hey
im spending 2 - 2.5k on my setup in my new car in a few months
hilux ute and i have a chance to get some horn drivers 2nd hand off a mate for 500 bucks worth 2k he has the recept for.

I dunno what compression horns are lol and i was wondering if it would be better than some 500 splits???

Compression horns are the best thing you can buy in car audio. The best Sound Quality cars use them, and the loudest cars use them.

I have a pair of Image Dynamics Horns and they sound absolutely amazing. With 60wrms they go loud

You'd run the setup active. U'd need a seperate 2 channel for the horns, and a seperate 2 channel for the midrange speakers. Or you could get a 4 channel, but u'd find the horns wont need as much power to get loud.

they also can be the hardest to make sound excellent, depending on your situation though.
they are pretty much what the name implies, you have a motor and a horn, it converts the high pressure sound waves at the entrance of the horn(where they screw in) to low pressure sound over the wide area of the horn mouth, they are very efficiant ranging from 99db - 110db so they dont need lots of power to get loud and you cross them over at a lower freq, around 800hz usually depending on the design this is better because there is no crossover point in the critical vocal range like conventional splits.

if you dont have a EQ you will need one, what brand are they? diagphram or peizo/composite diagphram? they a can have a tendency to sound really bad(listen to any nightclub ) when not tuned right and because of the design if you give then heaps of power there will be a breakup of sound in the horn mouth itself due there being so much sound pressue in the horn(the non-linearity or the air itself) that is why some ones in clubs sound so bad!

given the right tuning and setup they will sound amazing but it can take more effort to get them really good. i originally had a set of USD d2 pezio horns which are very good i had them for 3 years and i finally had them to a excellent sound through the use of a pair of DQT's, i now have a pair of RCF titanium diagphram drivers screwed onto them and im still working on the sound,
the things are getting 200wrms a piece and are begging for more

While horns can be good in some situations, I would hardly say they are the best thing you can buy in car audio.

Definitely not all of the best SQ cars use them, your statement is very subjective.

Sure horns can definitely play very loud, but often normal speakers can be loud enough.......

I've always wondered how high end compression horns such as veritas fare against high end dome tweeters like the Focal TLR or Morel Supremos and how these compare with the ribbons from say Raven when it comes to accuracy and transparency... anybody have any comparative reviews or listening experiences?

For the average user, buy some horns, mount them under the dash and use woofer in the stock positions and it will sound excellent.

To get the same imaging out of the normal dome tweeters will require custom pods or kikc panels to mount them. Also the fact that the high end tweeters are 4inchs in diameter makes installation again pretty hard.

You can use time alignment to make it sound good on the drivers side of the car, but in the passengers seat it wont sound good. Horns image 99% perfect on both sides of the car with little effort.

Best thing is, the horns i have a Piezo type Compression drivers, so the voice coil cant blow, so when my mates turn it up to 110% not gonna be blowing stuff. People think Piezo's sound harsh, but i can gurantee that they were running fullrange as they high pass themselves. If you run them active with a steep slope, they will sound sharp and go crazy loud.

piezo's is kind of a bad term! there actually a composite(paper) cone that is powered by a piezo plate.
they have a small light globe inside them that acts as an impedience regulator of sorts, when you give them heaps of power, and i mean heaps(some piezo's can handle 400wrms per driver!) of power the globe begins to glow increasing its impedience' which in turn reduces there output to a degree, it makes them virtually indestructable! they can play flat out forever!.
unfortunatly they dont have them on coil design ones so there is a limit to them, but replacement domes are usually redilaly availible reasonably cheap' some even come with replacements and its a matter af screwing the new ones in, simple!

a comparison is a little hard' there vastly different types of speakers and completely different sounding' there has always been arguements over horns v's conventional tweeters, in the end they both have there pro's and con's
i would definately say for absolute naturalness in sound' conventional tweeters would be on top, but horns will offer a better image etc and will always beat them with dynamics at huge volume levels, where they sound like a tweeter the size of a 15" sub!!
they will always require equalization to sound excellent were as a component set can sound excellent without it 'just carefull placement!

one other downfall is that they can make you go deaf very easly :| and i mean that seriously! there definatly not something to listen to at loud volumes in close range