Horizons, I can offer you some comments by longtime loudspeaker designer Lynn Olson on the subject of horn coloration in my speakers. Lynn is not the easiest person to impress. From his "Beyond the Ariel" thread over at DIYAudio.com:
"I really, truly, dislike horn coloration, and cannot ignore it, no matter how hard I try.... The AudioKinesis system I heard at the RMAF had very low horn coloration - I don't know if I'd say it was zero or not."
"In terms of low horn coloration, the AudioKinesis is the lowest I've heard so far..."
"My favorite of all the speakers at the show [RMAF 2007] was the AudioKinesis - and in a very difficult room, too."
"In terms of commercially available horn systems that have low coloration, I've only heard two: the Geddes Summa and the AudioKinesis."
I can dig up the links if you want to read these statements in context.
So there, my speakers are among the lowest in horn coloration in Lynn's experience, but he can't certify that my speakers have zero horn coloration. And, I'm sure they don't; they aren't perfect! My hope is that the things my speakers do wrong are lesser evils than what competing speakers do wrong, at least in the ears of some listeners.
I do use a more expensive horn and a more expensive compression driver than Clayton Shaw uses in the CS2 - and I charge quite a bit more, so it's not really a fair comparison. I use the same horn (ahem... "waveguide") that Clayton used in the first system he showed at RMAF 2006. The geometry is different from what Clayton uses in the CS2, in ways that I think are of audible significance. Maybe my speaker does some things better, maybe his speaker does some things better. Wish I could do what I do in his price range! My wife keeps bugging me to design a speaker that can compete head-to-head with the CS2, and I keep telling her that's not as easy as it sounds. It's like she's telling me to diet down to the middleweight divsion and fight Marvin Hagler.
Duke
