Good to see you here, and thanks for your opinions. I agree with you about directivity. I like cornerhorn speakers with all flares set for 90o horizontal dispersion because then directivity is matched throughout the audio band, and wall reflections are minimized. With narrow vertical directivity, floor bounce is reduced too. A 40x90 flare works nicely with mids and tweeters placed at ear level. The pattern angle drop from a 40o flare is one foot for every 33 inches, so if the midhorn is placed three feet from the floor, the floor bounce is about 8.25 feet out, and not particularly problematic. That's my favorite implementation.

As for distortion, I can really hear the difference between a driver with a shorting ring and another similar driver without one. It makes about 20dB reduction in second-order harmonics. But that's harmonic distortion that I'm hearing. What kinds of non-linear distortions are you talking about? Things like breakup modes or non-linearities in the motor movement?

Wayne