If a " system " cannot do this, I move on........

My goal in music reproduction may be the same.  I always referred to it as "being in the room" or really "really re-creating the room" the recording was made in.

Maybe just me, but maybe that is kind of what you are reffereing to.

Mark

After reading some of the comments about the engineering and mixing of songs,  I would like to input my 2 cents.  "There is a lot of elegance in simplicity" - Mark Ayers    That said, check out Peggy Lee's  "Black Coffee" album.  recorded way back and done well in my opinion.  On a good system it will bring tears to your eyes, and on a bad system it will still sound great.  IMHO

I wonder how many out there are actually running stock, unmodified Klipsch horns? I think there’s an unwritten rule among Klipsch users requiring them to make DIY mods, or have someone else do it😉

I have a pair of unmodified Klipschorns. To be honest, I did bypass their crossovers at one point in time and ran them active, achieving only a different but not obviously better sound. They are at my mother’s house now and the active setup is too complicated for her to use. She loves them stock! I enjoy them too. If and when I get them back at my place I’ll probably be tempted to try to "improve" them again.

On the main topic of this thread, I like horns too. I’m not exactly sure why.  I’m not necessarily looking to connect with the performers when listening to recordings. Glen Gould had an interesting take on recording in the studio vs live performance.

+1 wspohn

Good sound is good sound, regardless of design philosophy.

Horn, backloaded horn, widebander, omni-directional, ribbon, magnetic planar, open baffle, electrostatic... there are excellent examples of all these and more in abundance. Just like many of you, I have tried most all of them. Ultimately, we all have our preferences, prejudices and predispositions. My unscientific experience has been... if a speaker sounds good to You, awesome, buy it, put a recording on and enjoy (usually best with company).

I have always had an affinity/preference for electrostatic speakers. Can't explain it, tried to figure it out (in the last 45 or so years) and have recently decided to just "go with what I feel sounds best to me". So, I benched the Martin Logans (which had good bass) after tracking down a mint, unmodified, stored (25-30 years) pair of QUAD ESL 63. These always sounded Right to me, though I had never owned a pair.

Enjoying the Heck out of my slightly bass shy, natural sounding (to me) system. I truly wish you all the same Audio Serenity I have been blessed with... finally I think I am at Peace with it all.

The moderators @tammyholt

Need to be made aware of this "bug" >>> the overlap of @acstim ’s post (the Glenn Gould copied / linked content) that obscures / overlaps the one posted immediately after by @ticat

This is a timely question for me. I just returned from a 6 day

audio adventure in the bay area. I listened to the following speakers:

1-Dutch and Dutch-Active

2-Fritz Carrera 7E-2 way

3-Legacy Valor 

4-Linkwitz latest version-five way open baffle

5-Wilson Wham/Thor/Spectral

6-Paradigm Persona 3

7-Quad 57s recently rebuilt

8-Custom Built, One Off Speakers- Mids-Compression horn,Tweeters-Apogee ribbons, Highs-Ess heil super tweeter, Woofers-15" ?, Two Subs powered separately.

Guess which one sounded best to me? 

@david_ten  Thanks. We are aware of this bug and it  should be fixed sometime next week if not earlier. 

@jbhiller , thank you.....And, without being negative, or to pick on you too, my words concerning Tull, verbatim, " Recordings are poor, but the MUSIC is wonderful, exciting, a joy to listen to "...I am not sure why you misunderstood. *** Many of you are reading this thread, thinking it is a horn speaker thread, and if I intended it to be, I would have posted it within the speaker section ( I have done that many times ). I suppose my goal for the thread, was to re-engage with fellow Agoners, to voice my experiences ( likely due to more extending listening due to the pandemic ), of how much I " simply enjoy listening ". Not thinking of a new piece of gear. Not wondering what some other tweak might do to change or enhance the presentations of the performances. Just listening, and enjoying. I want for nothing else. Of course, things can change....but I have felt this way for some time, and many on the Gon, are not at this " place ", based on my readings......That’s it in a nutshell. Again, enjoy and be well ! Always, MrD.

Just as much magic can be found in "bad" recordings as in "good" recordings.

@au_lait +1

Yes, the better the audio system is the better all cds are....There is no bad or good recording anymore....All recording are simply different and each one of variable qualities on a vast number of aspects...

A good audio system is not necessarily a pricey one.....

You are able to reach the goal only when you know already, to begin with, what this goal is... And this goal is listening music and forgetting sound,system,upgrade.....

Some reach this goal very soon...

Other like me not so much soon...  😁😁😁😁😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

I have horns speakers (JBL L200/300s, JBL 4430s, Altec Super Reds) but I have found it better (smoother and more linear) to use cones and a Heil AMT.

While a horn will supply more than enough volume at the seating area, it does so with much directionality such that "a little goes a long way."

So, to do this, it doesn’t really require that you move much air through the room.

OTOH, if you use a "relatively" big cone to do this, you exite a much greater volume of air in the room and this is perceived as "slam" that you just don’t get with horns.

This is why I created the "Ethyl Mermans" that use a JBL 2241H (18") JBL 2251J (~10"), and Heil AMT. The soundstage, imaging, and involvement are unreal and these feel more like the performers are in the room than any other speakers I have (including JBL L112s and Chartwell LS3/5As).

This is in "CD Direct" mode (Red Book CD, Oppo 95 through a Yamaha RX-Z9 RECEIVER) with no eq, room correction, digital processing, etc. The room is big (26’ x 16.5’ x 7.5’ -->16’) and open to the entry way/dining area in one corner. But these can play at concert levels without breaking a sweat.

https://youtu.be/qz4d17nPMDA

Great thread! I love my older Altec's and use them everyday. Concentric drivers are my preference and of couse high efficency. Large Heil AMT's and JBL's good too, even at low to moderate volume levels.

I just listened to " Romantic Warrior ", and the playing of these 4 ARTISTS is simply uncanny. NO, they are not in my room, as I know and am aware of, a recording is what I am listening to. 1st, the total lack of any noise, distortion, hiss, hum, at full throttle( music not playing ). Now,  the quickness, the agility, the sharp, non compressed, slurred transients, the balanced tonal richness and coherence, the " tightness " of all 4 members playing in sync together.......just wonderful. This recording, in my opinion, is a real test. Enjoy !

One of my favorite albums Romantic Warrior. When Chick (RIP) runs that synthesizer note down to the basement on Medieval Overture my piloerectors go nuts. 

Great recordings are not accidents, they are art. Great music systems are not accidents either. The very best are always intentional and they can take a multitude of forms arriving at surprisingly different but valid results. One characteristic they all have is the ability to separate instruments and voices in space with nothing but silence in between. "Talk About Suffering" is an acapella folk song on John Renbourn's A Maid in Bedlam album sung by 6 individuals with unique voices. This stunning recording will plant 6 individuals on a stage in front of you, the distance depending on the system. Each singer is an individual on stage with silence in between. Each so well delineated that you can actually listen to one singer at the exclusion of the others, a sonic hologram. In a less than optimal situation the singers become blurred together. The Cherubini String Quartets by The Melos Quartet on Archive is another example of near perfect imaging, each instrument clearly identifiable as an entity in space. Four individuals with one brain. Steely Dan,  Countdown to Ecstasy  is IMHO the best Steely Dan recording. On a great system it is an amazing ride.

In many instances, particularly large concerts (big venues) a great system can sound better than the live performance. I saw Tower of Power recently at the Hampton Casino Ballroom. It was a great performance but sonically it was a loud mono blur with boomy bass. The live 50 Years of Tower of Power album is a recent recording of the same playlist. The bass is detailed and authoritative. Each instrument and voice is clearly delineated. Turn up the loud dial and you are right there in a smaller venue with great acoustics. Eyes closed I can see the band on stage exactly where they were planted live, Blu Ray not necessary. 

Can a system based on horn loudspeakers perform at this level? You bet. But, the system has to be intelligently designed to perform at this level. It is 90% about the speakers and room. It is perhaps 8% about amplification and 2% everything else. Does the program source matter? Yes, the recording and mastering. Analog or digital, both can perform just fine if the recording and mastering are appropriate for the source. Anyone who boasts one or the other is biased. Digiphobes are an interesting group considering 99% of the modern music they are listening to is digitized. If the disavow all digital music they are going to miss a lot of great music that will playback on a great system just fine. 

I would not divide speakers into Horn, Dynamic, planar magnetic or ESL. I think it is more useful to divide speakers into point source and Line source as it tells you more about how the speaker is going to image. I prefer line source, dipole ESLs as I have been working with them for decades and am comfortable dealing with them in terms of room acoustics and amplification. If I were to go point source I would look seriously at horns because you have more control over dispersion. IMHO omnidirectional speakers are a PITA requiring more intense room treatment. 

As Harry Pearson defined it, it is all about finding the Absolute Sound whichever way you travel.  

@mijostyn, some interesting thoughts on the subject, and agree on the musical choices. IME, live performances that are amplified can be exciting, as seeing a favorite band live is awesome, but a smaller venue without amplification is " dabomb ". I have never heard a hifi system approach this sense of realism, and I blame the source ( recordings ), as I have stated many times in my posts. However, I enjoy every recording I listen to, because I listen past the recording quality, and envelop myself with the artists, and the story they are telling. With an audio system, the shape and size of the stage, the musician localization, and the distance between me and the band ( the imaging thing, etc. ), which is all important, becomes 2ndary to me, as I feel, the performance and the playing, is why I am listening. Many systems I have heard, can be very " spatial ", but do not connect me to the musicianship. You mention Chick as being the standout to you, but Stanley, Al and Lenny are all standouts. A great system, imo, allows you to hear them as individuals, and convey the togetherness of them as a whole. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy !

Hi @mrdecibel ,

Yes it is very important point you are talking about. The system which

help you feel interpretation. But sadly most of audiophiles don’t care about it as well about natural instruments tone.

Probably, because that, low sensitive box speakers (lack of micro dynamics and texture, sound dead) and belt drive turntables (at lease most of them - kill rhythm nuances) so popular today.

Glen Gould was interested in recorded music with the idea that it allowed the performer to get out of the way of the music, to quit being such a distraction to the audience. It's funny we now talk about our stereos getting out of the way of the performer. Some music is all about putting attention on the performer. Or maybe it's just some ways of listening to music are like that. I tend to think more like Glen, and perhaps that sets a lower, more attainable bar to make a system that's primarily designed to convey the musical message rather than capture everything about the event and performers in ultimate realism.  It also makes life easier because a lot of good music isn't recorded in a way that can make that happen anyway. For me, the equipment bar is still fairly high because I want clarity without frequency response  kinks (on or off axis) or obvious distortions and resonances that are going to distract and fatigue me, and I prefer a narrower than usual dispersion pattern down as low as I can get it, which necessitates a large speaker. The setup I have now makes just about everything highly enjoyable for me to listen to. Because of the narrow dispersion and relative lack of early room reflections it lacks the immediacy some are looking for, the sense that someone is actually in the room with you. Instead they sound like they're singing into the room from wherever they were actually recorded, through an opening that is less than perfectly transparent in a way that makes differences between recordings less bothersome. 

@mrdecibel , I certainly did not intend on excluding the others. I was only talking about one note!

I was a DJ at UVM's radio station. RTF played both Burlington and White River Junction during the Where Have I Known You Before tour. I got to interview the entire band and had front row seats at both concerts:)

My goal has always been to create the "live" experience at home. To create the size and detail of a live performance it takes line source speakers. Dipole ESLs are perfect but they have to go floor to ceiling. To get the power of a live performance you have to use subwoofers and a lot of power. But, ESLs? Are they not limp when it comes to volume and dynamics? Not if you take 100 Hz and under away from them and with the right amps (high power class A) they thunder. Get the subwoofers right and you can easily create all the sensations of a live performance. You have to have the ability to boost the low end at least 3 dB at 20 Hz. I do 5 dB. That is measured in the room at the listening position, not at 1 meter. With multiple subwoofers in a line array you can limit room interaction and get pretty even bass throughout the room. Line array dipoles only require sound absorption behind the speaker. You can almost entirely eliminate the room signature this way. Experienced listeners will initially think the treble is rolled off until they hear a few cymbals. All the high end is there but it is in focus and not sprayed all over the place by reflections. The "brightness" of the reflected treble is gone. The drop in volume off axis of the ESLs is very dramatic and very sharp. Sound Labs are designed to have a 45 degree axis. They will do 90 degrees for very large rooms on request. If you stand directly to the side of the panel all the sound seems to come from the front wall even with 4" acoustic foam tiles on the wall! 

If people are looking for the sound and sensations of a live performance in their their home system it can be done. If using point source speakers you will be farther back in the hall. With line source speakers you are right up front. Either way you have to have aggressive bass performance below 100 Hz, down to at least 18 Hz. This is where all the sensation is coming from. No bass, no live performance. Room reflections create a sheen around the music that ruins the "live" effect. It covers the space between the instruments and voices blending them together. Only clever room treatment will get ride of this. DSP will not.

@mijostyn , I have owned panels, and set up many. I understand and appreciate their virtues. However, when I say nothing compares to a live concert, it is my opinion, a good horn system comes closest, but still, no cigar. Is it the equipment’s fault ( speakers specifically ) ? I find, as I state over and over again in these threads, that we are limited by the recordings. An example would be when my guitar buddy Mike and microphone Me take a mixer and play through my Lascalas ( or his, which are not modded to the same degree ), and play our music. They handle it all. Most speakers ( commercial home speakers ), ime, fall apart. And try taking them to 110 db and above.......I would bet you could damage them. This is all besides the point. On another thread, I mentioned the fabulous recorded work by Tony Minasian of Tonian Labs. After listening to his recordings, it becomes apparent, again, how limited we all are with our systems, having the ability to sound live ( the recordings ). Growing up around live music, and being introduced to Khorns very early in life, there is no other way my ears / brain can accept anything other than good horns. I want to say, Klipsch is not the be all/end all, but with intelligent mods and updates, they are amazing at their price point ( I am a huge fan of PWK, and had the privilege of meeting him ). It is all good. I am thrilled you found your nirvana, as I believe it is important for all listeners to find " theirs ", as we are all different in what we want. Thank you for a very informative interaction. Be well, always, MrD.

Have you ever considered some of the large JBL horns? The M2 or the home version 4367? Perhaps some of the screen arrays 4722's? Or Everest series. 

@mrdecibel , of course the effect is source limited. Some recordings, the minority are capable of supporting the "live" illusion, most are not. 

Horns, as big as they can be, are point source radiators. They produce a miniature sound stage just like any point source radiator. They project power just like any point source radiator, the volume rolls off at the cube of the distance. Linear arrays loose volume at the square of the distance, much slower. They produce a large, powerful sound stage. 

You do not want to ruin your ears with 110 dB but you can get the "live" effect at 95 dB just by boosting the bass a bit, 3 dB/oct below 100 Hz. But that has to continue down to 18 Hz, real in room measured response. There are many instances where the sound of a great home system is superior to the live performance especially where large venue concerts are concerned. 

Right at this moment there is only one full range line array on the market, the 8 or 9 foot Sound Labs ESL. Most people have the impression that ESLs are wimpy, easy to damage, lacking in dynamics and incapable of louder volumes. While this is certainly true of early Quads it could not be farther from the truth when Sound Labs are concerned. All you have to do is give them the right power and pass off 100 Hz and below to a subwoofer and you can go way louder than is safe. 110 dB is no problem. Dynamics are also not a problem. Nothing produces the snap of a snare drum like big ESLs. On Mechell Ndegeocello's Peace Beyond Passion the snare drum must have been recorded with the mic two inches away. That snap is thrilling to hear and sets the rhythm of each song. What a great record. "Jesus cured the blind man so he could see the evils of the world."

Even the visual sensations can be produced at home now. The Blu Ray of RTF's "Returns" is a great example. You can see as well as hear the concert better than if you were at the actual performance unless you were lucky enough to get front row seats. My own popcorn and a bathroom are just a few steps away. Parking is free!

I am pretty sure you can get similar performance from any type of loudspeaker. The trade offs would be size of the sound stage and the amount of acoustic treatment required to kill the room's signature. Horns are not a sure fire way either. Very few horn systems entirely lack that horn signature megaphone quality. The horn's most significant positive qualities are their efficiency and limited dispersion. 

Aren't there more comments from the community?

[Klispch Lascala's II with Raven Blackhawk, Yamaha S2100 CD player, full Tellurium Q Black II cabling, fully tweeked by Mad Scientist Nano thangs] Once upon a time....for me it all goes back to one afternoon I sat on a friend's bean bag chair and listened to Cat Stephen's Tea for the Tillerman in a tiny basement room. I'm sure the entire system didn't exceed $1000. Bookshelf speakers ear level (Advent?) created the quintessential 3-D sound stage that transported me into an alternative sound environment that shocked me. It was at that point I became an audiophile "wanta be". My goal ever since has been to recreate this alternative realty which draws me into this musical world. Today my humble system transports me into this wonderful, amazing world I float effortlessly within. For me, therefore, it isn't about anything but my system's ability to replicate a 3-D, immersive audio picture I can nearly walk into like a portal to another place.  Poor bass, or weak imaging, or misplaced emphasis on any part of the sound spectrum or simple distortion or smearing of detail hinders my goal. Recording quality or lack there of will likewise hinder this focusing of the portal's entryway. All's servant to that goal.