Dominic, I did not use Lowtheres on my own and am familiar with Lowtheres only by observing of what other people do. Unfortunately, among what I have seen. Lowther was used in some strange ways. For whatever reasons people feel that absences of a crossover is very desirable thing and they sacrifice a lot to pursue this pointless desire. Also, a typical use of Lowtheres in a back loaded horn. Still, if even to leave aside the abstract problem with back-loading then the it is impossible to deny a fact that most of those back loaded horn are juts wrongly implemented horns, mostly with undersized mouths (Cain & Cain, Beauhorn, etc...) Are the undersized mouths a typical Lowther’s problems? Hardly only! However, the stupidly undersized mouths make the Lowther installations out there to sound very ugly and I do not add any credit to Lowther-minded people.

I never believe I advocated use of Lowther for upperbass. However, I never felt that Lowther is horn drive either. What I feel that Lowther might be a good direct radiator if it use in a relatively narrow frequency range. The best sound that I heard form Lowther was in Hørning loudspeakers were Lowther was used as MF driver.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=960#960

Still, I feel that Hørning use Lowther too low and complimented Lowther with VERY unfortunate bass implementation.

Anyhow, I did not play with Lowther myself and therefore I do not feel that this thread is something where I might contribute anything valuables. In the Lowther world I specialize only in bitching about what other people do wrong and recognizing how horrible their Lowther implementation sound.  That all did not motivate me to do anything with Lowther myself.

I find Lowther is too simple driver to ignite my interest. What I said “simple” I implied that even after spending efforts and learning how to get out of Lowther any more or less civilized sound the result might be still at sub-qualified level and might be easily beaten by other drivers.

I think you’re onto something in it. Those Lowthers in fact might be not unfavorable candidates to use with horns at all.  An open baffle at 150Hz? Perhaps, although I do not feel that Lowther can handle that exertion with a necessary integrity, and partially in opened baffle.

There is something else; witch is actually more disturbing to me in Lowther. Whatever Lowther implementation I have seen and heard (including the opened baffles) all of them suffer from one very characteristic for Lowther behavior: Sound getting emaciated, almost choked with raise of sonic complexity.

You were in a way correct restricting the Lowther use for 18th-19th century music; I would probably correct it to 17th-18th century music. However, even within a sonically simpler music the Lowther tendency to “collapse” from complexity still is well noticeable. I would not emphasize only sonic collapse – it is musical collapse as sounds are loosing their associations with each other and reproduce result do not sound like music any more but rather as an array of notes. Interestingly that most of the Lowther devotee that I have seen in fact did love that disassociated, doted Sound and chased that sound religiously.

In the end it bolides down to what you need. There is “Sound” and there are “the sounds”. It is possible, at least form what I have seen, to let Lowther reproduce “Sound”, if music is simplistic and do not play louder then 80dB. The Lowther will be fine for a jazz trio plays in over-damped recording studio. For anything more complex it might, from my point of view, require more complex acoustic system solutions.

I've been having love/hate relationship with Lowther (and its siblings) for several years now.  As you all say, it has many problems to use as a full-ranger.  Right now, my set up is a 3way multi-amp, Lowther (Reps 1) in Medallion cabinet covering up tp 1k, JBL 2450/2397 for 1k~10k, TAD (Pioneer)  RT8T for over 10k.  The crossover is 2 x TOA 0204 (digital) right after the transport (all 12db Bessel) and DA is done by TOA's internal DAC.  This is a digital only system since AD/DA completely screws up whatever advantage the system has.

I had to cut the upper limit of the Reps at 10k because of the nasty peak at around 2.5k~3k (seems inherent to all Lowther type drivers, except AER which seems to have flatter response).

Even with the limitation and the confusion of the backload horn bass, the system does OK for me when playing sources with not much dynamic range.  I love the immediate and tactile feel of Lowther.  But when you put an orchestra on, the whole thing collapses at ff.  Specifically, the mid-low to low muddiness becomes unbearable.  Also, it can't catch up with the dynamics.

I'm hoping to improve the situation by adding woofer for below 2~300.  Any suggestions/recommendations are appreciated.

Yoshi

So, you are thinking about 3-way installation with GOTO bass, Lowther mid range and some ribbon atop? It is certainly no one knows how I might end up: try it, post the pictures and let know us how it went.

I can see a few points where you might need “working”…

1)  Deduct what to cat the Lowther/ It will be quite complex as you will need to find where GOTO will be go down quality-of-sound-wise and where Lowther will be able to take over. It will be in particularly complex because the performance of the drivers will depend form the type of the enclosures. For instance if you put the Lowther in open baffle then what size do you need to target the baffle: 400Hz, 550Hz, 700Hz? Only God knows… Whatever it will be it might very difficult to synchronies a sealed box with Lowther. I personally never heard Lowther sound good with any separate bass channel.

2)  Only God knows how good GOTO ay it’s HF knee. The driver is around mid 30s resonant frequency and it sealed bit it might hardly do well in upper bass. Still is the room is small then it might… It would be very cool to put a pair of GOTOs in array wings with open-baffled Lowther between them… Then, where to stick the ribbons? Once again… the only Allah knows…

3)  The higher you begin to use ribbon then better it will be…. but the Lowther do not do well above, I would say, 7kHz

Thanks for all the replies.

I've got a fellow hornie friend who knows someone in the Japanese GOTO agency who can understand English. I'll try bouncing the idea off theem & see what they say.

Datubie,

I do not think you should have a lot of expectations from Japanese GOTO office. I do not know how about the drivers but I would doubt their practical experience in system engineering. Their exponential trumpet horns are very poor. Their “ready to go” systems are laughable. The GOTO and ALE sell very few LF compression drivers per year (if any) and mostly to very “specific” people. Therefore, I would not expect them to be “interesting” from “applied design perspective” …. or perhaps it is just my attitude). I would personally treat them as “drivers source” if you like their drivers but how you use their driver I think your own brain will figure out faster and more profitable. Perhaps you want get it touch with Kevin Brooks. He is a big GOTO and ALE enthusiast and I have seen him humiliating himself with Lowther as well. Perhaps he has some experience with combining them.

http://www.kbrooksaudio.net/photo.html

You generally might make some assumptions seeing how GOTO used that own bass driver. Frankly speaking I do not think it should be a lot of different from any other driver of the similar suspension. If it has soft suspension then treats it as 15” Altecs and afraid excursion (juts with a pair of GOTO drivers you have very little leverage to mange it). If it has hard suspension then treats thsm as 14” Kangfilms and afraid the bass softening during the  bass transients…

Still something suggests me that those Japanese folks did not intend to use this SG30W in a seals box as you’re planning. Japanese people do not like sealed boxes. Sealed box is fundamentals-centric machine but Japanese people are harmonics-centric.

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1959

I think that most likely the SG30W GOTO  folks meant to be use their direct radiates in some kind of setting when the drivers will be very running, arousing a lot of noise around itself, something like Onken or Ultraflex enclosures… I do not know if Lowther will be doing fine in “noise” world. With all Lowther evils it is not necessary a “noisy” driver….

I realize that some people have been raised from infancy with the Lowthers, take them to bed, etc., so I do not mean to do anything here other than air some recent thoughts on the subject and perhaps get a discussion going about these drivers and possible further “evolved” uses for them.

I wound up with the Lowthers after starting with horns, then going to sealed, then planar speakers (briefly), then back to sealed, this over 40+ years.  I liked and still like some things about each of these topologies, and, honestly, I have stayed with what I have considered the least problematic speakers, hoping for a nice cost/benefit ratio in my dotage.  So shoot me.  But if you know or have heard the litany of Lowther Problems, then you know one is up against it when deaing with these suckers; it is still no cake walk and no End of the Rainbow, for that.

Actually, I have had some very particular positive reasons for doing as I have done.  I have for some time wanted to wind up with instrumentally-correct pitch, timbre, weight and scale, and this has been my main priority – but not my only priority - for some time.  The early modular  Fultons were fun toys for years, and remarkable in terms of pitch, timbre, etc., incredibly colorful, but too slow and vague to stay with when their cheap-o crossovers started to go and the old drivers wanted re-coning.

What I wanted from the Lowthers was fast Fultons, but it was not to be so simple as that.  While they do not have quite the palette of the old original Fultons, I find the DX-4s rich in color, quite dynamic for cones, and possessed of a certain “gestalt” that other drivers just lack.  And I find it truly remarkable how wide a frequency and dynamic range the Lowther can do its stuff with.  None the less, .IMO, the Lowther does not do “full range”; period.  Also, attempts to use horns to amplify the Lowther severally color the sound, so that is out for me, too.  And oh, yes: the notoriois "spikes" at 2.4k Hz and 8k Hz.  So, what do you do with these temperamental little near-misses?

I started thinking “wide range” rather than “full range”, and "tame the spikes", soon after I started with the Lowthers.  I tried a few options for growing the available range, but by the time Dick Olsher introduced his OB “BassZilla”, it actually made sense to me.  Also, by the time I got mine built, Dick had figured out that Lowthers should not be fed anything under 150 Hz., and he had added a ribbon tweeter to augment the Lowther’s whizzer, which trails off above 10k Hz.  A tweaked “final” version of Olsher’s design, the Diamond Edition BassZilla, is what I now use.

I like the relative absence of colorations, and I like the dymamics, within their limits (more, anon).  The BR bass is compatible with (if not a perfect extension of) the Lowther DX-4.  The ribbons I am now using go up as high as you’d want, and they are probably as good as or better than available amps.

Plusses: good pitch, timbre, weight and scale; surprising dynamics (for cones); nice imaging; excellent articulation; nice, big listening area; can be driven with SET***.

What’s wrong?  I will always take more color(!); has a gelatin ceiling on dynamics, at least with the ML2s; can’t really be driven to best advantage with one SET/channel, IMO.

So, here I am, open to fire on a horn-ish website.  Where do we go from here, guys?  I am futzing with the crossovers, then I am +/- whether to add amps or veer South to warmer climes.