Are Lowthers a "full range listening" speaker?

Hi Dennis. The Jena labs cabinet designs are some of the relatively newer designs on the Lowther market. The Medallion 2 is sort of like a Lammhorn design, and is good to about 60Hz on the bottom end. True horn designs, whether they be front or rear loaded, are limited by the length, shape, and size of the horn cavity, especially the mouth dimensions. Very low response is generally not achieved by true horns due to overall size considerations that are required for deep bass horns. I have looked at the Medallion 2 cabinet, and it looks like a pretty solid design, and should be quite satisfactory within its design parameters. The Voigt Pipe has a lower cutoff frequency because if its combination design not being a true horn. The transmission line and bass reflex characteristics allow deeper bottom end than most non-corner horn designs for the Lowther. Voigt Pipes are the cheapest and easiest to make, and are probably not the very best enclosure for the Lowther, but they are good. Some commercial designs like the Lammhorn 1.8 or Rethm systems will do better than the Voigt Pipe, but cost far more. I have found that the Voigt Pipes were fine for me, at the money I could spend. The sound is much better than would be expected from something that costs as little as it does. Mine were only about $1500 total including drivers, solid oak cabinets, and hardware. Took about a weekend to build using only a circular saw, jigsaw, hand drill, screwdriver, and glue. I used cabinet grade lumber, so finish sanding and staining was simple. The normal Voigt Pipe(non-folded) is 6 feet tall and has a 1 foot square footprint. Mine have extended sides that are hinged, and protrude out 1 foot on each side, for a total width of 3 feet when the "wings" are fully extended. So a normal Voigt Pipe will be 6' tall and a foot wide, and mine are 6' tall and 3 feet wide. Both are a foot deep. Lowther drivers take a very long time to break-in, and will need at least 100 hours to start "loosening up" and giving better bass. After 500 hours, they are fully broken in. They sound great from the beginning, but get alot better. I think the Hedlund horn is a very nice cabinet, but complex to build. If I had some money and time, I would give them a try myself. But I am quite happy with the Voigt Pipe, even if they are not the "ultimate" design. They will give you plenty of enjoyment and music at reasonable costs. When you read about the Voigt Pipe design, alot of disparaging comments are made about the "comb-filtering" problem, but that never was a problem for me. I think that too much is made of that, and is not really the problem that they make it out to be. If there is a problem with that, it is not noticeable in actual listening, so I don't consider it a problem in real world use. Welcome to the world of single-drivers.

I recently converted to an AER rear-loaded horn speaker (102db). I believe I am getting very good bass down to 40Hz. I also use an Art of Sound Tycus subwoofer to reinforce the bottom end. It is a very quick subwoofer that blends in very well. I have heard a Lowther DX3 speaker that I sounded good but the AER is much smoother. I am using an AER MKII-SP which is especially made to improve the bass in the enclosure I am using. Go to http://www.fullrange-speakers.com/1version/eng/home-e.htm to view the Acoustique speaker which I am using. The AER MKII-SP is around $2500. The sound is very detailed, dynamic, and imaging very three dimensional. Full Range Speakers will provide the plans for the cabinets.
Good luck - lots of choices and lots of info on the web.

Best to listen for yourself. Since you have "broad" musical tastes, which include rock, a Lowther based speaker is not the best choice.

One of the best Lowther speakers I've heard were the Rythyms, which use a modified DX-4. I thought the speakers were hooked up to subwoofers. On the best recorded material it sounded fabulous, but on music with heavy electronic bass or music with many instruments playing simultaneously, things started to unravel. Thin and poorly recorded music were unlistenable.

The Voigt pipes that I've heard did not go down to 40Hz. Or if it did it must have been -9db. The sound was immediate and transparent, albeit with a tizzy treble. I would not build the Voigts without TWL's wings as it addresses the baffle step loss.

Check out the full range driver website and high efficiency speaker forum @ audioasylum.

The only experience I have are with my own Lamhorns with DX-3 Lowthers and a friend's Beauhorns with I believe, EX-4. Both systems have high quality subs. Based on this, I disagree with Ultrakaz' observation that they are not the best choice for rock. Both of these systems are capable of very high SPL and do not "unravel." Quite the opposite.

As for poorly recorded music being unlistenable, you can't have it both ways. If your system hides the flaws in poor recordings it will also hide some of the beauty in good ones. I would rather the best be better and the worst be worse than everything sounding mediocre

I guess if rock was all I wanted then I might go with a multi-driver, mega-watt setup, but Eclectic listens to a wide range of music and I think this is the way to go.

One thing to consider with AER drivers, and the reason I went with Lowthers, is that the AER driver was only available in 16 ohms. Perhaps this has changed since I bought mine, but a 16 ohm speaker limits your choice of amplifiers since many SET amps don't have 16 ohm taps. I had a Wavelength amp at that time with 4 and 8 ohm taps. Gordon Rankin was very adamant about using a matched speaker with his amp to obtain best performance.

Hey, you guys, this is more great information. Thanks, TWL for another detailed answer. Much of the technical stuff is over my head -maddeningly so, because I would like to understand it. But that is just inspiration to pursue an old facination with knowing what makes sound work and read more as I revive my dormant interest in audio. (My live music listening doesn't need reviving, but I don't by any means enjoy live world class music all the time)
I have been reading numerous other interesting posts on the web, regarding horns mostly, and note two Lowther clubs/shops in Canada that for some reason escaped me till now. Looks like a small but growing trend happening with this, including I think, Dgclark above.

Thanks Jimyork, Ultrakaz, Herman for your experiences and opposite speculations on suitability of Lowthers for Rock. All are helpful. I know from the past that different people will listen to Rock on really different systems and prefer it that way--ESL 63 to Klipsch. I will have to find out for myself, and if the back horn/pipe design didn't work, I could keep the drivers and go Oris perhaps. It doesn't seem like the outlay is beyond me for a set of drivers (probably not the top Lowthers or AER--too expensive for now, and a bit much to invest "sound unseen") My tastes are indeed eclectic-recently listened to Ravi Shankar(Inside the Kremlin) with singers, orchestra, and ensemble of traditional Indian instruments, Van Morrison, Oliver Mtukudzi(Zimbabwean music, favorite of Bonnie Raitt) in one evening! Carmina Burana, and Loreena McKennitt not far behind. It would be so much easier to like just one thing, but I could never do that. I would say that midrange quality matters the most to me, transparency and natural timber, but not at the expense of no dynamics, or really limited listening levels. Bass is great, but if you can't have everything.....

Herman, how did the Lamhorn and Beaumarks compare? Does anyone know if either of these designs, or the Carfrae for that matter, are available anywhere, or is that proprietary knowledge a closed door? The cabinetry doesn't throw me off as I have a reasonable wood shop in my basement. Hedlunds are a very esthetically attractive idea, but TWL's Voights perform very satisfyingly to him and seem a better starting point. And who knows, maybe a finishing point!