Advice sought on Lowthers.

horns have always intrigued me, since i heard the jadis eurythmie's at the '96 s'phile show in nyc, & more recently, the original wersion of the avantgarde duo's. i'm not yet ready to give up on my conwentional set-up, tho, 'til i get to try the newform research ribbons! ;~)

that said, i'd start here, and look at the oris 150, the oris 200, & the hedlund horn. also, i'd consider the aer drivers instead of the lowthers.

http://www.bd-design.nl/wwwpages/main.html

hope this helps, doug s.

thank you for the detailed responses. I have been looking into other high efficiency designs. I am most interested in getting the Moth audio 2ia3 amp and picking speakers to go with it. The Moth only has 3 watts per channel so speaker selection will be influenced heavily by power requirements.

senorkennessey, 3w will be more than enuff for the hedlund & oris horns, but are ya sure that's what ya want? yust tink of the ease of presentation if ya went w/a 5w-8w muscle amp! ;~)

doug s.

argh, yeah but the moth audio si2a3 is so beautiful! It' sso easy to get carried away with the whole wattage thing. The most I will go for is 10 watts. Maybe 15 if the amp is just downright astounding.

I have to tell you, I'v never been a fan of horn speakers. But i think i heard a great design. I heard these speakers called RL Acoustiques at the Stereophile show. They had a built in Horn in the cabinet, which acted as a sub. Then they used this AER driver, which was a full range driver. There was no tweeter. There was no crossover in this speaker, similar to the Reference 3A speakers. All the mids and highs came out of the Lowther driver. No sound came out of the horn. The horn just acted as a sub. Let me tell you, I couldn't believe how good these speakers sounded. That AER midbase was so articulate and sweet sounding. They were being played on the Tenor OTL Tube Amps, which cost 15,000 dollars and were 15 watts. These Tenor 15 watt OTL Amps, could play so loud. I couldn't believe how loud they could play and how smooth and sweet they were, even at loud levels. The CD Player was the Audio Aero Capitole 24 bit CD Player. Whats interesting, I heard the same setup, except the speakers in the Verity Parsifal room. But let me tell you, the RL Acoustique sound so much better then the Verity Parsifal speakers. The RL Acoustic just had a full bodied sound, with a very articulate midbase and the bass was great. I think using the horn as a sub and having all the mids and highs come out of the Lowther or AER driver is a great speaker design. Here's a pic of the RL Acoustique speakers i heard. http://shows.soundstagelive.com/shows/avtour2001/mtl_stand_rl.shtml