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Paul,

I am one who has been there and still is in the midst of trying to find MY way of getting the best/widest potential from the better, and unfortunately, often more expensive full/wide range drivers out there. I have found that I prefer the "you are there. they are here" Live sound of Lowthers to all of my other drivers. Yes, Warts and all. Here re my strong suggestions from experience. There aint NO such thing as a full range Lowher in any cabinet type and size that will fit in my auio room. Caviot, They don't come close to doing full range or even satisfying bass, but the better Lowthers offer wonderfull high frequencies in my opinion an depend on keeping their upper range potential in tact o deliver the spooky coherant magic that they are known for and capable of.

I am an absolute firm believer (from many many many trials) that you gotta forget about fitering Lowthers or curtailing them with xovers if you want the magic that hey are capable of.

I've got front, back horns and ass reflex cabinets here. All can sound nice to varying degrees with Lowthers' as well as many of my other wide range drivers. I have no place left to store a Baltic Birch cbinet. Fiberglass and plastic or the 150 HZ front horns.

Who knew hat all I ever needed to begin (may turn out to be the end game) to realize the best (by far) that certain Lowthers' have to offer were two (one per side) 35" wide by 30" high 3/4" ply or MDF attached to sloping 90 degree wings/stands 5" at the tops to 12"'s at the floor to realize the best sound that I have ever had in my home. And I have been doing this or a long time. Oh, by the way, these wonderous slabs of wood that have completely changed my speaker paradigm are JE LABS design. Do yourself a great big favor and go to their web site where they supply illustations on how to build these Open Baffles that a 5 year old could accomplish.

So what is the catch or catches? Your gonna love how simple this/these really are. First, FORGET ABOUT THIS BEING FULL RANGE IN THE BOTTOM END PERIOD!!! Ok, now here's the good news part. If you use some DX4's or PM2MKII's (More on regular PM2a's and PM6a's to come. ), then I have absolutely NO need or desire for ditional tweets. I have tried some of Fostex's best and just did not feel their need.
Now for the bass stuff. The eight inch Lowthers have been measured to be strong (it may have measured strong to 85 HZ but did'nt sound strong to me) to aound 85 HZ in these JE LABS OB's. The cool thing here is that ,at least for me, any bass below 100 HZ is non-directional to me. So, I have my OB's pulled six feet out from the front wall and my dual sub woofers placed in the corners six feet or so behind them (really only need the one woofer though). The Lowthers run full range and the plate amp crossovers, run directly off of the Yamamoto's main speaker terminals operate at 85 hz and below. My simple subs gel seamlessly with he Lowther stuffed OB's.
Like $100 in wood, my son built them, and this setup wipes out any other cabinet type that I have stuffed these drivers in.

Here is the other and perhaps the most confusing or confounding finding during my OB enlightenment.
I have/had been happiest with my current edition Lowther DX-4's in my favorite Medallion III back horns and 150HZ tractrix front horns augmented by my previously mentioned corner transmission line subwoofers. I had recently recieved a pair of Lowther PM2MKII Alnicodrivers to try out. These drivers have the same magnetic flux density (2.2) as my Lowther DX-4's. They actually use the same magnt rin used by the PM4 but the PM2MKII's are fitted with a softer and magnetically weaker pole and top plate. Hence the 2.2 Vs. 2.4 flux desity of the PM4's.
So, why the hell bore you with info bout a Lowther driver that is no loger on their list of current items (they can and will make them at your request)? Because, In these simple OB's, for what ever reason, these big magneted son's of bitches are (by a wide margin) most spooky real sounding speakers that I have ever heard. Funny thing is that I prefered my DX-4's to the PM2MKII's in my back and front horns. As a matter of fact, the OB's had just been completed (no paint or nothin) at the same time that I was packing the PM2MKII's up for return from wence they came. I figured that they were e only drivers not either currently bosed up or screwed into cabinets so why not see how these OB's sounded. I had low expectations for both the drivers nd he OB's. You already know the results, STUNNED! is an understatement. I put two and two together and assummed that the DX-4's and even my new Fostex FE206ES-R's would sounnd even better. I cuold not have been more wrong! All of my other full rangers sound quite nice in he OB's and in my opinion preferable to my other cabinet combinations, but not even in the same ball park as the real live music comming from the PM2MKII OB combination.

Lowther UK claims (I contacted them immediately to see if they had added fairy dust ot something to PM2MKII's) that it surely has to due ith the gret amoun of air in the gap of such a large magnet.

How to get to the bottom of this? Well, I have the DX-4's and PM2MKII alnicos. I now have a run in (Iran um in for weeks) PM2a' and PM6a's to test. I informed Jon Ver Halen, one of two US Lowther distributersof Lowther drivers of my findings. He immediately replaced his DX-4's with a pair of PM6a's in his current Open Baffles nd was stunned as well. Maybe he will add his own two cents about his pleaent surprise. I wlll soon find out for myself if the less expensive PM2a's and PM6a's also derive similar "MAGIC" in these simple and inexpensive open baffles. I wll post my fidings if this post generates enough interest. I sincerely hope that the other two large air gapped alnico Lowther magneted drivers offer the same or very close to the same stunning sound in these OB's as the PM2MKII's do. Either way I would forget about other expenive and exotic cabinets and gt a pair of Lowther PM2MKII's or hopefully regular PM2a or PM6a's. Add a subwoofer+Plate amp nd lw powered set amp todrive the fat magneted Lowthers and just forget about the peaker race.

One more thing, I have just had constructed (from Balic Birch) a pair of OB's that are contucted like the JE Labs accept one pair mesures 21" wide by 48" tall, and the other pair is 30" ide by 48" tall. Both pairs slant back at a bit lesser anle than do the JE Labs because the main divers are mounted at 29" instead of 13" cntered off the floor as with the JE Labs OB's.
The new baffles are also fittd wih 15" bass drivers with a QTS of .58 and wil be driven and crossed over (probably around 150 HZ) using two Bash plate amps. The bass divers are centered at ten inches off the floor. Also, the Lowthers nd all full rane drivers tested will run wide open, with NO filtering. See ya.

Lance


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