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Hola,
I've never understood Lowther enthusiasts.
In the past, Lowther drivers have alsways sounded "live" in the way that perhaps a vocalist was being dragged against his will through the driver and out into the listening room.
Then, on a lark, I had a chance to pick up a pair of modified Lowther speakers made by that company in Stephen's blog.
Maybe it's the free air resonance loading, or the modification of the driver, but I actually like these babies.
Bass is MIA, but I got them pur't near the rear wall, so I'm hearing them down to about 120HZ.
90HZ is discernable, but easily noted as been down several dB at that frequency.
Right now I'm driving them with my Krell AV300i, and they are rather sweet!
Good words for the sound:
Very fast and immediate.
Quite detailed, even up into the treble frequencies.
Lots of detail. A surprising amount!
The horns load the room well, so they have adequate small scale dynamics - vocals, acoustic instruments...but not massed instruments or rock and roll levels. Good, at the level of an actual vocalist in the room loud. Same for sax.
They seem more dynamic because of their speed, but focusing on drums - they obviously "shrink" the impact of the drum kit.
They image in a theater screen kind of way. Not pinpoint imaging, but a nice enveloping wash that is sometimes more "accurate" sounding than the pinpoint imaging of the electrostats they replaced.
They have a good, friendly, lively, live feel.
Vocals are so immediate, it gave my wife gooseflesh!
I said, "Hey baby, maybe it's me."
She said, "No, it's the speakers."
The "Wife Acceptance Factor" is beyond 100% favorable.
She likes to play them while she's in the kitchen (off to stage right) and sing along.
She likes them better than the Klipsch La Scallas that were there, and the Acoustat 2+2's that followed.
There was also a spell with some NFS modded A/D/S 300C's mated with Genesis subwoofers, but the 300C's were just way too reticent, even with the Krell trying to prod them along.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and venture to say that the midrange is better than most Quads I've heard. It's really something!
On the downside, there's the bass. Definitely in need of supplemental assistance.
I'll shut up about any other complaint, 'cause, as you've probably experienced, getting the last octave into a system often fleshes out parts of the sound that you think are higher frequency flaws, but are actually due to the lack of bass and its fundamentals.
Stephen wanted pics...by coincidence, he blogged about them the day after I put them together!
They also sound very room-independent. Making for a cleaner aesthetic experience in a room that is our day to day family and company casually hanging out room.
So far, happy guy!
.....) now I gotta find a new part time rig. On that note, I took a survey of my tastes and find that I like planar/open baffle speakers (three out four home rigs) - with a propensity for full range, crossover-less designs (two out of four.)
