Horns vs Ribbons vs Dyanamic

Damn it Jaybo, we're only audiogoners here not trekkies! We go where no audiophile has gone before. Horns and planars just do not compare to warp drivers!

There is a substantial improvement in the mid and higher frequencies.

Yes that is the typical manifestation from the additional ambience or reverberation. The room is excited more in the mid range and treble than regular box speakers. (Basically an anechoic calibrated ribbon will have about 3 to 6 db boost in the mid and high frequencies when placed in a room and compared to a box speaker.) The fact that many popular selling box speakers are tweaked upwards in the treble and bass response (helps sell) means that the planar or ribbon will be a revelation (hear things you never heard before) to most people not used to a proper balanced mid range.... you can blame most popular box speaker manufacturers for this....big bass and treble sizzle sells but at the expense of the mid range!!

Audiotomb made a good start,

Horns - tendency to honk/shrillness but sound good with trumpet and are very easy to drive with low power amps.

Ribbons - tweeters are often unreliable, long ribbons behave like planars....lots of reverberation/ambience

Planar - lots of ambience and radiation in all directions means room placement is critical. They also beam (some designs used curved surfaces but this is a problem of any large radiating surface) and are hard to drive. These are almost never used in pro audio - so that tells you a lot.

Dynamic (box speakers) - the most popular form of speaker both in consumer and pro audio and for very good reasons. Accuracy, sound quality, reliability and price are generally unmatched by all other competing designs, which is why there are so many of them.

Electrostatic (????) - same as planar

"These are almost never used in pro audio - so that tells you a lot." Like what?

B&W's get used in the pro audio a lot, even with their flaccid, bloated bass. Berenger get's used a lot in pro audio, but sends shivers up the spines of many here.

I was thinking of things like

1) they are very difficult to set up and adjust to produce a reliable sound field in a room (often sound best placed well out into the middle of a room - impractical in many real world situations and they are often way too big to place on a meter bridge or in a smaller sized studio as near fields)
2) they don't handle large dynamic range or high sound pressure levels as well as other designs.
3) they have limited frequency range (especially in the bass)
4) they have tended to be less reliable ( high voltages required to operate )

I agree that if you can accept the above limitation then they can sound great (Quad's being a famous example) but pro audio is not very tolerant I guess. Pros need reliable work horses rather than a finicky thoroughbred...

No "reverberation" or "ambience", just pinpoint sound staging, beautiful tone and very realistic music.

Well I am not sure what design you have. There always seem to be exceptions. You must have the rare type of ribbon with a backing that reduces the raditaion pattern. Most ribbons tend to send signals in a dipole pattern which increases the ambience or reverberation from sounds filling the room (compared to most dynamic box speakers that radiate only in a forward direction except in bass frequencies).

This goes to show that generalizations ony go so far...

Shadorne, don't be so elementary. (I don't believe I'm having to respond this way)...I don't expect somebody at your level of understanding to comprehend what I said.

I see that "elementary" was either too much for you or simply beneath you.

Either way, I think your attitude towards others reflects most poorly upon yourself.

CES 2008...What does gas cost next year?

Stehno, No problem. Peace.

If you don't mind checking a newspaper, can you share with us the the three highest year on year growth stocks on the NYSE of 2008?