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I used to know a guy from back when I was going to Phish shows who was an audio engineer and showed me this website along time ago and was going to build the imperial folded horn cabinet. I lost touch with him and never heard if he got it done or how it sounded. THe claims on the imperial page sound untrue but he did not seem to think so and said it is all in the design and how the sound is moved in the cabinet. He worked for McIntosh doing something, I cannot recall what though. He knew his stuff at least with respect to mastering phish shows so much that the band own archivist was giving him previously untouched DATS from the early 90s to master for release on bt.etree.org (legal tracker). What is those of you who know your stuff take on Decware's stuff and have anyone purchased anything from them. You can even buy the plans for the cabinets which I think is pretty cool.
http://www.decware.com/newsite/mainmenu.htm
He was looking at this design.
http://www.decware.com/newsite/mainm....htm&intro
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Decware Imperial:
I think they're using coaxial drivers (15"), in a backloaded construction. Similar to the old monster Tannoys:
Backloaded horns is what you see quite often in the DIY community. They get somewhat budget fullrange drivers and put them in a backloaded horn.
Or in super funky cylindrical form:
Depending on what you're aiming for, I think this can be a good solution. I'd personally still would like to digitally EQ them to give them some real warmth, which just backhorning them doesn't quite do.
As far as coaxial drivers go, that's certainly a solution. There is a reasonable selection of coaxial drivers and if it's power you're after then this is one way to go. But remember, it's still a two-way system that crosses in a sensitive area. I wouldn't prefer it over a really good fullranger in a suitable case (like the PHY-HPs in open baffle in the OP), but I would certainly prefer it over a standard two-way system with wide-directional tweeter.