Horns

Yep; as Merlin points out, the integration between the horns and the sub is pretty suspect. It gets better on the Duo, where the horn reaches lower, and becomes just about acceptable on the (muy expensivo) Trio, but I think the Avantgarde woofers can be improved upon (I reserve judgement on the horn woofers, which I've only heard once so far). Something like Merlin's home-brew JBLs should work nicely.

Avantgarde horns are really good at getting rid of people's preconceptions about horn sound: they are not coloured at all and they do not quack. The investment in mouldings for the horns has payed off nicely, I think, and they also demonstrate that only a spherical horn is a good horn (avoid tractrix and similar kludges).

I'm not entirely sure about the drivers they use, though. Avantgarde used to sell their horns separately, so an enterprising soul could experiment with different drivers. Not me; I'm far too lazy these days.

Avantgardes can sound really stunning, very dynamic yet totally non-fatiguing and natural. If I had the space ...

 

A friend gave me a pair of Lowther horn speakers to keep if I wanted. I tried them out. The load levels were truly amazing - you really had to keep the volume control down or they went VERY loud VERY easily. The sound staging was excellent and classical music sounded very good indeed.

Although they were large and a bit too big the main issue was that the bass was virtually non-existant - so I ended up giving them back. I ended up going for B&W CDM1NT's which gave a better overall sound - however, if you are a classical only junkie then they may fit the bill.

 

Hey Markus,
I'm not sure I entirely agree with you there. But it's true that I haven't heard a folded horn that isn't coloured.
That said, I just don't seem to get on with the Avantguarde stuff, although I can see its attaction. Somehow it leaves me quite cold.
Maybe the colouration adds to the attractiveness of horns. Now there's a frightening thought.
Briefly heard a very nice homebrew (though expensive) pair in a s/h shop in Shinjuku today. A compact composite JBL horn on top and the big 15" drivers in a separate cabinet underneath. I still think Merlin should investigate this at some point. If the Altecs really do come my way, I will.

 

Hi, and welcome to the forum wsc :beer:

Were you not tempted to keep Lowthers and use the (rrp) £750 from the 1NT's on a sub? Might have been an option. Then again, would have meant yet another big box!

 

Thought of using a sub - but my CDM's only cost me £299 and so there wasn't that much to put towards it (besides the minor detail that my wife was already pretty unhappy having great big Lowther's around!!).

 

Totally agree there... I've heard some of the other Avant Garde speakers and I'm always left with a nagging doubt in the back of my mind after listening to them. Yes, they are certainly engaging like no other speaker on certain pieces of music, and probably the least coloured horn loaded speakers I've yet heard but there's still something not quite right whch I can hear with acoustic material. Sort of like a plasticy reflection I supose rather than the usual box/woody type resoance. Oh and the Acappella plasma horn tweeter speakers seem OK too, but again something strange going on in there cabinets which I can't quite put my finger on.

Must admit, I was very interested by the Beauhorn Virtuoso speaker some of us heard at the Heathrow show yesterday. Yes, there was again some rather weird (cabinet?) colourations going on in there too, but the usual (exclusive to apart from electrostatics) horn qualities of being able to track the dynamic envelope of the music with such ease and the coherence (of the singe Lowther driver) was very captivating. I'd really like to hear the Virtuosos with some more upbeat/rocky stuff, but the classsical (Chopin - Poloanaise) and jazz (Miles Davis - So What) was really quite pursuassive. Having skimmed through some reviews, I've noticed that all reviewers talk about a lack of colouration with these speakers, so was it more the equipment colouration I was hearing rather than the speakers? In anycase, the Virtuoso's (which I had heard before but didn't really draw me in unlike they did yesterday) were an absolute revealation after hearing the B2's in the past which IMO are the most expensive kitchen radio (come 1940's wireless set) ever made!

 

One thing that puzzles me a little, is how the term colouration always pops up in discussions about horn speakers. IME a decent rear loaded bass horn speaker doesn't have any worse colouration than a lot of normal "box" speakers. They're just different colourations. I think it is a case of us all becoming immune to the colourations of traditional box speakers. If you've ever heard an electrostatic or panel speaker... you will quickly realise just how coloured all box speakers actually are. It's just that we've all learned to live with them, as they are the type of speaker that we all grew up with.

Most peoples experience of horns tends to be front loaded, either those old monstrosities or PA speakers. Usually, these speakers are using old 60's "quacky" drive units anyway.. or horrendous compression or piezo drivers coupled with thin plasic horns. It's a bit like saying box speakers are crap when the only ones you've ever heard either dated from the 50s or were made by Matsui.


GTM

 

True. We become used to certain colourations. Electrostatics also produce distortion effects, but these seem to be masked by the uneven treble and imaging special effects (IMHO).

The Altec 604 duplex unit design dates from the 1940s and does not quack - in fact these units aside from being in the reference monitors at Abbey Road in the 60s, where used in the Urei monitors that were produced up until a couple of years ago and are still in use in a few studios.

 

Joel,

It's something I would love to do, sadly I wouldn't really know where to start. The 1500AL has a rising response which means that if I want to cross it over at say 500hz, I will need something like +10db applied at 30hz to get the extension into the bottom octave. So careful EQ would be needed or else, a totally new cabinet design with less extension (as in the 9800).

My Cabs are extremely powerful between say 30hz and 40hz when crossed over below 100hz, so an array would probably require another cone to cover the 3 or so octaves between the 1500AL and a typical horn. I have looked at the drive units available over there, and would love to stick a T.A.D. horn on the JBL's and apply some EQ, but you simply cannot buy that kind of stuff over here and I cannot read Japanese! So unless you fancy helping out with a little export work so that ZG'ers can get to hear some of this kit, I'm kinda stuck.

Come on, Ship us some Accuphase and JBL's to play with, Ian is dying to hear it!

 

I'll bring some over in my hand luggage the week after next
I agree that you would probably have no choice but to add some (or possibly quite a lot) of EQ.
PM if you are interested in exploring the TAD possibilities.

 

Joel,

I'd love to sir but sadly your "facility" is disabled.

I do rather fancy mating the JBL to the TD/TH4001 though

 

oops

PM works now.

 

Absolutely agree. Well, for those of us who appreciate the sort of things that stats/panels excel at anyway.

As for conventional boxed speakers (non horn loaded), I guess I must have heard more good examples of non horn loaded compared to horn loaded. Horn's do sound more coloured to me from a box/cabinet effect point of view anyway.

Then there's the single/fewer drive units minimal/no-crossover approach, the minimalist approach always seems to produce the most engaging/enticing sound to me ears thus far.