In the 'Future Product' section of the Outlaw FAQ page, under the 'Outlaw Speakers' heading, The Outlaws ask us to challenge them: "What would you like us to produce?"

I'd be overjoyed to see the Outlaws offer a full home-theatre speaker set that utilizes horns. It appears that Klipsch has a stranglehold on this style of tweeter that seems to reproduce such remarkably crisp, clear, true sound.

It sure looks like the Outlaws would have very little direct competition for this speaker style, and if Outlaw's horns were priced lower than Klipsch's high-end speakers (which are already quite hard to come by; there isn't a single retailer in my home town of Charlotte, NC), they'd be a clear choice for anyone looking to upgrade to a quality "timbre-matched" surround setup.

Maybe there's some legal reason that more speaker manufacturers don't implement horns... I'm also curious to know if there are any technical issues that make this type of speaker difficult to produce cost-effectively. Would anyone else be interested in seeing a good horn speaker done right by the Outlaws?

The OutlawHorn / OutlawSub Combo:



[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited November 18, 2003).]

I think Altec might have some issues about calling that an "Outlaw" system.

Legal reasons, probably not-- reasons of aesthetics, yes. Today, the general public pretty much prefers tall and slim speaker designs (see Wife Acceptance Factor). Horns can take up a lot of floorspace- which might limit their appeal these days. The lower the frequency range they reproduce, the bigger they get.

Yes there are- but I'd have to defer to the horn experts out there to tell you why.
There are many speaker manufacturers out there that utilize horns in their designs. Even Altec Lansing (See soundhound's photo) is making the Altec 7 Voice Of The Theatre once again ($4000 each!). You can get horns from JBL- in their Pro Audio series, I believe. Do a search for horn speakers- you'll find lots of 'em out there!
Personally, I like the sound of horns. Our first "serious" speaks were Klipsch Heresy's- the only Klipsch Horns we could afford when we bought them in the late 70's. I just don't see Outlaw hooking their horses up to the old Horn Wagon, but who knows...

Hmm-- I probably should have stated that I was thinking more along the lines of a smaller, more affordable horn (6" or so, that would fit in a bookshelf speaker or thin floorstanding tower that a spouse could approve of). Thanks for the horn info, though, guys!

I sort of came upon the idea by looking at my own system and those of my friends.. over the years, I've accumulated a hodgepodge of various speaker brands that now serve as center, fronts, and surrounds, that sounded good enough together for a home theatre until an Outlaw 1050 proved to me that it was time to step up. However, to replace seven speakers at once, without actually stepping down a bit in overall quality, requires a hefty sum. Horns struck me as being able to best "fill" many different sizes and types of room, meaning that this type of speaker would have a greater value to a wider range of folks trying to start up a quality home theatre.

In actuality, I'd be quite happy with *any* speaker ensemble from Outlaw, as long as they kept the same quality-to-cost ratio seen in their other products. There seems to be a pretty big gap between low-end speakers and high-end ones, with not much grey area for those of us with a love of good sound but not much disposable income...

I think the issue with a smaller horn driver is that they're tremendously efficient in the upper registers, but then in the lower they're not quite as efficient. Which means that going with a smaller horn obligates one to use several midrage/woofer drivers to complete a full range speaker. This would defeat the proposed soloution of lessening the size of the speaker by going with the horn. I do like the sound of a horn, but I find that my ears (personally) always love the sound of a very good ribbon tweeter. A high quality ribbon delivers a clarity I find hard to beat (as always, however, this is just my opinion). The sad fact about ribbons, however, is that normally they're poorly implemented and therefore have a rather harsh sound to them. Alas, what to do?!? Outlaw speaker set, eh? Perhpas they're ahead of you. Any HomeTheatre enthusiast knows that the sub is the key to the movie, and here we have an LFM1 coming, a hint maybe?