Why are horns "in your face"?

[Coytee]

Ok, I'm going to show some real ignorance here (again) []

People (typically on other forums) sometimes talk about not liking Klipsch or horns in general because they're too 'in your face'.

I'm a bit confused here... a couple presumptions if I may to at least set the picture of my question.

If you have two speakers, one horn and another... take your pick, electrostatics, cones, domes...

If we can engineer them so they have a perfectly flat response (+/- .00000000000000000000000001 db kinda thing []) there is still no doubt in my head that some folks will say the horns are still in their face.

Seems to me, if they have a flat response, perfectly aligned with each other, then all the frequencies have equal energy and should reach them at the same time and at the same loudness? (presuming we compensate to make db's the same, say 100db's at their listening position)

Is it just a reality that horns are more efficient?

How can a 'wall of sound' projected at 100db's be more in your face than that same 100 db wall of sound, projected from a different speaker, especially if we presume the speakers to have the same flat response?

Call me a dummy behind my back, but I don't really get it.

[Guest David H]

People (typically on other forums) sometimes talk about not liking Klipsch or horns in general because they're too 'in your face'.

I'll have to break out my "In your face meter" and make some measurements before I can give a really accurate answer.

I think I stored it next to my warmth and presence meters, nope it was by my imaging gauges.

I assume the listeners you are regaurding, dont particularly care for dynamic speakers, or they heard a set of horns poorly set up

that were harsh. Then again its also possible that they have been influenced by another party that is partial to ribbons, planars,

soft domes etc. Personaly I have tried them all, and think in the proper environment they can all sound great. Try not to get wrapped

up in that debate.

[mikebse2a3]

Is it just a reality that horns are more efficient?

Actually Horns are just less inefficient than other types of loudspeakers over their operational bandwidth.

How can a 'wall of sound' projected at 100db's be more in your face than that same 100 db wall of sound, projected from a different speaker, especially if we presume the speakers to have the same flat response?

First your reference level of 100db needs to referenced to someting. ie: like measured at the listener location

If you were outside with no reflections from any boundries and then if both systems were perfectly flat on axis the sound should be exactly the same.( This of course ignores all other forms of distortion like harmonic and dynamic..etc....which in reality we can't do)

Now put the two systems in a room and even though both have the same on axis flat response the off axis response can and will be very different. The speaker/room integration due to polar response differences will have a vast differences on how the two speakers are perceived tonally and image reproduction will be different.

This is a good example to show that frequency response of a loudspeaker and our perception of it is much more complicated than just some reading at a certain location like on axis. This is why the frequency response of a loudspeaker needs to be looked at over it's polar angles of dispersion because in the room the on axis and off axis response are both heard and integrated by the listener's ear/brain to form a perception of the sound both in tonal and image reproduction.

Call me a dummy behind my back, but I don't really get it.

I prefer to think that your ear/brain just hasn't fully developed yet but there is hope.[]

mike tn

[Groomlakearea51]

I think that they are confusing "in your face" with the inherent (and natural) directivty of the horns. They do not like the effect of listening to a good "sound stage" created by the precise manner in which the horns radiate outwards. They'd rather have that lack of directivity that is the hallmark of, let's say the 901's.....

[Don Richard]

The pattern-control nature of horns causes more direct sound and less reverberant sound in any acoustic space. This results in greater intelligibility and clarity that could be interpreted as "more in your face". It's the sound you hear at a concert when it sounds as if you have a personal loudspeaker a couple of feet directly in front of your head.

[DrWho]

Frequency response is only one perspective of a multi-dimensional event.

Music isn't just "100dB"...it's crazy dynamic playing at super quiet and super loud levels all the time. All that to say, it is very difficult to create a direct radiating speaker that has less power compression than a hornloaded speaker. In fact, take any awesome driver and put a horn in front of it and it will always reduce power compression. I bring this up because, in the studio, proper application of compression can make things sound warmer and less in your face....so I don't think it a far stretch to correlate those experiences with the kinds of power compression we might see in direct-radiating speakers. However, I think the purists would argue that the compression should be taken care of in the studio that way every recording doesn't have the same masked effect plastered over the top of it. I don't think anyone would like to always look at paintings through red tinted glasses, which I feel is much the same effect I keep hearing in a lot of the "audiophile direct-radiating systems".

Another perspective to throw out there is that horns allow the wavefront to be a different shape. For instance, the wavefront could look like a planar wave (like a piece of paper) travelling towards the listener or you can go for something shaped more like a balloon. Since we have two ears spread apart, the planar wave is going to be closer to the same volume in each ear than the balloon shaped one. I was reading somewhere that this can affect how large the sound is perceived to be since larger objects tend to be more planar wavefronts. Larger usually implies closer (since things seem bigger the closer you are), which I think correlates exactly to being "in your face" (it's almost a literal interpretation). However, sounds that are really really far away will tend to also look planar to a listener as well (even if the original sound was a balloon to begin with), so I think there is some competing behavior here as well.

Btw, I also wanted to mention that two different speakers could have the same "coverage pattern" but different shapes for the wavefront. So with that in mind, I wouldn't look at "flat power response" or "controlled polars" and necessarily correlate that to in your face. In fact, I think flat power response (in a good room) will usually correlate to a more immersive experience, which I think is condusive to less in your face.

Ideally, I would think that we would want the playback to be as in your face as the original mic placement. For instance, close mic'ed drums or close mic'ed vocals should be very in your face, while a single mic piano in the middle of a nice hall should be very not in your face. If the system can cover the full spectrum, then I think it is performing well. No direct-radiating system I've heard though can manage the dynamics...heck, horns aren't perfect in that regard either...

[JJkizak]

My face has taken a beating recently while listening to music. I compensate by turning down the "face" control slightly so as not to totally "deface" the music. I have faced these dire situations many times have tried many different facial re-direction techniques. The resultant face distortions have made me look like the "bug man" in Men In Black. I have had to study "fractals" for my computer to allow my camera to take an accurate picture. I'm so ugly I have to take my "face-off" every night before bed. I had to have my mirror re-designed by a fractal engineer so I could get an accurate reflection. All of this just to "face the music"

JJK

[Islander]

"In your face" is a perception by certain people, in audio terms anyway. Would you agree that this description of speakers is usually used by entry-level listeners and reviewers? I've seen speaker "shootouts" where the Klipsch speaker was described as "too revealing". Have you ever heard of a TV picture being described as "too clear"? Only in the case of ugly faces on the screen, of course. Normally, clearer and more revealing is what you want.

However, not everyone wants the sensation of live performers and instruments in their room. They want "nice sounds of music" to relax by, or to accompany whatever they're doing. The sound of real drums, for instance, can be pretty harsh, and is not what some folks find pleasant.

Real music fans want to feel that they are in the same room as the performers, able to hear the sounds of fingers on strings, spit in saxophones, along with every detail of a singer's voice. Those fans may be a minority of audio buyers, with most buyers preferring "smooth sound".

That's my take on it, anyway.

[Coytee]

That's my take on it, anyway.

Clearly you've suffered too much music in your face... [:|] I like your explanation though [Y]

As far as

Would you agree that this description of speakers is usually used by entry-level listeners and reviewers?

, I'd don't have any clue as to their real background.

[bodcaw boy]

they are not supposed to be......

take care,

roy

[seti]

I only hear that from people who haven't really listened to a horn system or done a decent evaluation. One guy I talked to about horns cupped his hands and said they are honky and sound weird but my response was could you please cup your hands into a perfect exponential or tractrix horn please.

[Islander]

That's my take on it, anyway.

Clearly you've suffered too much music in your face... I like your explanation though

Listening to my JubScalas ain't suffering, I tell you what... [][]

[dtel]

" I'll have to break out my "In your face meter" and make some measurements before I can give a really accurate answer.

I think I stored it next to my warmth and presence meters, nope it was by my imaging gauges. "

Funny,...................bet it was next to the [bs] meter. []

[djk]

"please cup your hands into a perfect exponential or tractrix horn please. "

The 'horn' sound when doing this is from the limited bandwidth, the lower register of your voice is not loaded properly and it colors the sound.

Years ago, a pair of my speakers were taken into a high-end store in Texas.

My design was an Eminence dual 12 with a 6th order alignment, an EV 8HD with an Atlas driver, and a Motorola piezo. There was time-offset correction on the 12s, the tweeters can't be corrected without a digital delay.

They killed the best speakers they had in the store.

The store owner was very excited, and wanted to know how much they would have to sell for at retail. After discussing margin, shipping and other things he was even more excited (he figure he could really sell a product that sounded like this).

He was very, very excited until we removed the grill, and stared down the mouth of that big horn! And then he sees the piezo!

"Everybody knows horns can't sound good"

(while he didn't say this, you know that's what he was thinking)

So I guess if you repeat something often enough (horns sound bad), it becomes true (even when your ears tell you different).

P.S.

The 12s were similar to what was used in the Heresy, the Atlas driver was one step down from what Klipsch used, and the piezo was the one used in the Klipsch MCM 1900 system.

[SilverSport]

I always thought the "in your face" comments came from the 3 way Klipsch Heritage speakers as the midrange seems to flesh out the sound for me...the two way Reference sound equally nice to me by themselves but when A/B'd next to the 3-way Heritage (and extended Heritage) I always feel "there's what I'm missing."...perhaps that's just because I am predisposed to like the Heritage models...(since I really like the 2 way Jubilees too)

Bill

[George Roland]

I am certainly not an expert, but I have owned a lot of speakers, and I think the answer to your question may lie in the dispersion of sound into the listening room. I have owned several pairs of speakers, often at the same time, so that I could do a lot of A-B-ing over long periods of time, and I would say that in my experience, the more focused the sound propagation, the more "in your face" the sound may seem. My Cornwalls and Klipschorns had more of the "honky horn coloration" than did the direct radiators (Thiel CS 3.6, PSB Stratus Golds) and they had a bit more constricted, "boxy" sound than did the planars (Magnepan MG1.6QR, Quad ESL-63s).

It's hard, and in some ways unfair, to generalize in this way because the room and speaker placement have such a tremendous influence on how any speaker sounds. The big Klipschs have a power, ease and dynamic punch that is immediate, and thrilling, but as many on this and other forums have noted, for some listeners, they can be a bit hard-sounding and overly-aggressive.

George Roland

[Coytee]

So it's more the "shape" of the sound?

[PrestonTom]

It is an interesting question but is made difficult by the notion of what exactly is meant by "in your face".

1. If this means a geometry, i.e., the sound is right in front of you with little or no perceived distance, then the argument about dispersion / reflections in the room / reverberation are on the mark. The sense of depth is governed by a number of cues, but the most important cue (overall) is the ratio of direct-to-indirect (reverberation) energy.

2. OTOH, if this is the issue of "horn coloration" (which may or may not be that big of an issue) then the reverberation is not the culprit per se (however it could obscure the perception of the coloration). I am using coloration in the sense that E. Geddes talks about it: a non-flat frequency response caused by additional sound paths within the horns (diffraction at the mouth and reflections within the horn). He makes a big deal out of this issue and makes even bigger claims about its audibility. A caveat is that this sort of coloration is not able to be fully corrected using EQ.

Two tidbits to think about.

The first is that if issue #1 were the predominant culprit, then recordings that include the acoustics of the concert hall (reverberation) should be less prone to this "effect". However folks that complain about these (alleged) problems, usually don't comment that it "goes away" or is exaggerated on certain recordings.

The second is that if #2 were were the predominant culprit, then one could process a signal to create the appropriate delay-and-add processing to mimic the comb-filtering (loosely, the Geddes contention). Using that as a source, then the deficit should appear on non-horn speakers. I seriously doubt this will happen however.

That is just food for thought.

My own personal view is that some folks are bothered by hearing the full dynamic sound that an efficient horn design can provide.

-Tom

[magus]

I absolutely agree with Islander. I think this in-your-face opinion is usually expressed by the people from whom you can also hear that: "How can you relax and read anything when at the same time playing music from such speakers?" or "I prefer more cultured/civilized presentation" (I'm translating from Polish, but I bet you can hear similar comments all over the world).

And I think it's OK if that is what they prefer. One cannot only try to obtain a live and natural sound from their system while at the same time striving to preserve this "civilized"quality. Because these two do not agree. Live music is not laid back. You can hardly read anything with some else playing the violin or the piano in the same room. The sound of live instrument is too much ... in your face .

You should not forget that this in-your-face quality is not really specific to horns. There are other types of speakers that evoke similar comments, but perhaps they are not so popular (especially in the U.S.). Take some full-range speakers like Lowther or Rehdeko. You can hear the same opinions. What all these speakers have in common is their unusually high dynamics (100dB or more) and speed (sensitivity perhaps), and in general more true to live presentation.

P.S. Such speakers are obviously more revealing for the electronics too. Therefere they can sometimes sound terrible if hooked up to a poor amplifier/CD-player. Because they do not "smooth out" things and do not make them bearable. You know: shit in, shit out

[Eskimo1]

Live music is not laid back. You can hardly read anything with some else playing the violin or the piano in the same room. The sound of live instrument is too much ... in your face

Best explanation ever.