@jjss49 --
Have you been trying to deliberately avoid horns these last 3 decades, or..
@asctim --
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 --
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.
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.