How Do Horn Speakers Get Their Gorgeous Life-like Tonality?

[DaveyF]

Hi Davey,

I think there are only about three people from Europe and one people from America who like to write favorably about horns while most people like cones in this forum. It is a healthy international forum here imo.



Whenever WAMM or Vox Olympian is mentioned, we seem to automatically assume they sound heavenly given people who own them must have spent tremendous resource, time and efforts to set them up right. Nonetheless a few of us in this forum know for sure this isnt always so.

Sincerely,
Tang

I think you must be reading a different forum than myself....
Here in the US...DDK, Jeffery _t, Dave C...although perhaps more tempered than everyone else, probably several others that I cannot think of right now...From other areas...you, Bonzo, Morricab, Shakti,Lagonda, audiophile Bill...and others...

Your point about the Wamms makes no sense, they are ALL set up by a factory rep and/or dealer at the customers home. You think they don’t get that set up right?

 

[Al M.]

Your point about the Wamms makes no sense, they are ALL set up by a factory rep and/or dealer at the customers home. You think they don’t get that set up right?

I don't trust dealer set-ups. And setting speakers up perfectly takes weeks or months, but you already knew that.

Obvious note: perfect is not the same as "satisfying enough".

 

[Tango]

I think you must be reading a different forum than myself....
Here in the US...DDK, Jeffery _t, Dave C...although perhaps more tempered than everyone else, probably several others that I cannot think of right now...From other areas...you, Bonzo, Morricab, Shakti,Lagonda, audiophile Bill...and others...

Your point about the Wamms makes no sense, they are ALL set up by a factory rep and/or dealer at the customers home. You think they don’t get that set up right?

Those you mentioned own horns but only Kedar, Bill and Morricab write about them a lot. You are confusing Lagonda for Kodomo.

For $800,000, the manufacturer will come to your house yes. Fact is fact still. I should not have mentioned it.

I am drifting the thread left and right here. I should stop now.

Sincerely,
Tang

 

[PeterA]

I don't trust dealer set-ups. And setting speakers up perfectly takes weeks or months, but you already knew that.

Obvious note: perfect is not the same as "satisfying enough".

Totally agree. I'm not sure "perfect" speaker set up is even possible. One could always slightly adjust it for a slightly different sound which might be subjectively just as good, but different. It is about the customer being satisfied, and the dealers do not always provide this satisfaction.

This is a whole new topic which deserves its own thread. I've heard a Wilson demo at a dealership. The speakers were wired out of phase. I noticed and told them. The dealer had no clue. This must have been the exception.

 

[c1ferrari]

The speakers were wired out of phase. I noticed and told them. This must have been the exception.

I noticed and remained mum. Contingent upon the situation, perhaps I would not be reticent. Wiring something
with incorrect polarity is easy to do.

 

[jeff1225]

Ev

I noticed and remained mum. Contingent upon the situation, perhaps I would not be reticent. Wiring something
with incorrect polarity is easy to do.

It's absolutely easy to do, happens all the time. Why would you remain mum?

 

[DaveyF]

Several years back, I was at one of our local dealers listening to his new line of mini speakers. He was telling me how amazingly coherent he thought they were, to which I agreed. I listened for about ten minutes and thought something was a little odd. Sure enough he had them wired out of phase. We corrected this...and everything jumped up a notch ( to be expected). Dealer tells me this has happened to him on numerous occasions, LOL.

 

[kodomo]

Properly built and matched horns sound great and so does the cone based systems. The thing is, most horns I heard were soundling like cupped hands and most cone based speakers I heard sounded dynamically restrained or dynamic but somehow unnatural sounding. However, when speakers are done right and are matched with appropriate equipment they may not. On reference level, analog/digital, horns/direct radiators seem to sound kind of similar. Not the way they present but both of them fulfils and then it becomes a choice. There are direct radiator systems I can live with although I love horns.

My way of thinking is simple. I like the way the horns work acoustically, this is just a preference, I like the idea. I also like the single ended triode sound, and they are a good match that works, so there I go

 

[bonzo75]

Am I shifting the wind here.

Tang

Better than passing the wind, which is what ported cone bass sounds like, especially underpowered

 

[bonzo75]

Those you mentioned own horns but only Kedar, Bill and Morricab write about them a lot.

Till exactly a year ago, Bill would have recommended Focal Grande Utopia. At around this time (Dec or so last year) he accidentally ran into the General, sold off his own system overnight, and decided to go ahead with 1w amps, sensitive speakers (building himself up to big horns budget wise), thousands of original LPs with the Vyger.

 

[morricab]

Hey


Hi Davey,

Lol I think you stumbled upon the 2 anomalies. In all sincerity the consensus across many forums has always been in favour of these 2 rooms consistently. I think they did both have 1 “off” year though on consensus.

The lIving Voice rooms (there were two this year) were both great but this year the Western electric/Silbatone room was for me a disappointment this time around. In previous years it was often in my top 3 rooms.

 

[morricab]

If your definition of an XLF expert is one who realizes it requires more power...I guess we will wait to see which amps you settle down with. Btw, if you do insist on settling down with Lamms for XLFs, do try the Soulution preamp (apologies to David for making him throw up). It will give the downstream Lamm and the rest of the system much more drive, dynamics, separation, stage, as if some power has been added. I use the word "try" because I have not tried this combo myself, but have seen the use of the pre in such a context to improve those attributes where the downstream amp lacked power to drive the speakers.

What is with you and the Soulution preamp all of a sudden? Why do you think this could possibly be a better match for the ML3s than the LL1 preamp? I have heard lots of Soulution gear, living hear in Switzerland, and I would never sign on to this boring sounding stuff. I have heard CH precision sound pretty good and can kind of understand why some tube lovers migrated to it but never Soulution...it just does not sing.

 

[bonzo75]

The lIving Voice rooms (there were two this year) were both great but this year the Western electric/Silbatone room was for me a disappointment this time around. In previous years it was often in my top 3 rooms.

For me I liked all years from 2014 except 2016. 14, 15, 17 were the best, followed by 18.

 

[bonzo75]

Soulution adds a lot of drive, clarity, space, separation to lower powered amps. It is like putting a higher powered amp in, without losing the beauty of the lower powered SET... Well, not quite, but if someone loves the harmonics of sets this is the best way to get the positives of a higher powered amp. There could be other solutions like CH or boulder I haven't tried in the same context I tried Soulution.

Soulution allows for a lot of concert hall space, decay, to show through. Valve preamps sound muddied in comparison and they try to force a tone or decay, while Soulution let's the real tone and decay show through. You can hear the violin or piano and the concert hall walls. The space will be huge. Of course, integration with upstream and downstream matters otherwise it will sound bright or wrong

The UK distro has maxxonic, Ongaku, audio note Neiro, and KR. He uses an all Soulution rig for his personal listening. I haven't heard his system but I would like to explore this. Definitely, if I had cones or planars, Soulution would be my first choice for preamp with the caveat of integration.

Yes... They sound awful at shows

 

[PeterA]

I noticed and remained mum. Contingent upon the situation, perhaps I would not be reticent. Wiring something
with incorrect polarity is easy to do.

Sure it is easy.

The reason I mention this is because the dealership was introducing a new pair of Wilsons. I was there for the demo. I mentioned that something sounded off, like the phase. They said no. We went back and forth until someone else said why don't you just check the wiring. The point is that the guy did not hear a problem. The same dealer then sold a pair to my friend and never set them up properly.

One can not assume that all dealers make the effort to do things right.

 

[bonzo75]

Sure it is easy.

The reason I mention this is because the dealership was introducing a new pair of Wilsons. I was there for the demo. I mentioned that something sounded off, like the phase. They said no. We went back and forth until someone else said why don't you just check the wiring. The point is that the guy did not hear a problem. The same dealer then sold a pair to my friend and never set them up properly.

One can not assume that all dealers make the effort to do things right.

With the Lampi, I know some dealers who just send it off to potential customers with whatever valves they have. Usually they have sold off their best valves and either not replaced them or don't care. So the customer gets either a sub optimal valve or one mismatching his components. l simply cannot understand why they don't ship across 3 sets and tell the customer, to try each. If the customer is not a valve rotator, they can go to him themselves. I just don't see the hard work being done on many products.

Recently I saw an amp left at a friend's without being set up properly. It just wasn't the right match for his pre. How difficult would it have been for the dealer, who had traveled all the way, to try it before leaving (he didn't, just put it down there, chatted and left) or to pull out a matching pre from his car? He lost the sale. I met a couple of Allnic dealers who had never tried different valves in their phono, and another who hadn't tried rotating valves in the riveira. I think it is their job to know what their components are capable of, especially where the costs for such learning are not high.

Imagine if David had just shipped across the AS and asked people to install the arm and cart themselves

 

[MadFloyd]

Soulution adds a lot of drive, clarity, space, separation to lower powered amps. It is like putting a higher powered amp in, without losing the beauty of the lower powered SET... Well, not quite, but if someone loves the harmonics of sets this is the best way to get the positives of a higher powered amp. There could be other solutions like CH or boulder I haven't tried in the same context I tried Soulution.

Soulution allows for a lot of concert hall space, decay, to show through. Valve preamps sound muddied in comparison and they try to force a tone or decay, while Soulution let's the real tone and decay show through. You can hear the violin or piano and the concert hall walls. The space will be huge. Of course, integration with upstream and downstream matters otherwise it will sound bright or wrong

The UK distro has maxxonic, Ongaku, audio note Neiro, and KR. He uses an all Soulution rig for his personal listening. I haven't heard his system but I would like to explore this. Definitely, if I had cones or planars, Soulution would be my first choice for preamp with the caveat of integration.

Yes... They sound awful at shows

While I think you're on to something (I've never heard a valve preamp that didn't muddy up the sound by comparison) I think you can do much better than the Soulution. Try the dartzeel for a LOT less coloration.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

While I think you're on to something (I've never heard a valve preamp that didn't muddy up the sound by comparison) I think you can do much better than the Soulution. Try the dartzeel for a LOT less coloration.

Guys I would have tended to concur for sure based on home experiences with ARC, Allnic, Mcintosh, MF, etc. The Mayer 10Y is a different animal and is the least muddy preamp I ever heard. It somehow achieves the impossible extreme inner resolution AND harmonic fidelity / texture and space of best tubes. I am beginning to sound like a Mayer salesman lol but it is really that good IME.

 

[KeithR]

While I think you're on to something (I've never heard a valve preamp that didn't muddy up the sound by comparison) I think you can do much better than the Soulution. Try the dartzeel for a LOT less coloration.

Yes, several audiophile friends and I have moved to TVCs for this reason. They sound better directly to tube amps as well. I would love to compare my Music First to the Dartzeel. I hope Bazelio gets the chance.

Have you settled on the Dart permanently? I saw you had a GAT but didn’t know the resolution.

 

[jeff1225]

Guys I would have tended to concur for sure based on home experiences with ARC, Allnic, Mcintosh, MF, etc. The Mayer 10Y is a different animal and is the least muddy preamp I ever heard. It somehow achieves the impossible extreme inner resolution AND harmonic fidelity / texture and space of best tubes. I am beginning to sound like a Mayer salesman lol but it is really that good IME.

Bill,
What speakers are you currently using with the Mayer and what speakers are your end game?