Specimen Little Horn Speaker
February 1, 2010 By Dennis Burger

Little Big Horn

For more than a decade, Chicago luthier Ian Schneller has been experimenting with horn-shaped drivers paired with amps to better project the sound of hard-to-amplify instruments, much to the delight of artists like violinist Andrew Bird.

Now his company, Specimen, brings the same sensibilities to the world of audiophile music reproduction with the Little Horn Speaker.

Specimen Little Horn Speaker, “Technically speaking, these Little Horns are inspired by classic rear-loaded horns, but the deeper creative inspiration came to me from nature and geometry,” Schneller says.

“I love the way simple geometry unfolds when you look up close at the structure of plants. I marvel at the geometric structural prowess of Gustave Eiffel and William Le Baron Jenney. The octagonal form of the Little Horns is a structural phenomenon; their strength is incredible for a shape that has no bracing system, buttresses or reinforcements of any kind. With the Little Horns, I am trying to blur the lines between nature and man-made objects.”

Each 36-inch Little Horn is constructed of high-density fiberglass, with a heavy Baltic birch base. Specimen recommends a power handling range of less-than-10 to 24 watts. The Little Horn can be finished in any of nine lacquer-finish combinations for the horns and seven different stains for the base.