I've gone from fully horn loaded to OB's and I'm more than happy. From my experience the OB's are as fast but without the horn issues like beaming, shouty or harshness. This of course depended on the quality of both. I went from newer LaScala’s to large OB's and have more bass just as fast, as detailed and with as large a sound stage. did I say more bass! Overall a great sounding speaker system that once you live with them it’s hard to go back to a box, you hear the box in almost every speaker other than the truly expensive ones.
I find them easier to live with long term as well. The only area I find they are harder to deal with is room placement OB’s need more space behind them as they are dipoles so they need to integrate the back wave and front wave correctly to get all that they can do. They are less susceptible to side wall interference though. If you have the room for them, I recommend them over any Horn I’ve heard approx $25k and below.
Properly set up OB’s can bring the music to life with stunning dynamics and detail levels without the boxy issues traditional speakers bring. They do require large drivers to get deep bass, mine have an 18” and 15” driver (each speaker) for bass and are good to 27hz. They tend to be large like horns. Steve Gutenberg just had a review of the Pure Audio Project speakers one set with Voxativ drivers and one set with Horn loaded drivers. That is a good comparison.
