Hi David ~
Really nice to read your posts. I find your honesty and willingness to share your insights with us deeply refreshing.
Deborah and I live in an older manufactured home. The first thing we did before we moved in was to tear down walls and throw out counters and closets (in what was the separate kitchen area) in the front 'living' space to open it up. So our living space is an open 20' x 30' room that serves multiple purposes. We entertain and eat there, exercise, listen to music, prepare food (the kitchen is no longer separate, like a city 'studio' flat), and watch movies in the evening. Deborah and I are both active artists, and I use part of this room as a studio, as does Deborah who does works-on-paper on her studio-table. Also this modestly large room serves as our rotating gallery for our most recent paintings, so we keep furniture or any other possible visual distractions to a minimum. I mention this because our home audio set-up needs to integrate nicely into our multi-use 'studio' room.
Even though they are small in appearance, the way the Open Baffle speakers saturate the room with sound allows us to keep the panels to a minimum. This is a feature of the Open Baffle approach that is not well discussed here.
What I find quite compelling about the Lowther's is that there is no discernible movement to the cones, no matter what music I play, from say highly percussive instrumental music, to music containing dramatic sharp passages of plucked strings or wind instruments. I can see no movement of the cone. This is exactly the experience of one of our other members who also has a similar set-up to mine.
What this suggests is that the Lowther's have almost no overhang of the cones excursion. This translates to instruments and voices sounding highly articulate, with minimal smearing. This effect rivals large planner magnetic speakers which have even less excursion. The Lowther's cones seem to have an incredibly tight tolerance to the voice coil and magnet assembly. Unlike the recently designed Maggies that Deborah and I heard and liked, this current Lowther OB set-up sounds a little richer, more 'present' with a ripe mid-range that is seductive.
By all means, David, please try your Lowthers in an OB set-up and let us know what you think. I honestly think there are several approaches to satisfying home audio, and certainly the OB approach is a compelling choice. The subjective nature of what one desires in a home audio set-up suggests that a certain amount of experimentation will be very helpful.
Since I discovered that Spotify has a simple yet effective EQ built-in to its software, I have been able to easily boost the bass to make up for the inherent loss of bass due to cancellation by the dipole back-wave. The result is a very velvety rich mid and lower mid-range presentation. Nice!
The idea of 'training' the ear to hear minute differences in what is hyped as 'higher performance' digital formats is suspect. If one 'listens' for those minute differences it is very probable that the essence of the music's emotional life may be lost. Of course commercial interests would love to 'train' us to hear what they are hawking as 'better' this, or that performance. That is how they sell their products after all. So when is 'good enough' really good enough. That is a question I am attempting to answer in my own listening sessions.
What is interesting is how quickly the 'honeymoon' period ends when we 'upgrade' our systems to new software or gear changes, assuming of course, we liked what we had before. Our 'ear' rather quickly gets used to the 'new' sound and it no longer has the ability to be heard as 'new' after a while. This is no doubt one of the things that prompt many of us to keep changing our set-up for the 'new'.
So if we find a 'sound' we like and can live with over time, that may be 'good enough'. If we feel after some time of living with it that we 'hear' where an improvement can be useful, then it certainly could be fun to try a new thing here or there. But it is clear that each design paradigm has its charms and its areas that are less convincing, musically speaking. It may be that one has to let go of the wish for perfection, especially when it turns neurotic.
The thing I find curious, is when we as enthusiastic hobbyists, begin to turn rigid in our 'beliefs', when we begin to think we 'know' and therefore feel quite comfortable speaking with 'authority'. I have known and worked with quite a number of audio designers, some of which thought they 'knew' in absolute terms what was 'right' and 'good' in home audio. But often they had to change their entrenched 'positions' as new experiences challenged those fixed ideas. It is far better, I think, to be flexible and allow ourselves to find out for ourselves what works and what doesn't. It is more fun in any case.
I always begin with the truth that I do not know. From there one is free to experiment and discover.
With Warmest Friendship ~ Richard
