October 2009
My Lowther Journey
With a rant or two sprinkled in for good measure.
Article By Scott Faller
This has been quite a ride over the past
half dozen years or so. It all started when I decided to take on a simple 2A3
amp as a review just after the turn of the century (how weird does that sound?).
At that time, my Adventures in High Efficiency started with a simple pair of
vintage Lafayette Goodman 15-inch coaxial drivers and that SET amp. After
enjoying that system for a number of months I knew that there was more to be
gained, not only in clarity but that single ended magic
we all so often read about. Not long after, I made a serious investment in a
pair of premium high efficiency drivers, the Lowther PM2As. This was where the
hook got set.
When I first received my PM2As, I was warned that
there was going to be an extended break in time. Since I hadn't built my
Medallion cabinets yet, I tossed together a pair of Martin King's MLTLs (mass
loaded transmission lines). These cabinets were an extremely easy build. I think
I had all of about eight hours into them and they were up and playing. When I
first got them going (early on during the break in process), I used a notch
filter to help tame the break-in peakiness of the PM2As. As time wore on and the
pale yellow paper cones began to loosen, I found the need for the notch filter
was lessened. Martin's design was actually quite good and it allows a person to
use the Lowthers in true single driver configuration. Overall the sound was
fairly even top to bottom. Granted they we limited to about 40Hz if you corner
loaded them but for many, that is just fine.
Speaking of corner loading, most of the way
through the PM2As break in process, I finished my Medallion cabinets. These
added a whole new dimension to the Lowther sound. Though many people love the
sound of the Medallions as a stand alone full range speaker, I couldn't live
without the last couple (or three) of octaves of bass. Corner loaded they
sounded fairly decent but for my music of choice, I really wanted deep solid
bass, and lots of it. I give all the kudos in the world to Lowther and Jennifer
Crock as the Medallions did midrange and midbass dynamics like no other speaker.
The next major step I took in my journey was when
I had the brainy idea to bi-amp and actively crossover the PM2As using my
15-inch Goodmans to fill in the bass duties. This time I knew I was really onto
something. At the time I was using my Audio Research AC-3 (tubed) active
crossover. Driving the PM2As was still my Handmade Audio 2A3 Deluxe Classic and
driving the Goodmans was a pair of Antique Sound Labs Wave 8s. After playing
with numerous crossover points, I finally settled on crossing the two drivers at
100 Hz. That was where I got the most seamless transition between the two. I
lived with this basic setup for a number of years but the rear loaded horn
design of the Medallion just wasn't as seamless as I wanted it to be when mated
to the Goodmans.
Then, on a trip to Chicago to see a rare USA
concert by the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, I stopped by Jon Ver Halen's house. Jon is
the distributor for Lowther in North America. He had been experimenting with
Dick Olsher's Basszilla open baffle design. Jon had mounted a pair of PM6As in
an open baffle and rolled a 15-inch Eminence in a ported enclosure below it. Jon
was passively crossing the Basszilla's. As we sat and listened to some vinyl, I
was in absolute awe of what I was hearing. The Basszilla's provided a completely
different sound compared to the Medallions. The sound was big, open and spacious
and had tremendous focus. They reminded me of the soundstage that Maggies and
Innersound's throw. See, before I got into SETs and Lowthers, I was tri-amping
and actively crossing over a pair of pair of speakers that used Carver ribbons
on the top end. I'd been listening to that system for a number of years so the
huge soundstage was like welcoming home an old friend. Again, I saw the next
path I needed to travel.
When I returned from that trip, I immediately
constructed a make-shift baffle and attached it to my Goodman cabinets (which
were corner loaded at the time). Though I could hear similarities to Jon's
Basszillas, I found mine were too close to the head wall. Trouble was that when
I pulled them out far enough to take advantage of the open baffle design
properties, the bass rolled off too hard. Big vintage woofers tend to like large
cabinets and either head wall or corner loading to produce deep solid bass. So
to get decent bass my next step was to build a temporary stand just for the
Lowther baffle. Doing this let me move the Lowther OB's out into the room where
they could breathe and at the same time let the Goodmans stay against the head
wall where they were their happiest. This turned out to be the ticket. The
soundstage opened up and the image improved, depth increased dramatically and
the deep bass came back and paid off in spades.
Of late I've been listening to my 15-inch Altec
416-16Zs with Alnico magnets as the woofers for this system. I've got these
mounted in a pair of vintage Richardo Lynn furniture grade cabinets that were
originally built as Karlson cabinets. They originally had a pair of Pioneer
PAX-30 coax drivers in them. As much as I tried to like the sound of this
particular pair of Karlsons, I couldn't wrap my head around their sound. Since
the cabinetry was beautifully done, I decided to yank the drivers and gut the
cabinets of the Karlson couplers. After measuring the Thiele/Small parameters on
the Altec 416s I found the cabinets were almost perfectly sized for my Altecs so
I installed a fair amount of bracing and then began playing with the port tuning
and stuffing. They turned into a fine looking pair of vented bass reflex
cabinets. In fact, for a year or so I used these bass bins as the lower halves
of my (almost) Altec A7s. I sat my Altec 511 horns (with the 802D drivers) on
top with the modified Altec N500 dividing network performing crossover duties.
Very cool vintage sound that I can still partake in when the mood strikes me.
So
what is the bottom line on the Altec 416s as woofers compared to the Goodmans?
In a word, unbelievable. The Altec's are hands down so
far superior of sound to the Goodmans there is no comparison. I can't believe it
took me so long to make the switch since I've had these for almost four years.
As tight and defined as the Goodmans bass was, they simply didn't have the Xmax
that some of my music demanded. I could hear cone breakup and distortion when I
pushed them into heavy SPLs. The Altecs, on the other hand, don't even break a
sweat when you push them hard. They just play louder. Another added benefit was
they brought a bit of mid-bass warmth to the game that the Goodmans didn't have.
Now when I lean on the volume knob on a bass heavy song, the whole house shakes
like crazy. I haven't had this kind of bass in the house for a long, long time.
This isn't loose and sloppy bass either. It is clean with zero overhang,
extremely well defined with proper harmonics and yet has that dry slam that is
almost indicative to a horn loaded bass. This is the kind of bass that you could
perform CPR with. The Altecs aren't just about shear SPLs either. As I mentioned
the 416s provide an extremely tuneful and harmonic rich bass range in my
enclosures which are 5.5 cubic feet and tuned to 20 Hz. Something else that is
really cool is that unlike some woofers I've heard that don't come alive and
actually start producing decent bass until you turn them up to moderate levels,
the 416s load the cabinets and produce rock solid, deep bass even at very low
SPLs (read=late night quiet listening).
Now some of you might be thinking, hey with the
woofers corner loaded and the baffles are well out in the listening space, doesn't
that mean there is some sort of time alignment issues? Well, you'd be correct in
that assumption…to a point. If you dig a little deeper into time alignment and
audibility you'll find that the human ear is less sensitive to misalignments at
lower frequencies. In fact I've seen studies that say that at low frequency
misalignment is inaudible out to around 25ms. In my case the corner loaded
woofers sit about four feet behind the plane of the OBs. According to my
calculations, that works out to be a 3.5ms delay using 1127.92 ft/sec as the
speed of sound at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Basically that 3.5ms delay is pretty
much inaudible. Then you need to take into consideration that since the Lowthers
are on an open baffle and radiating backward and the sound wave for the mids and
highs are bouncing off the same wall that the woofers are sitting against, the
likelihood of hearing timing issues is even less of a factor since we've got
reflected and delayed sound coming from all over the place. It's just the nature
of an open baffle speaker. No doubt someone who is reading this will dispute
these findings to their death and claim I'm deaf (or close to it). That's fine
but until that same person has parked their butt in my
listening seat in my room and
actually listened rather than conducting the typical thought experiments I read
so often on forums, I (personally) would discount everything they type
regardless of how logical it may sound.
Sorry for getting sidetracked.
When I first moved the Lowthers from the
Medallion cabinets to the OBs, their character changed pretty significantly.
Much of the huge mid-bass and midrange dynamics I experienced with the back
loaded horns were all but gone. But the more I listened, the more it became
clear, though the big dynamics were cool, they weren't real. The PM2As residing
in an open baffle gave a more natural sound and flow to the music. Far more like
what I hear when I go see acoustic music performed live (which is quite often
BTW).
Pulling my make-shift baffles out into the room
and leaving the woofers corner loaded showed some serious
promise. With the temporary baffles in place, I began experimenting with
“wings" and “beards". Essentially what I was doing was expanding the
baffle area to give a lift (or boost) to the lower midrange and upper mid-bass
frequencies. I did everything from installing wings on the side of the baffle to
extending the baffle to the floor creating a beard. These wings were nothing
more than cardboard or rigid plastic. I wasn't overly concerned with these
things being pretty or overly rigid during this part of the experimentation
phase. I just wanted to hear the lift I'd get by extending the baffle surface.
This proved to work pretty well.
By
the time I actually started to finalize my design plans for my OBs, my Lowthers
probably had the best part of 5000 to 6000 hours on them. Needless to say they
were completely broken in. All of the shrill highs and break in nasties were
completely gone. That said, anyone who has listened to and knows Lowther PM2As
knows they are still just a tad forward sounding (read=a slight rise in the
frequency response at about 2.5 kHz).
I wanted to tame this somehow without
using a notch filter. Anyone that has read my drivel over the years knows I
absolutely abhor caps, resistors or coils in my signal path regardless of what
their purpose is. Though I've played with a number of passive notch filter
designs over the years, each and every one has sucked the life right out of the
music. In turn, I've done everything I can to avoid using them. The same holds
true with this baffle design, I wanted no part of the vampiric baffle step
compensation networks so I needed to figure a way around using them.
If
you notice in the pictures, my drivers are offset from the centerline of the
baffle. In this position on the baffle, the offset helped to minimize the baffle
gain in that 2k range. I didn't cut dozens of baffles in an attempt to find the
best position for the driver, what I did was download a little program called
Edge which estimates the baffle gains at a given frequency based upon the size
of your driver, width and height of your baffle and finally (and most
importantly) the position of your driver. The Edge simulation program is quite
easy to use and from what I can hear, fairly accurate in its modeling.
I chose acrylic as my baffle material of choice.
One of the reasons I chose acrylic for the baffle besides its very low resonant
frequency was that with a baffle this size, it was going to look pretty
obtrusive in my listening room. Granted, my listening room is larger than most
at 38'x15' but with a room this size, a solid wood baffle would be too visually
intrusive but that's just me. Besides, the acrylic is just plain cool looking.
The base of this open baffle design is nothing
more than 0.75-inch MDF with a 1 x 2 inch red oak wrapper around the outside. I
sized it to make sure the baffle wouldn't tip over if somebody knocked into it.
Around the edge of the baffle, I wrapped it in more 1 x 2 oak. In both the base
and the baffle wrapper I routed a slot to keep a grip on the 0.75-inch thick
acrylic baffle. In order to rigidly support the acrylic baffle I cut some more 1
x 4 red oak and installed a couple of knee braces off the back side of the
baffle. The finished product ended up more rigid than I was hoping, which is a
very good thing. To give it a nice finished look, I used a round over bit to
soften all the exposed edges. After that it was a simple matter of some stain to
darken the wood and numerous coats of a spray on urethane semi-gloss finish to
match the rest of my DIY equipment racks and Welborne DRD amps.
As
you may or may not be able to see in the sketch below, the physical dimensions
of the baffle are:
Width = 15"
Height = 53"
Vertical Centerline = 37"
Horizontal Centerline = 5"
Circumference for the PM2A = 7.48"
Granted, I modeled (more like approximated) this for the
frequency response of the PM2A. If you are looking to do something similar for a
different model of Lowther driver, this offset design should work fairly well as
the frequency rise of a number of Lowthers are either at or near 2500Hz. Then
again, if you play with the computer program Edge, you may find that a different
baffle and offset dimension look (or sound) better to you. If so, go for it.
There are dozens of ways to skin this cat. Oh, and don't get hung up on using
acrylic, plywood or some other material will work just fine. Remember, we are
only asking for 150Hz out of this panel which means little if any sympathetic
panel ringing from the panel material. I only chose acrylic because of its
transparency, that and I had grand ideas about lighting the edges up with LEDs
buried in the base (you can see how far I got with that one).

Anyway,
in my room I've got my listening seat positioned about 2/3rd of the
way back into the room. It's a pretty common seating placement since you have a
minimum of nodes and nulls at this position. My baffles are pulled out from the
headwall about six feet which gives them plenty of room to breathe. If you've
ever heard or played with an open baffle or dipole speaker like Magnepan, Martin
Logan, Innersounds, Quads or other electrostatic panels, you know these speakers
need lots of room behind them to sound their best. Once you find the correct
position, you are in for quite a treat.
All in all the build of my acrylic and oak wrapped open
baffles I'd rate an 8 out of 10 on the difficulty scale mainly due to the
complexity of routing all of the oak (which is a trick all unto itself),
precision cutting and fitting mitered corners coupled with the fact you need
some serious woodworking tools to complete this project. You definitely can't do
this one with just a tape measure, power saw and a drill. I'm lucky as over the
years I've been able to amass a pretty nicely outfitted wood shop (one of my
other hobbies). On the other hand, if you want to build yours out of plywood and
use iron on edge tape (veneer), you can easily do this with a tape, circular
saw, a jig saw and a drill. In fact, it would only take about four hours if you
know what you are doing. I'd suggest this as a first run at it, and then if you
like what you hear go for a cooler build like maybe black acrylic.
So
How Do They Sound?
Briefly, the open baffle PM2As augmented by the
Altec's below are unconditionally without rival. The absolute naturalness and
pristine clarity of the open baffle coupled with the coherency of a wide range
driver sounds like no other speaker I've experienced. You end up with a
ginormous, enveloping sound stage that has world class focus and placement. As I've
always touted, the best Lowther drivers have seriously good treble extension,
out to the 14 kHz range reasonably flat. Though adding a super tweeter gives a
bit more air to their overall presentation, the quality Lowther drivers don't demand a super tweeter to make them listenable unlike so many
other single driver speakers I've listened to. I used a super tweeter with the
Medallions for a short time but found I didn't miss that little bit of air when
I removed it. In turn, the super tweeters sit on my shelf likely never to be
used again with the Lowthers.
As precious few have experienced first hand, when you hear the
Lowther A series drivers implemented properly as I have done, they give that
breath of life to music that we writers often refer to as presence.
The absolute clarity of these speakers when mated to a quality single ended
triode amplifier is truly breath taking. They are as timbrally accurate a
speaker as I've ever heard. Granted, a new pair of A series drivers will set you
back two grand (or better in some cases), I personally don't think there is a
better speaker available on the market today that can cover the frequency range
that the Lowther A series drivers are capable of doing. I'll take that a step
further, the way I have implemented the PM2As in an OB then augmented the bass
with the Altec 416s, I personally don't think there is a better, more realistic
and truly natural sounding system on the planet, regardless of cost.
Read into this what you want but after finishing my latest
tweaks to this setup, a couple of local audiophile buds invested in the Lowther
A series of drivers and a third just scored a pair of PM6Ts (Ticonals) from Jon
Ver Halen. Two of the guys are building a near identical system to what I have
right down to the Altec 416s because they like the sound so much. Of the thirty
or so local audio guys that have heard either this or a previous incarnation of
my Open Baffle system, this brings the total to six who are either in the
process of building the Lowther Open Baffles. Think about that for a second,
that's 20% of a local audiophile group. As you all know, Audiophiles are a
finicky lot that doesn't like to own what the next guy has. Everybody wants to
have unique system…which is absolutely cool. I get it because I'm that way
too. But when you look at this similar system population density, those numbers
alone should tell you there is something to this. I honestly can't take credit
for any of this. Between Jon Ver Halen and the Dick Olsher design, they were the
ones that showed me this basic path. I only tweaked the concept a bit by
detaching the baffle from the bass bin and decided to use an active crossover
and biamp the system. Then again maybe just because of persistence and dumb luck
I actually stumbled onto something with the detached baffle design.
Now to veer completely off course...
Bloody
Damned Rumors
One thing I need to do before I quit typing is try to dispel a rumor or
two that exists and seems to be continually perpetuated via print magazines,
online forums and eZines.
The first and most notorious is the infamous Lowther “shout". Back in the late 1990s, Lowther addressed this issue when they
updated their design to incorporate a rolled edge on the whizzer. The old
whizzer design was a raw straight edge. In turn, the old whizzer would ring like
a bell at certain frequencies, namely about 2500 Hz. This is where the word
“shout" entered everyone's vocabulary. With the ‘new' driver design which
incorporates the rolled edge on the whizzer, the shout is absent. Now, I have to
admit that there are a few drivers in the Lowther line that have a bit more zing
than others but once you work your way up the line (read=spending money for a
quality driver), that zing is completely
absent. I have to qualify that statement…once you break in the driver that
forwardness is gone. Now, during the break in process, they don't sound too
nifty at all. Once the cones have had time to become a bit more pliable, they
settle down dramatically. My
favorites of the entire Lowther lineup are the PM2A, the PM2T (Ticonal) and the
more affordable PM6A. I'm told the PM5As are pretty special sounding too but I've
yet to play with a pair…one day. I said previously, these drivers, when
properly implemented; breathe life to music like no other speakers I've ever
experienced, bar none. They have that magical ‘presence' that so many people
talk about. This is especially true when mated to a quality single-ended triode
amplifier. Unfortunately, you won't fully understand until you actually
experience someone who has this set up. Inexpensive Lowthers in vented boxes are
just a bad idea on a whole host of levels though there are some who absolutely
love them. Been there, heard that. All I have to say is, that
sound doesn't represent what the best of the Lowther line offers…not even
close. MLTL's are a different story because there is actual engineering that
went into those designs.
The next thing is all this absolute nonsense about having to
constantly (or even periodically) realign a Lowther's magnet. In the six plus
years I've owned (and heavily used) my pair I've aligned them exactly…well
never. I take that back, I did it once. When Jon Ver Halen sent me a pair of
PM2Ts to play with, I wanted to use my cones because they were well broken in. I
pulled the Alnico magnets off my baskets and installed the Ticonal magnets. In
turn, when I reinstalled the Alnico's, I realigned the magnets. That was the
best part of two years ago. When I did that the PM2As were not
in need of realigning nor are they in need of alignment as I type (two years and
at least a couple thousand music hours later). I don't rotate them either as so
many talk about doing, there's no need. I've never
(and I do mean never) had any issues with coils scraping in the motor assembly.
I take that back, I once had an issue with coils scraping. Know why? It was
because this buffoon dropped a DX55 onto a concrete floor and it knocked it out
of alignment (sorry ‘bout that one Jon). In turn, I set it on my workbench,
connected a little T-Amp and a 20 Hz test tone and within three minutes had it
realigned. No major issue for somebody with a little mechanical ability, a boxed
end metric wrench. Now, all of that said, once upon a time the Lowther cone
suspension was a natural Latex surround. Over time this surround material would
begin to sag forcing their owners to either rotate or re-align the drivers. In
the late 1990s, Lowther updated their surrounds to the more current inverted
foam completely eliminating the need to constantly perform maintenance on the
drivers.
Last but not least are these people who claim that a Lowther
is only good with simple music. If ever somebody needs to be ignored, it's those
guys that perpetuate this absolute nonsense. These are guys who have either:
1. Listened to a crappy Lowther design and have now
stereotyped all wide range drivers into one large dung heap or...
2. Are continuing their unending thought experiments and
assert their completely uninformed opinions as fact. I'm here to tell you with
first hand experience that Lowthers (at least my favorites of the line) sound
fantastic on every kind of music. Even though I listen to lots of jazz and
classical, I am a hardcore rocker at heart with heavy leanings to alternative,
electronica and industrial. The PM2As excel at all of these kinds of music. The
biggest reason is their coherency. You no longer have a crossover screwing with
the signal. Gods' honest truth here, every speaker I've ever heard (right on up
to $100,000 Dynaudio speakers), either the crossover smears the sound or there
is a timbral mismatch between the mid and tweeter in some form or fashion. It's
that or you have some nasty tweeter screaming and spitting at you no matter how
‘smooth' the tweeter may be considered. I've not even mentioned the vampiric
artifacts of crossovers literally sucking the life and dynamics out of your
music. The only other multi-way speakers I've ever heard come close to getting
things right have been wide range ribbons or big panels that cross things over
below 250 Hz leaving the panel to run all the way up to 20 kHz. Even then you
have issues of woofer integration in some designs.
Oh, and the last thing is the thought that Lowthers are
fragile. This is a misnomer also. Most people associate Lowthers with
fleapowered SETs mainly because that is how most of us use them. I've had the
occasion to hook my 100 wpc KT88 monoblocks to a pair of PM2Ts mounted in the
Teresonic Ingenium cabinets where they were used in a true full range
configuration (read: ~40 Hz to 14 kHz). Playing some extremely bass heavy music,
I force fed the best part of twenty or thirty watts down their throat and found
out that the Xmax listed on the Lowther spec sheet is dead wrong. The PM2Ts (and
As) have closer to 5 or 6mm of Xmax rather than the 1mm listed. In that cabinet,
driven by those amps, the Lowthers put out shit loads of quality bass. The trick
was to corner load them and sit back towards the room boundary to get even sound
top to bottom rather than trying a traditional, ‘pull them out into the room'
setup. This was something others who wrote about these speakers didn't bother to
try. Subsequently I was written off as "delusional"... so much for all
their so called experience and wisdom in this industry.
I realize a couple of the last few paragraphs may have sounded
bitter but I get tired of reading the crap that gets published about these
speakers. I don't know, call me an old curmudgeon if you want but at least I've
finally gotten this off my chest. What I typed isn't really bitterness, its six
years of experimentation and tweaking trying to push these drivers to the limit.
Unlike so many who suffer from upgraditus and the ‘flavor of the month'
syndrome, I heard the potential of the Lowther PM2As and was just hard headed
enough not to give up until I achieved what I feel is near
audio perfection.
Ultimately...
There are very few of us living on the high
efficiency fringes who continue to strive for that ultimate sound…near
perfection when it comes to reproducing music. Many of us have abandoned
conventional monkey coffins, their life sucking crossovers and incoherency in
favor of a simple, purer signal path.
It is truly unfortunate that so few have invested the time and
money into quality wide range drivers. The average cheap-o-phile wouldn't dream
of spending the best part of a couple grand on a single pair of unhoused
drivers. In turn, they try to spend a moderate amount on a less than optimal
sounding wide range driver, shove it into a vented box and immediately get
turned off to what is actually possible, hence all of the stereotypes regarding
Lowthers. Granted, as I said earlier, Lowthers are not a full range speaker;
they are a wide range speaker that covers the best part of eight octaves.
Supplement the bass below100-150Hz and you now have something the likes you've
never heard.
If a person were to invest $3k to $4K in a speaker pairing
like a few of us are creating, they would find that it betters comparable
multi-way monkey coffins costing ten times that amount. The most immediate
difference is the clarity without being harsh plus there is no discontinuity
between the mids and tweeters. Proper choice of crossover points and slopes
between the open baffle and bass bins becomes absolutely seamless and inaudible.
Everything is more open, clean, coherent and simply put... real. You no longer
are listening to a recording, you are sitting in the venue with the musicians.
Once you experience these simple truths, you then understand the adage, Lowthers
for Life.
Though not quite perfected yet, I am so close I won't abandon
this latest path I've traveled these past few years. I've still got a couple of
tweaks I want to do to my Altec filled bass bins. Once I get those completed, I'll
have pushed this system about as far as a person is capable. After that I may
start playing with some different amps and topologies, maybe some of the newer
active crossover designs like the Nelson Pass First Watt B4. Who knows, maybe I'll
dive right into the deep end and try a true open baffle (with open baffle
woofers).
Let Us
Backpedal A Bit Shall We?
Now, many will read what I've just written as a
condemnation of any speaker that has a crossover. Well, it is and it isn't. I
still have a house full of multi-way speakers that I listen to and enjoy
thoroughly. There are many, many great sounding multi-way speakers on the
market. There are a few that in my opinion, meet my personal preferences and
stand head and shoulders above the rest. I immensely enjoy the sound of the
Innersound electrostatics. Big Maggies can sound extremely good as can the big
Merlins and older Alon's. Of course there are others but these are just a few
that come to mind. All of these are highly dependent on the upstream electronics
driving them. Giving my deference to tube amplification, obviously that would be
the way I would run them. Ultimately when I critically listen, I use Lowthers as
my true reference. Over the years and all of the speakers I've heard, these are
the ones that have brought me the closest to the illusion of actually being
there.
I'm sure a few are wondering why I've spend all this time
typing about a pair of speakers that aren't a commercial offering. Well, they
actually are…of sorts. As many know Dick Olsher offers his formula and plans
for the Basszilla. That particular design will get you somewhat close to what I'm
listening to right now. I would suggest investing in the A series of Lowther
drivers rather than the DX or C series, your ears will be much happier in the
end. Those of you who have no tools or woodworking skills can still partake in
all the Lowther open baffle fun. Find yourself a local cabinet shop and have
them build a pair of baffles based on the dimensions I gave you above. The bass
bins aren't as difficult to design as you might imagine. Just download a copy of
WinISD (a speaker box design program), plug in your favorite pair of woofers
Thiele-Small parameters and it will spit out the proper box size including
dimensions and the port size. Take that to your cabinet maker and he should be
able to whip out a pair of woofer enclosures for not much money. If you run into
problems or unsure about the calculations, tons of people on the Forums know and
use that program so help is right at your fingertips.
The
Last Word... Honest
!
So is mine the last, final word in audio? Nope, not a chance. It is an
opinion like all others. My opinions are formed (just like yours) by personal
experience and preferences…biases if you wish. The audio path I choose to walk
is simply another option. Those with similar tastes in sonic reproduction to
mine may well find what I've done to be there own slice of audio nirvana while
others may write me off as an overtly biased kook. Either way, our own
preferences in sound will guide each of us.