This week Joe Roberts puts his perspective on the whole horn thing. We are reading The Promise of Horns, from sound practices issue 7. In it Joe first discusses the difference in acceptance between single-ended triode amps and horn speakers. Next, there is an appeal to leave the junk horns of the past in the past. Then Joe discusses how the high-end audio agenda is at odds with what horns deliver, arriving at the holy grail of ‘the perfect jukebox.’ Finally, there are some more stabs at speakers, with contemporary Yamamura, Turbosound and and Stage Accompany horns and drivers.
teaser quote: ‘Thanks to the collective search for good high efficiency loudspeakers to use with low-powered amplifiers there’s a lot of curiosity afoot about horn loudspeakers, probably the most unfashionable topic known to modern high-end. Even 8 track gets more (and better) press than horn speakers in the US specialist mags.’
my take
I must admit I was one of those people that Joe mentions in the first paragraph: I believed in single-ended triodes before I even heard one. Luckily I was not disappointed.
But yeah, this article is about Joe trying to figure out why single-ended triodes were simply hot after two years of publishing SP and horns—the other side of the ultra-fi equation—not. You can see it building up over the issues of SP: the search for acceptable (several criteria) efficient speakers was becoming ever more pressing. Still for many people, horns was and is not it. Joe is asking us to reconsider.
I like the ‘perfect jukebox’ grail and even more that audiophiles ‘don’t know that that’s what they want.’ An audiophile finding peace with a ‘perfect jukebox’ is actually the reverse of the road to hell one should never set a music lover on—by sowing of doubt in his head about the stereo being ‘good enough.’ The jukebox reminded me of what Vinny Gallo said: ‘great Hi-Fi should sound like the best radio you ever heard.’
Now go and read the article, see you next week.
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