Lowther or Audio Nirvana 8 in driver

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The reason that older people gravitate away from current pop music is that after a while they grow up.

UH, some of us never grow up. I am just a 57 year old kid. My wife will attest to this!

The primary purpose of pop music is to p**s off their parents.

My parents listened to pop music (Monkees and stuff like that) In order to P**s them off I needed some rock like Hendrix and the Doors. I still really like Hendrix 40 years later (and I still have the same vinyl).

Add to that the fact that pop music has become more compressed and clipped during the last 15

I agree that todays music whether it be pop or rock has been squashed to death. I like a good dynamic recording, and I will listen to a wide variety of music to get it. What the hey, 90+ db of dynamic range on a CD and we use about 40 of it.

When my daughter was about 17 she had been to the mall with her friends and she was quite defensive when I looked at her CD purchases. I told her that she could keep her thumpa - thumpa music, but she didn't need to be spending her money on Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, and Metallica. I just said that it was her money, but if she had asked me first, I would have made her a copy of mine!

As to the speakers, I have been using my 15 year old set of Yamaha NS-10M studio monitors. They are quite punchy and dynamic and get reasonably loud with about 50 WPC. I have heard my amps through a friends Lowther based horns (with subs), and I like the sound, but I don't have an Aston Martin or Corvette budget, so I have decided to build my own FR system. What to build?

On one hand several experts tend to agree that the magic size for listening to jazz, vocals, and the typical "older people" stuff is 4 to 6 inches. On the other hand, I think that system will not deliver the SPL in the lower frequencies to crank some Metallica or Pink Floyd. I like to play both, and a lot in between, and I have tube amps from 2 WPC to 200 WPC, so I have decided to build two systems. The AN Super 10 cast frames are on their way (essentially a trade for an amp) for loud and low. I am thinking of a big bass reflex box, or the EZ-10 horn. Any input? The other system will be a Frugel Horn 3 with a Fostex FE126En. Drivers not ordered yet.
 
I found the stock AN super 8 a surprising mix of zones of unusually excellent downward dynamics mixed with some serious shrieks. Not quite to the Lowther A4 peaks.

I have a pair of Pm6A's, 16 ohm silver voice coil, that I think are amazingly good.

Neither of these two drivers would be in my system without EnABL on them and the new EnABL 2 process at that.

However, something new has popped up on my horizon, Mark Audio. I have a pair of Alpair 7's in Fonken boxes with EnABL2 applied. They are simply musically correct with all forms of music, under drive conditions that satisfy my mature tastes and they have no more than 30 hours on them to date. Bass, solid to mid 30's, with upper 20's for flavor. Dave Dlugos has the recipe in hand for these.

What I really think will satisfy, will be the Alpair 10. I have not had an opportunity to work with a pair yet, but in what little experience I have had they seem to show a perfect growth in size without a growth in problems. I think these might just be the correct driver, once EnABL'd and placed in a proper Scott Moose cabinet. I can hardly wait, even though I still really love my Lowthers.
 
no really, back to topic: what should you buy, if it is your first time in the FR world you can see it this way.

Audionirvana 8" whizzered being that normal/super/cast is closer to a lowther than any multyway speaker out there, given the difference in price you can consider it like the price to rent a system and have a testdrive.

you'll discover what you like about FR and its shortcomings, then you'll decide on the promises a driver with a higher price tag brings or try the way of bass augmentation, supertweeter or less sensitive but flatter response driver that still have that magic coherence and imaging like the jordan/alpair series.

PS. also consider the fostex 206. which has much more proven, relatively compact, designs like the solo 206 or the bigger double mouths from Scott, unless you'r willing at OB with woofer which would be my choice for the AN.

i wonder why nobody is still reporting on the AN alnico and 3" drivers, in my UTUTS opinion (unable to understand T/S parameters) it looks like a contender to the little FF85
 
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I have decided to build two systems. The AN Super 10 cast frames are on their way (essentially a trade for an amp) for loud and low. I am thinking of a big bass reflex box, or the EZ-10 horn. Any input? The other system will be a Frugel Horn 3 with a Fostex FE126En. Drivers not ordered yet.

any updates ?
 
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