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I stopped by yestoday ay NY show for a couple hours. Somewhere in there SRA’s Kevin Tellekamp fished me and told me that he wants to show me something very interesting. He brought me into a room where Hørning loudspeakers were demonstrating. (http://www.horninghybrid.com/) The room sounded as horrible as it should be (“47 Labs” digital garbage juts for starters!) The system was setup obviously by the people with no brains, taste or ears but despite of the misery that this installation spit to a listener there was something that deserved to be mention – the Hørning upper range.

I mentioned the Hørning performance last year:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=34

I like what this company trying to do but I really do not like what they ended up doing. I will try to dissect this speaker in a few seconds but before a few words of the “fame feline bitching”.

Last year the speaker was presented by “Horning Hybrid Perikles” importer who told me that they demonstrated: “3-ways loaded into the same horn loudspeaker”. I asked him to explain what dose it mean “3-ways loaded into the same horn”. The importer began to spread such foolishness that I was looking at his face trying to determine if he was just kidding or if he really was an idiot. No, he was not kidding and I decided that the conversation was over. This year “High Water Sound” presented the speakers. I do not know if they had the same distributor last year and I do not remember if I spoke with the same people. However, this year there was a smaller model of Hørning presented and I asked a few elementary questions about the loudspeaker. The distributor indicated a complete luck of ANY familiarity with the product even thought the question I asked are distinctive for this particular design and the answers are well-described at the manufacturer web site and in any reviews of the product. Now, for those $15.000-$25.000 that people would pay for those loudspeakers this ignorant fool who calls himself importer/distributor/representative put in his own pocket at least 60-50% of YOUR money. Can this “retarded industry professional” to read a damn general description of his products in order to be able to support even a semi-intelligent conversation about what he is selling? I am not asking him and him-like to make sense of to really understand what he might be saying (would it be too much to ask from yeastoday’s McDonalds drop-offs) but can they juts to memorize one page of a written by manufacturer text?! If they do not do it then please, manufacturers and customers – fire this unnecessary money-sucking parasite, as his/her involvement is completely worthless.

Now, return back to the Hørning idea. The speaker is bult around Lowther driver. All, with no exception Lowther-based loudspeakers are very bad as the Lowther is a MIDRANGE DRIVER ONLY. As soon Lowther forced to handle lower midrange (not to mention the upperbass in back-loaded application – the ultimate evil of SE-based audio) of HF then sound get instantaneously converted into wishful thinking.  Hørning did very correct: they high-pass and low-pass thier Lowther without letting this driver to go very high and very low. (Lowther at HF is very fuzzy sounding driver, no mater how you plug it). Hørning did some modification to Lowther driver (I do not know what they did but whatever they did sound quite fine) and complimented it with a conventional tweeter at 6dB. The upper midrange sounds phenomenally good, in a way remaining what Vitavox S2 driver dose, although way thinner.  Still, to my taste the Hørning midrange lucks some laconism but it is imposable to say anything defiantly without looking at this sound in conjunction with lower midrange and the upper bass. Here is where we hit the Hørning problems: those speakers do not have any serious nether lower midrange or upper bass.

It is nice that they do not use the Lowther with an open bottom (if they do!!!) They high-pass they driver at 200Hz (it sounds like however I do not think they do it)  but it is still mistakably low frequency. Lowther must not handle ANYTHING under 500-700Hz and I would STILL call it too low crossover point for those drivers capacity. The Hørning was not able to do so high. They used the low Fs woofers with rubber suspension that do “survivable” job at 40-50Hz but they are completely worthless at upper bass. In upper bass is where Hørning begin to spit into room the dirt from thier “double-Assymmetric Quarter Wave individual loading hyperbolic shaped output pipe with port” (Oh!!!) The problem with all of this that as soon the speaker his anything from I would say 700Hz to ~70H it sounds like my $19-worth commuter loudspeaker I am not kidding. This harmony with quite attractive upper range and completely disastrous lower range is very very very very unfortunate…. :-(

Yes, I understand that the  dropping the woofers low-path and raising the Lowther low-path would force an introduction of a dedicated upper-bass direct radiator channel. This would quite dramatically chance the geometry and size of the loudspeaker but I can’t see anything wrong with it – let the damn importer/distributor to move heavier boxes for the money he sucks-out from Hørning users!

Should Hørning introduce a 4- Way loudspeaker based upon what they do currently then it might be quite interesting model to try auditioning.  Certainly it would be more expansive but here is where would be nice to cut the 50%-70% of the importer/distributor mark up. If THAT importer/dealer is wiling to inject himself into a process of the loudspeakers distribution (as he understand it) then lifting and moving of loudspeakers cost not more then $10/hour and it is execly how much he worth.

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