Horn speakers , high efficiency but not “shouty”

@jjss49 --

i have been looking for 30 years, haven't found em yet - let me know when you do ok?

Have you been trying to deliberately avoid horns these last 3 decades, or.. 

@asctim --

I think we need a technical description of "shouty." A lot of sounds in nature could be described as shouty and a lot of speakers can't produce them with the lifelike intensity that a horn speaker can. Maybe it's the inability to shout regardless of source material that some people really want. A softer, dimmer, more pastel presentation can be easier on the ear while still providing a highly detailed insight into the music.  

Exactly - well put. The vivid immediacy, dynamics and effortless presence of live music has been largely filtered out with non-horn loaded, typical audiophile speakers for a, in your words "softer, dimmer, more pastel presentation .." In other words the reference in home audio reproduction is less of a live event than one constituted by audiophilia itself.

Good horns, and there are quite a few of them, don't shout to my ears, but their characteristics as horns with a narrower, more controlled directivity pattern and thereby more of the sound being emitted towards the listener directly vs. reflected, as well as them using high efficiency compression drivers, may come across as more direct, dense and visceral. The perhaps most relaxed sounding horns I've heard are large JMLC iterations. 

@kevinhughes77 --

Not sure how sensitive you need but the JBL 4367 at 94db is not shouty at all to my ear. Just move from the Heresy IV which was also very easy to live with but the JBL takes it to another level. Maybe too revealing at times but I’ll take an honest speaker I can tune with amps and sources.

I wouldn't call the JBL 4367's shouty either, but I did find they had a rather evenly distributed, slightly mode-y character to their waveguide sound (my guess is waveguide material resonances more than the profile itself), which surprised me given the general praise here. I find they are praiseworthy speakers in many respects, but they balance slightly on the über vivid/agile/punchy side of neutral - to my ears/taste, at least - making them a bit too much of a "hot rod" over time. Classical music, strings in particular, felt less than natural to me. Excellent monitors, no doubt (and which they natively are, anyway), very insightful, and a highly entertaining and coherent speaker, except for some excessive warmth in the lower to central bass. 

@daledeee1 --

I personally like immediacy, dynamics, clear, effortless sound. Set up properly, horns are quite smooth and relaxing to listen to.

Indeed, completely agree. Good horn-loaded speakers are both uninhibitedly present and relaxed sounding. There’s this effortless, liquid flow to the music, even.

Are people saying shouty meaning forward?

In my book "shouty" would/should be a way to address the sonic outcome of horn modes that obtrusively sticks out in a particular frequency band, typically perhaps in the upper midrange for the, at least to some ears, worst effect. There are quite a few horns though that avoid these modes in most of their band, so I can only assume the more or less consistent impression of horns sounding "shouty," to whom this may concern, is being at odds with the characteristics of a horn qua horn, which is to say a sound with a higher ratio of direct vs. reflected sound compared to, perhaps paradoxically by name, direct radiating speakers. Horn speakers as acoustic transformers with their narrower and more controlled dispersion effectively aims the sound at the listener more prominently, and thus the more direct, vivid, present and visceral sonic imprinting this usually leads to, no doubt aided by the use of highly efficient compression drivers, may strike some as a shouty character.

@alexberger -- 

Great set-up and overall philosophy. 

@atmasphere --

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. ...

(just some further thoughts)
Even the latest, whizzbang computer modelled horn that doesn't technically exhibit horn modes, i.e. shouting tendencies, could by virtue of being a horn - with all that entails - produce a sonic outcome that leads some to believe it's "shouty" sounding. 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.

When assessing "quality" we're very much lead on by the power of association and habit, to some simply subjectivity and to-each-their-own, but its more predominant nature is that of excluding true diversity as well as a more established live reference. 

@newtoncr --

Interesting choice with the Charney Excalibur's - congrats on your purchase. Please let us know what you think of them once you're ready to share some impressions. 

No proper horn is shouty. Cheap undersized poorly designed horns over a ported box can have issues since midrange is so much more efficient most compromised to make them smaller cheaper. A proper horn is fully front horn loaded to at least 100hz not many like this exist that audiophiles would buy so they opt for small poorly designed horns then go online saying that all horns shout or some such BS.

Indeed; all things more or less equal the bigger the midrange horn the less it sounds like a horn (and almost akin to a large panel speaker), although in the lowest octaves horn size - i.e.: length, overall volume and proper/corresponding mouth area - mainly dictates frequency extension and SPL, and so is set according to the desired parameters here. That is to say: in the bass department there's no cheating out with bass horns with regard to the size required in relation to extension (and SPL) needed, although variants of bass horns, like tapped horns, can further maximize the output for a given volume/horn path length in summing the output at the mouth of both the front and back wave of the driver, where a front loaded horn can only take advantage of the driver's front wave.

What's missed with smaller midrange horns more technically is dispersion control in the lower end of their frequency range. Some of them may be able to be high-passed at and sound rather well down to ~500Hz, but dispersion control has flown out the window an octave or more above. Maintaining dispersive pattern (preferably similar to the driver segment covering the range below it) and control at the cross-over that's offered with the big midrange horns isn't trivial sonically speaking. As proposed by you a proper designed and sized midrange horn doesn't sound shouty, as in at all, or what people typically associate with bad sounding horns. Smaller midrange horns, even though they're well designed, generally sound more aimed-at-the-listener, less enveloping and more agitated vs. a larger midrange horn covering the same frequency span, that by comparison sounds more relaxed, physically realistic, dynamic and with a better fill of the sound throughout the listening room. The smaller horn may impress at first with its "lively" imprinting, but it really stands more in the way of the music and ultimately can't hold a candle next to their larger, well designed brethren.