Horns at CES

High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place.

There's been some discussion of these speakers, but I figured that it'd be useful to pull them all together on one page.

If you've got $32K burning a hole in your pocket and a large barn that needs to be filled with sound, the Acapella Campanile might be just the ticket. This speaker had an uncany ability to make you feel that you were there and even more surprising is the fact that with some many different drivers and technologies meshed together, that it sounded good at all.

Glass Audio was using the Avantguard Onos to good effect.

Stunning looks -- or maybe love 'em or hate 'em looks -- the Calix Signature Phoenix Grands are pricey, $60K as I recall.

Delivering vintage JBL designs with modern TAD drivers, Classic Audio Reproductions' T1 is a big boy, weighing in at 300 pounds and $14K. I didn't hear much of this one as by day 3, the sound of silence was quite welcome; however, I spent quite a bit of time with it's little brother, the T3 at VSAC and was quite impressed.

Galante doesn't use a horn, but does build high efficiency products that sound very good. The new line (smaller Rhapsody and larger unnamed product) use Radian coaxial drivers to approach efficiency in the high 90s.

Lowthers were shown in both front and rear loaded designs. Carfrae's Little Big Horn is pricey, $16K I believe, but was the first Lowther that I heard that sounded good.

However, for my money, the Rethm the Second using the same Lowther driver was smoother and nearly avoided the characterisic screech using a small metal ring that is claimed to tame the whizzer. It's also far less money at $6K.

But the award for a screechless Lowther goes to Ron Welborne and his new Moondog Maya system ($14K) using an Oris 150 combined with a horn loaded bass module and no crossovers. The sound was warm and smooth, yet detailed.

Wavelength was found with Gordon's Cardinals driving Von Schweikert DB-100s. This is a speaker that I heard at VSAC and hated. Perhaps Albert has smoothed out the treble or the Wavelength gear is just that much better, but the sound at CES was excellent.

Zingali's HM112 (the big floorstander) are just gorgeous.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Parts Connexion

Topic - Horns at CES - Rod M 07:12:22 01/18/02 (7)

What I don't understand - citroeniste 06:07:58 01/19/02 (1)

Re: What I don't understand - Faizal Ali 08:11:42 01/19/02 (0)

Re: Horns at CES - Tom Brennan 16:38:45 01/18/02 (0)

Has someone been bitten by the hornbug? - Ron W. 09:14:52 01/18/02 (3)

love those Moondog Mayas - - Colin 05:57:33 01/19/02 (2)

Shoulda called 'em The Horndogs, Ron! (nt) - steve jones 10:57:19 01/19/02 (1)

You've been hanging out with Bottlehead for too long(nt) - Ron W. 14:59:44 01/21/02 (0)

You can not post to an archived thread.