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Why Lowthers? We have an almost universal love of music through all societies because of the emotional impact it can have on our lives. It can express happiness, sorry, joy, or a good party. When we try to bring music home, we do it so that we can to enrich our lives, bringing home these emotions that make us love music. Reproduced music typically lacks in the dynamic contrast of live music. The sudden burst of noise, the pause of silence, a dramatic increase in volume are part of what gives live music its impact. Lowthers, with their unique driver design, are able to create much more of this impact and drive than almost any other speaker system. This is accomplished by using a magnetic field several times stronger than your average hi-fi speaker. It is then coupled to a very light paper cone which can accelerate and stop very quickly in response to the electrical signal passing through the voice coil. The voice coil is wrapped around both the inside and outside of the former, providing for a larger force to drive the cone. The voice coil is underhung, so that it works in the most linear possible manner, providing ultra low distortion. As an additional benefit this extremely sensitive system picks up many of the details and nuances of the performance. With the proper equipment it is easy to hear each individual voice on overdubbed recordings, and the different sounds of individual instruments. Some speakers do this by squishing the dynamics, so that loud and soft sounds have the same volume, making it easy to pick out details. But Lowthers do this while maintaining as much of the dynamics of the original performance as possible. So you can see into the performance, and feel the emotional impact of it. This is very special. As a side benefit, Lowthers are very efficient. Use with a 2 or 3 watt amplifier is usually sufficient, and a 300B providing a whopping 8 watts is all you will want. This allows you use those delicate, small single-ended amplifiers. 2A3s, 45s, and 300Bs drive Lowthers to satisfying levels. A typical amplifier of this type has no negative feedback, one of the necessary evils of the big brutes. Negative feedback commonly blamed for loss of dynamic contrast and other “Hi-Fi” sounding effects. We want the joy of music, and these small amplifiers can provide it in spades. A frequently asked question is how do the various drivers sound. This is hard to explain in a few words, but I will try. The “C” series have a softer, less detailed sound than the others. Listeners of older recordings, and those with budget constraints, and those who find too much detail fatiguing will probably enjoy these. The “A” series are the classic Lowther drivers, using Alnico magnets that provide plenty of detail, and an extremely quick sound. The “DX” and “EX” series sound similar to the “A” series. They both use neodymium magnets, and are similar except that the “EX” series provide a module on the back that keeps midrange and high end noise from rebounding in the compression chamber and escaping through the horn or reflecting back through the driver cone. They also have the equalizer phase plug. In general, the higher the magnetic flux, the more detail and speed the driver will have.
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