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How much of High End Audio is Horn Speakers?

An audio friend of mine had been discussing my future speaker purchase. We discussed, Harbeth, Devore, Spendor, Audio Note and other more traditional speaker brands. A week or two later he called an asked me what speakers I had purchased. When I told him Klipsch, there was a little silence on the other end of the line. Our call probably ended a little sooner then usual. I could tell he was disappointed in my purchase. Is it the Klipsch name that illicits this type of response or is it Horn speakers in general? After thinking about some of the other Audiophiles in town, a good deal of them are on the low power high efficiency speaker route and more than a few I know are using Horns. Does anyone know how the high end market share is divided? Is there a stigma associated with certain lower cost Horn speakers? Or is this just Klipsch? I now own a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls and am enjoying the journey associated with tweaking the sound to my taste. Is there an unwritten rule that friends don’t let friends buy Klipsch?

coachpoconnor

Showing 1 response by cowan217

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cowan217
112 posts
 

So...I've dabbled on and off with Klipsch too after having polar opposite speakers in my system. I run a Pass 250.8 amp, Pass XP10 Pre, PS Audio DS Jr DAC and have a REL s5/SHO sub, with a JL audio F113 v2 on the way. I have a dedicated 13x22 listening room that's acoustically pretty tight. 

I've had Focal 1038 BE, Focal Sopra 2, B&W 805 D3, Harbeth 30.2, Harbeth HL5 Super Plus and several others. Of all of these the Focal 1038 and Harbeth HL5 stood out as most musical. Last year I tried a pair of Klipsch Heresy 3 for a few months - they did a lot right but had a mid bass hump and some "honkiness" in the mid on some music. Being on the floor also lowered the height of their sound staging. A few months ago I bought a pair of Klipsch Cornwall 4 after reading great reviews and hearing from a friend of mine how much he loved his. They turned out to be really good, musical and great with both low level and "crank it up" levels. I listen to jazz, funk, soul, acoustic, etc. They speakers are pretty big- and I put them on 6" amp stands, with minimal EQ in Roon to lower some bass around 80-125 hz, they sound really good- huge soundstage, no honkiness  and integrating my sub was easy too. I think they deserve more respect than they get but who knows, we're all opinionated about our gear. They do have a problem with fitting into a typical room's decor due to their size however. But, that's what second and third systems are for ;).

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