Horn speakers , high efficiency but not “shouty”

@jjss49 I've found that you have to be careful with the amp that you use on a horn. It must have a clean first watt! If it has distortion issues like higher ordered harmonic generation (a problem with many solid state amps) you can certainly wind up with shouty (although it really won't matter the speaker). A good horn is a very revealing device and you do have to have your ducks in a row to get the best out of them. But OTOH that can be quite rewarding.


And to be clear some horns do have problems! For example the TAD machined wood horns have an artifact caused by an error in the throat design- its got an unpleasant peak at the bottom of its response. But with a bit of careful computer simulation I know of a modified version of that horn (Classic Audio Loudspeakers) that does not have that artifact and so is very smooth and relaxed, yet very fast and detailed. When you have those qualities together that's when you are making progress as they point to low distortion.

i have had good well respected horn speakers, and also heard some very very tip top horn systems

Apparently not the tippy top yet, or something to that effect :)

Many systems can be shouty; this is caused by distortion. You don't need horns for that, just poor setup.


The mark of any good system is you can't tell how loud its playing. It should never sound 'loud'. To that end horns really don't have anything more or less to do with it except that its easier to do with horns since amplifier distortion plays an enormous role in making this work.

The use of the term is definitely loose, and moreover the habitual exposition to a sound character that doesn't closely emulate live sound will easily label that which actually does, not least dynamically, as an outlier; a (more) realistically reproduced trumpet, saxophone or drum set at full(er) tilt will have you wince almost, like a voice 'shouting' forcefully, and may appear "exaggerated" to the uninitiated to whom more stale sounding, low efficiency direct radiating speakers are the norm.

In my case, 'shouty' refers to sounding 'loud' in an unpleasant manner not related to the music itself. IME when you have all your ducks in a row, a good system will not sound loud even when it is, it will only sound like the music and if that is loud, like a brass fanfare, so be it, but the system does not editorialize.  ESLs can do this as well as a few box systems, but so can horns if properly designed. When measured, the system will be found to be low in higher ordered harmonic generation, free from mechanical resonance brought on by microphonics and no weird frequency response anomalies on axis, with gently rolling response off axis, finally with good total room energy (entirely off axis, which must be absent of any high frequency peaks).


Horns can be very nice when interactions with side walls are going to be hard to avoid if you don't have controlled directivity. This is because side walls can have early reflections which the ear interprets as harshness.

I challenge you to A/B your horns with any model of Magnepan speakers and see if you still want the horns. Listen especially to voices and "quiet" instruments.

I've been doing this for several decades now. I like the Maggies if you have the right amp with enough power and decent speaker cables. But they are not as fast or as revealing as my horn system (Classic Audio Loudspeakers model T3.3 with field coil powered drivers for the horns).


Field coils bring speed to any driver that uses them. When you put power through the voice coil of any dynamic driver (and this includes Magnaplanars) the magnetic field sags as the current is increased. Maggies don't sag as much as some other drivers as things are spread out. But its still audible. Field coils allow cone and compression drivers to have the same speed as ESLs and really for the same reason- a power supply is running the motive force.


As far as 'shouty' goes, this is an artifact of distortion. Horns can exhibit it if the throat interface to the mouth of the horn isn't designed properly. These days with computer optimization that really shouldn't be an issue. But the other thing to keep in mind is that older horns are meant to work with amps with a higher output impedance. If used with an amp of lower output impedance it can throw off the crossover point. If the driver starts operating out of band it can make additional distortion. Because the output impedance was highly variable in the old days, older horn systems usually had level controls on the midrange and tweeter to allow you to adjust the speaker to the voltage response of the amplifier. Most people think they were there to adjust to the room but that isn't how it works.