I'd love to build these if I end up with the AER drivers. I wish they could sell the plans to build these cabs if you purchase the drivers from them, but looks like they don't do that.. http://6moons.com/audioreviews/lamhorn/18.html
Scottmoose, what is the PhD your working on? My wife has her Masters in biology and virology and some other stuff .... She spent 9 years in university, me, I never even finished high school
Dave
Scottmoose, what is the PhD your working on? My wife has her Masters in biology and virology and some other stuff .... She spent 9 years in university, me, I never even finished high school
Dave
Well, that's no big deal & certainly no reason to stop you in your tracks. The Lamhorn is just a de-rigure BLH AFAIK, so cloning it or coming up with an equal or superior alternative wouldn't be an especially difficult exercise. If you didn't want to do it yourself, you could always comission a custom design from someone as & when the time comes -Dave & I do a few of those for example.
My PhD? Naval history. Specifically, large cruiser development in the Royal Navy during what is often retrospectively refered to as the 'pre-Dreadnought' era vessels (~1890 - 1905). Let me see... meet one of my babies, HMS Black Prince, taken ~1906.
My PhD? Naval history. Specifically, large cruiser development in the Royal Navy during what is often retrospectively refered to as the 'pre-Dreadnought' era vessels (~1890 - 1905). Let me see... meet one of my babies, HMS Black Prince, taken ~1906.
Attachments
Scott / Martin / et al with experience with Lowther / AER etc: Dave's inquiries are synchronistic with another I've received privately from a local chap looking at adding to his stable of audio gear.
The question is raised; are there compact enclosure designs that can elicit the full measure of performance for this type of driver, without the requirement for multiple drivers, BLH or other Lowther style labyrinth pathways?
I'd guess that a BIB would be among the easiest solutions as far as construction; but in all fairness, might not permit the driver's finest qualities to shine - and in any case I doubt would be tiny either.
The question is raised; are there compact enclosure designs that can elicit the full measure of performance for this type of driver, without the requirement for multiple drivers, BLH or other Lowther style labyrinth pathways?
I'd guess that a BIB would be among the easiest solutions as far as construction; but in all fairness, might not permit the driver's finest qualities to shine - and in any case I doubt would be tiny either.
Ye Gods, what a question!
Simple answer is no: a big box will beat a small one, assuming that both are properly designed with the same criteria in mind, and they are in the mythical 'ideal' conditions.
However, if I rephrased the question to 'is it possible to get superb performance out of these drivers in a relatively compact cabinet; performance easily sufficient to justify buying them?' then I'd say yes, without hesitation.
Simple answer is no: a big box will beat a small one, assuming that both are properly designed with the same criteria in mind, and they are in the mythical 'ideal' conditions.
However, if I rephrased the question to 'is it possible to get superb performance out of these drivers in a relatively compact cabinet; performance easily sufficient to justify buying them?' then I'd say yes, without hesitation.
I've listened to AER Mk1 in Singular cabinets. (a sort of TL-ish cabinet)
Extreme high end was head-in-a-vise stuff, but very good.
I found I was crouching in the chair for the best sound. 2 inches makes a difference.
boosting the treble a tiny bit and listening slightly off axis made them more practical.
Otherwise they are a big set of headphones, one person speakers.
Having said that they blew the pants off equivalent Fostexes anywhere in the room.
When you start running speakers like this you need a very good source and a very clean amplifier. Class A is a very good idea. You'll probably find yourself shopping for a new cd player / turntable / DAC very soon.
Extreme high end was head-in-a-vise stuff, but very good.
I found I was crouching in the chair for the best sound. 2 inches makes a difference.
boosting the treble a tiny bit and listening slightly off axis made them more practical.
Otherwise they are a big set of headphones, one person speakers.
Having said that they blew the pants off equivalent Fostexes anywhere in the room.
When you start running speakers like this you need a very good source and a very clean amplifier. Class A is a very good idea. You'll probably find yourself shopping for a new cd player / turntable / DAC very soon.
I am currently being pretty astonished by the Fostex F 200 A's sitting in my living room, nude on pedestals. Very very little wrong with them before spotted fever took them and about as good as I have ever heard after. This includes my i5 ohm Lowther PM6A's, in the same circumstances and what I remember of other Lowthers that have slipped through my fingers. I must say that the 15 ohm PM6A is a pretty impressive choice too, but the dollars are steep.
Bud
Bud
Bud,
Have you given the better drivers the spotted fever? I love the Fostex drivers, and have only heard one set of the Fostex's sound not so good on one occasion ,from the different models I've experienced so far. Do you think that if AER and Lowther also got the fever maybe they would bring things up a notch from the blue collar Fostex's? Btw I'm blue collar so no disrespect intended, just sometimes the better things in life one could enjoy, with some sacrifice and hard work, may be a logical choice in the long run. Dave
Have you given the better drivers the spotted fever? I love the Fostex drivers, and have only heard one set of the Fostex's sound not so good on one occasion ,from the different models I've experienced so far. Do you think that if AER and Lowther also got the fever maybe they would bring things up a notch from the blue collar Fostex's? Btw I'm blue collar so no disrespect intended, just sometimes the better things in life one could enjoy, with some sacrifice and hard work, may be a logical choice in the long run. Dave
Davecan,
I have treated a pair of Lowther DX4's I wouldn't wish on anyone. They are gorgeous sounding, but for dynamic might I was touting them as somewhat like those 30 foot tall 60 mph terror birds that romped around South America at one time. Just way over the top, when treated with spots.
PM6A was far more benign and once treated has become my favorite speaker. A set of Lowther A45's were perhaps the prettiest midrange I have ever experienced, but slipped a bit in coherence and ease or presentation.
IMO not one of these drivers, after spots are applied, should ever be in a horn. The sort of high pressure sound that horns provide, with the crystalline clarity is exactly what the three Lowthers provided, without any baffles. Naturally, the owner of the DX4's has ended up with them back in his horns, but it has been an uncomfortable adjustment period.
This Fostex 200 is quite a bit different in some ways. They have coated the cone with factory applied materials and once spotted it is just slightly too well damped. Lush and clear and very deep in detail, but the peaks that the less damped speakers will loft strongly, are not treated that way here. Instead there is a much more solid clarity, with a clearer look into the sound field and a slightly smooth, old dark wood, character to the sound. But only in comparison to the Kleig light character of treated Lowthers, the Fostex 126's, without Dave of Planet 10's additional coatings and the FR4.5's from Hemp.
The Lowthers have just the tiniest edge in dynamic color and about the same amount of beauty overall. The Fostex is, in my experience, unmatched in the sense of solidity and correctness that it makes music with. If they were the same price, I would probably pick the Lowthers for their lively nature and put up with the occasional gaffe. If my personal taste was for vast, highly textured orchestral or vocal sound fields, the Fostex would be my choice and I wouldn't be missing the Lowthers strong points, by much at all.
For certain, the Fostex will be less difficult for a DIY person to deal with. I will be posting the treatment how to for the F 200 in a week or so, when I am certain I am done with them.
Bud
I have treated a pair of Lowther DX4's I wouldn't wish on anyone. They are gorgeous sounding, but for dynamic might I was touting them as somewhat like those 30 foot tall 60 mph terror birds that romped around South America at one time. Just way over the top, when treated with spots.
PM6A was far more benign and once treated has become my favorite speaker. A set of Lowther A45's were perhaps the prettiest midrange I have ever experienced, but slipped a bit in coherence and ease or presentation.
IMO not one of these drivers, after spots are applied, should ever be in a horn. The sort of high pressure sound that horns provide, with the crystalline clarity is exactly what the three Lowthers provided, without any baffles. Naturally, the owner of the DX4's has ended up with them back in his horns, but it has been an uncomfortable adjustment period.
This Fostex 200 is quite a bit different in some ways. They have coated the cone with factory applied materials and once spotted it is just slightly too well damped. Lush and clear and very deep in detail, but the peaks that the less damped speakers will loft strongly, are not treated that way here. Instead there is a much more solid clarity, with a clearer look into the sound field and a slightly smooth, old dark wood, character to the sound. But only in comparison to the Kleig light character of treated Lowthers, the Fostex 126's, without Dave of Planet 10's additional coatings and the FR4.5's from Hemp.
The Lowthers have just the tiniest edge in dynamic color and about the same amount of beauty overall. The Fostex is, in my experience, unmatched in the sense of solidity and correctness that it makes music with. If they were the same price, I would probably pick the Lowthers for their lively nature and put up with the occasional gaffe. If my personal taste was for vast, highly textured orchestral or vocal sound fields, the Fostex would be my choice and I wouldn't be missing the Lowthers strong points, by much at all.
For certain, the Fostex will be less difficult for a DIY person to deal with. I will be posting the treatment how to for the F 200 in a week or so, when I am certain I am done with them.
Bud
David
"Bearing in mind that AER geometry is extactly the same as Lowther can I really beleive how flat MK 1 is?"
look how the AER is measured,
4 m compound of 0°+30°
not to compair.
Ayon dragon measurement of LP-magazin
looks near the normal Lowther measurements,
look
"Bearing in mind that AER geometry is extactly the same as Lowther can I really beleive how flat MK 1 is?"
look how the AER is measured,
4 m compound of 0°+30°
not to compair.
Ayon dragon measurement of LP-magazin
looks near the normal Lowther measurements,
look
Attachments
I've had the unfortunate experience of refoaming a pair of AER BD2 units. Unlike a pair of MD units which I refoamed which had a wide magnet gap, the BD2 units have the Lowther style 1mm voice coil gap and which therefore requires very precise circularity of the voice coil.
This caused unexpected complications. When preparing a voice coil after refoaming for reinsertion into such a gap, it has to be precisely circular to within less than 1/4mm. The way of doing this is with a Lowther jig, a tapered mandrel upon which you force the voice coil down as far as it will go to stretch all give arising from non-circularity so as to ensure that it's as precisely circular as it can be. For good measure, I reverse the cone on the mandrel ensuring the whole voice coil tube is precise.
Using an aluminium mandrel the problem is that this can leave grey or black marks on the paper.
When the bloke saw this, even though it's hidden by a phase plug in normal use, he accused me of devaluing his units. There was a history to his dissatisfaction as the units had presented other problems, worse.
Another problem of refoaming units is that when the foam is really old and brittle, it snaps away from the paper crisply and gives little problem in cleaning. But when the foam is just on the point, it goes like a toffee goo and is a right beast to clean. And you have to clean it perfectly as you can't stick new foam on top of goo. So I use meths to dissolve it. The problem is that once dissolved, it can be carried by the meths on one's fingers and I accidentally left a dark finger-smudge on the cone from the meths in handling the cone whilst cleaning.
Oh dear. As far as I'm concerned speakers are to be heard, to sound, to sound perfect, and visual matters especially of old refurbished units are of secondary importance.
Of course the bloke could have sent them to AER to have them done at four or five times the cost . . . . but I really wonder if when you send a unit to AER for refoaming whether they really do send you back the original cone rather than simply inserting a freshly made one. The problems of removing goo, to say nothing of glue, and get perfect results make me wonder.
In handling a number of Lowther units and seeing how AER have copied them, clearly doing enough to avoid Lowther being hot under the collar, I really wonder what's necessary sonically and what's necessary simply not to be like Lowther, and when I see that claim that AER reproduce up to 80,000Hz, when the graph puts it at around 20kHz top, I really wonder about everything.
Lowther units don't all have the "Lowther Shout". I think the reputation has been unfairly attributed. The C units which have Ferrite magnets can produce resonant frequencies in the region of the sound of cymbals - but this isn't because of the magnets. It's because there's a short paper cylinder connecting the voice coil to the cone, and resonances between one end of the paper and the other are not damped. This is cured by the A series and DX and EX with Alnico or Neodimium magnets. It's not the magnet that cures the shout but the longer length of paper cylinder connecting the two units and this provides enough disconnexion to interrupt any travelling waves. The paper is a treated paper like the rest of the cone. The foam spider used to be glued on with a brown glue, possibly shellac, which is brittle and often snaps away from the paper. I use Copydex, a latex glue for gluing the spider, which in future will always simply peel away from the paper.
It was coming to the gluing of the spider on the AER that I ran into real trouble. AER use some sort of glue possibly like silicone which can't be peeled off the paper without danger of tearing the paper. Unlike Lowther treated paper, the AER voice coil is on an untreated paper of the consistency of photocopy paper. Not only could I not remove the original glue, and can't imagine how AER can either, upon gluing on the new spider the water content of the Copydex glue simply disintegrated the paper. Inserting it onto the mandrel as a former to keep shape, it simply tore off. This was a surprise and a nightmare beyond contemplation.
Upon consulting an old friend who used to work for Lowther he said that they had this sort of problem from time to time and it was possible simply (not actually) to glue a new slither of paper inside to reconnect the voice coil to the cone and resolder the wires, and which even to my surprise I did successfully. So the unit was in working order again and working well, with no audible difference between the sound of the two newly refoamed units, the other one on which I'd used a thin silicone as glue.
As soon as I had the problem I confessed to the owner and this put him into the blackest of moods.
I'd loaned him a pair of the 97dB Lowther Challenge units available on ebay, which are rather good. (Perhaps I might talk about those on another thread) When he arrived to collect his AER units I asked him if he had brought my Chinese units back. He hadn't and from which I deduced that the bloke had come merely to haul me over the coals and give me grief.
He complained that I'd devalued his units, but the reality was that I handed back to him two perfectly serviceable newly refoamed working units.
AER charge 560eu each for refoaming (if in the light of what I've seen whether that's really possible) or 1500eu each for reconing and upgrading. So for anyone really wanting the latest most improved AER experience an upgrade should be the way to go and to ensure top value is kept in the units.
As he was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of my work, with a mark on one and the other with a repaired voice coil assembly, I didn't charge and I'll be surprised to see my Chinese units back again.
I wouldn't be surprised were he to have intended keeping and using my Chinese units, as they're good, and expecting to sell the refoamed AER units for top whack.
He told me that he'd seen on YouTube how simple it was to replace Lowther foams. Ha ha! I responded that if he'd done his AERs himself he'd have got into a worse mess than I had found myself in, and then not have been able to repair them at all.
Having looked at the AER and the Lowther units, for a number of reasons I know which I'd choose for myself. The roll back surround to the whizzer on the Lowthers needs to be flipped forward to restored to the original vintage format and then the A, DX and EX series are superb.
And for anyone wanting a cosmetic as well as a functional restoration of AER units, please do go to AER. I don't want to be in a situation of dissatisfaction ever again.
Best wishes
David P
This caused unexpected complications. When preparing a voice coil after refoaming for reinsertion into such a gap, it has to be precisely circular to within less than 1/4mm. The way of doing this is with a Lowther jig, a tapered mandrel upon which you force the voice coil down as far as it will go to stretch all give arising from non-circularity so as to ensure that it's as precisely circular as it can be. For good measure, I reverse the cone on the mandrel ensuring the whole voice coil tube is precise.
Using an aluminium mandrel the problem is that this can leave grey or black marks on the paper.
When the bloke saw this, even though it's hidden by a phase plug in normal use, he accused me of devaluing his units. There was a history to his dissatisfaction as the units had presented other problems, worse.
Another problem of refoaming units is that when the foam is really old and brittle, it snaps away from the paper crisply and gives little problem in cleaning. But when the foam is just on the point, it goes like a toffee goo and is a right beast to clean. And you have to clean it perfectly as you can't stick new foam on top of goo. So I use meths to dissolve it. The problem is that once dissolved, it can be carried by the meths on one's fingers and I accidentally left a dark finger-smudge on the cone from the meths in handling the cone whilst cleaning.
Oh dear. As far as I'm concerned speakers are to be heard, to sound, to sound perfect, and visual matters especially of old refurbished units are of secondary importance.
Of course the bloke could have sent them to AER to have them done at four or five times the cost . . . . but I really wonder if when you send a unit to AER for refoaming whether they really do send you back the original cone rather than simply inserting a freshly made one. The problems of removing goo, to say nothing of glue, and get perfect results make me wonder.
In handling a number of Lowther units and seeing how AER have copied them, clearly doing enough to avoid Lowther being hot under the collar, I really wonder what's necessary sonically and what's necessary simply not to be like Lowther, and when I see that claim that AER reproduce up to 80,000Hz, when the graph puts it at around 20kHz top, I really wonder about everything.
Lowther units don't all have the "Lowther Shout". I think the reputation has been unfairly attributed. The C units which have Ferrite magnets can produce resonant frequencies in the region of the sound of cymbals - but this isn't because of the magnets. It's because there's a short paper cylinder connecting the voice coil to the cone, and resonances between one end of the paper and the other are not damped. This is cured by the A series and DX and EX with Alnico or Neodimium magnets. It's not the magnet that cures the shout but the longer length of paper cylinder connecting the two units and this provides enough disconnexion to interrupt any travelling waves. The paper is a treated paper like the rest of the cone. The foam spider used to be glued on with a brown glue, possibly shellac, which is brittle and often snaps away from the paper. I use Copydex, a latex glue for gluing the spider, which in future will always simply peel away from the paper.
It was coming to the gluing of the spider on the AER that I ran into real trouble. AER use some sort of glue possibly like silicone which can't be peeled off the paper without danger of tearing the paper. Unlike Lowther treated paper, the AER voice coil is on an untreated paper of the consistency of photocopy paper. Not only could I not remove the original glue, and can't imagine how AER can either, upon gluing on the new spider the water content of the Copydex glue simply disintegrated the paper. Inserting it onto the mandrel as a former to keep shape, it simply tore off. This was a surprise and a nightmare beyond contemplation.
Upon consulting an old friend who used to work for Lowther he said that they had this sort of problem from time to time and it was possible simply (not actually) to glue a new slither of paper inside to reconnect the voice coil to the cone and resolder the wires, and which even to my surprise I did successfully. So the unit was in working order again and working well, with no audible difference between the sound of the two newly refoamed units, the other one on which I'd used a thin silicone as glue.
As soon as I had the problem I confessed to the owner and this put him into the blackest of moods.
I'd loaned him a pair of the 97dB Lowther Challenge units available on ebay, which are rather good. (Perhaps I might talk about those on another thread) When he arrived to collect his AER units I asked him if he had brought my Chinese units back. He hadn't and from which I deduced that the bloke had come merely to haul me over the coals and give me grief.
He complained that I'd devalued his units, but the reality was that I handed back to him two perfectly serviceable newly refoamed working units.
AER charge 560eu each for refoaming (if in the light of what I've seen whether that's really possible) or 1500eu each for reconing and upgrading. So for anyone really wanting the latest most improved AER experience an upgrade should be the way to go and to ensure top value is kept in the units.
As he was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of my work, with a mark on one and the other with a repaired voice coil assembly, I didn't charge and I'll be surprised to see my Chinese units back again.
I wouldn't be surprised were he to have intended keeping and using my Chinese units, as they're good, and expecting to sell the refoamed AER units for top whack.
He told me that he'd seen on YouTube how simple it was to replace Lowther foams. Ha ha! I responded that if he'd done his AERs himself he'd have got into a worse mess than I had found myself in, and then not have been able to repair them at all.
Having looked at the AER and the Lowther units, for a number of reasons I know which I'd choose for myself. The roll back surround to the whizzer on the Lowthers needs to be flipped forward to restored to the original vintage format and then the A, DX and EX series are superb.
And for anyone wanting a cosmetic as well as a functional restoration of AER units, please do go to AER. I don't want to be in a situation of dissatisfaction ever again.
Best wishes
David P
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