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The Jean-Michel Le Cléac'h’s horns or as I call them La-Horns get a lot of popularity among people who are trying to build horns loaded systems. But as anything else in audio the Morons hear any noise and they has no idea how to associate the noise with anything else, so, instead of sensibly deal with noise they just brainlessly mimic what they do not understand.

The Jean-Michel enthusiasm about the subject is appealing but only to degree. If one have objectives to endless chewing over of the same irrelevant things then Mr. Cléac'h’s view are good playground for it. It similar if you like tomatoes. You love them and you feel that   tomatoes salad is something that you can’t live without them. You decided to grow your own tomatoes and to do so you but, seeds, cultivate seeding lend, buy a tractor, fertilizers, fight with animals and insects, so do who any other tomato-grower would do. What is very important is to understand that you go over all of your agrarian waves because you want to have better tomatoes. In contrary you might get hooked with a perfect geometry and perfect angle of the spikes of your plow. For the next 15 year you are obsessed with angle of the “perfect spike” and behind your new hobby no one, even you, see the smell and taste of tomatoes.

The reason I write this note is an email that I got last night from a person who is trying to build a big horn system and he asked if I suggest him to buy La-horns.  He said that he read all that I expressed about the subject but he still does not get to home believe: to me or to Jean-Michel. I was surprised with shaping of the question like this as I do not see any conflict or rivalry between Jean-Michel and myself. The difference between Jean-Michel and me is in our approach. Jean-Michel approaches subjects of horns as a self-contained entity. He is way more intelligent, educated and much more scientifically minded then me. He is able to dissect the horn theory to the level that I not able to understand. This is fact. Also, it is a fact that I do not find 95% of what Jean-Michel says a relevant to anything that I value in audio. It is not that he is incorrect, in fact I feel that he is very accurate but it is all about a “perfect spike” that has no, or very little relation to the final Sound of Tomato. If we doctors then my view of horns is a health of enter body. A doctor Le Cléac'h look like think that developing the best method to test some kind of Bilirubin in blood is a way of practicing the healthy well-being. It is not that I find that Bilirubin testing is not important but I do find that from a perspective of general medicine it is pretty much irrelevant subject.

I never read Jean-Michel’s view of playback, audio, sound of music at that mater. I am sure they exist but he does not find it worth to expose at least. Without it I have no reference and no context of many of Jean-Michel’s commentaries.  Why for instance I feel that Jean-Michel’s view about playback organization I find are important? Because the La-horn profile in many ways conflict with ideas of about playback organization. Look at the picture.

You see the La-horn profile with two points A and B. From the throat of the horn to the point A the La-horn implements a tractrix profile. Then there is a section from points A to point B that I call “negative opening”.  This negative opening adds SIGNIFICANTLY to the diameter of the horn. Do I consider that negative opening is beneficial for sound? Yes, I do. At HF it is beneficial, event though I did see the idiots make upperbass La-horns. Why in such case I am not convinced that for MF the La-horn is preferable? Because the sonic practical benefit that might or might not come from the La-horn negative opening are in my view well offset by the system design compromisers that negative opening force you to endure. When idiots stick Yellow Drivers in 150Hz La-horn and use it as full-range channels then I do not talk about negative opening advantages/disadvantages as this setup is idiotic anyhow. In context of multichannel installation   I would only think about the La-profile disadvantage. It might be different if somebody would think about the whole acoustic system setup with La-horn employed. However, no one does it. Jean-Michel draw endless recommendations for big La-profile with ported bass driver at the bottom and the folks who sell La-profiles juts sell individual horns. I did not see the La-profile to be tested and challenged at any installation that I would find offensive or interesting.

It would be a good idea for somebody to try come up with a 5-6 channels when the channels atop would have max La-horn negative opening and gradually to decries the negative opening as the frequency goes down. To make all of it work sonically, make the frame and horn arrangement that it would look attractively would be a very interesting and challenging task. I think this is what Jean-Michel need to do in order to get any credibility for his La-horn profile. Until I see this attempt is undertaken I would insist that I see no deferens between Tractrix and La-horn but find that Tractrix has a lot of real-estate advantages.

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