift store for $6.00 in the furniture section.

I come from the live concert and studio side of loudspeaker design. If you have the original baskets for the cone speakers, and you can find a reputable recone man, many of the original recone kits are still available in back catalog. Just a few short years ago I reconed my JBL 4333’s with  the original foam surround kit. Also, for the do it yourself, check out the work being done by the Italian speaker and compression drivers manufacturers B&C and 18 Sound. Precision made  motors with excellent specs, cost effective as well. 

 Check out the custom horn speakers made by John Kalinowski.  Excellent sound within your budget- true I sure do put my heart and soul into my builds. Have a few horn loudspeakers available. 

Used Altec A7 goes around 3-5k$, if you can find one in good condition it will work.