I don't listen to cables; I listen to music. As long as the "cable" is sufficient to handle the current peaks, it will "sound" no better nor worse than any other cable which can handle the power. There are, however, huge differences between and among speakers, and Lowthers are among the very best "full-range" drivers ever made. In good cabinets they are very special, indeed.
Apparently DACs make nearly as much difference as speakers. Seems strange but that is what I'm hearing. Amps do too, but less so? Streaming headphone jack to RCA on my NAD sounds better through CD than through auxiliary. An unsoldered crossover sounds better than a soldered crossover. I build speakers and I do solder the crossovers and drivers. But I have a twisted connection just before the tweeter or FR driver. And ceramic caps sound different than electrolytic caps on the tweeters. So I'm not sold on cables sounding exactly the same.
E. Stuart Hegeman was a creative electronic and audio genius with many notches in his belt including speaker cabinets, amplifiers and even a television tape recorder.
Even allowing for the usual compression, heard through very good headphones you soon realize that this is a truly extraordinary speaker system and wonderful music reproduction!
Wow! just to see these speakers is a real treat as a pair. Bought in the days of MONo originally as single units, it was a real treat then just to hear a single unit...But-A PAIR? Wow!
mike priest you have picked up on the single most incredible thing about this set - there were so few pairs sold - I have never seen another matching set like this
I have to agree - as vintage speakers go these were something special - but for the sexiest speakers I will have to go with the current speaker I am listening to - The Ferguson Hill FH001 Horn which uses the same Lowther full range driver approach. It puts the Lowther driver in a stunning 5.5 Ft tall clear acrylic horn. I will put a link to these in the video description if you want to check it out
I'm playing this video through my organ's 310 Wurlitzer mechanical rotary vibrato tone cabinet that came with my 1946 Wurlitzer Orgatron electrostatic reed organ. It is 100% original and was discovered in an abandon house in Cincinnati last year. The last anyone lived in the home was 1971. So the set-up would have been 25 then. At 65 year the electrolytic's have finally bit it, but the tone cab did play at 65 years old. I love old audio gear and am very surprised more people don't play organ!
@beatleme2 I am a big fan of JBL & Altec - Currently have JBL Summit L300 and Altec A5 - using 1505 horns, 288G, 515B - Still something very special about the single full range driver approach that always pulls me back. Have a set of Ferguson Hill FH001 on the way along with their FH002 bass spheres and FH003 bass - This speaker has the best of both worlds in that the FH001 Horn handles all the music from about 150Hz on up and the bass spheres add the fullness on the bottom end of the L300's
Yes it was very cool to find a pair of these speakers together as they were made in 1950 - during the days of mono playback. The only reason the original owner had two was he had one in his living room and one in a patio area. This accounts for the slight variance of patina on the teak finish as the patio set was exposed to more light from the sun.
Not sure what you are driving at. As this speaker was over 60 yrs old the wire needed replacing. AudioQuest Flat series was used internally as it had to be small enough to fit the factory holes to avoid altering these amazing pieces of audio history. Luminous Audio Synchestra speaker cable from the amp to speaker. If you think using better cables with superior copper or silver materials is foolish - I suggest you stop reading ham radio books & start listing to some better cables
Is that an actual recording of playback via the loudspeakers? If so, then the recording techniques and tools would be most interesting to learn about - the sound is really exceptional and - most impressive - almost no "room sound" (reflections and resonances of the listening room). Like given.
Don't delude yourself about one cables sounding any different from another... What you are hearing is the effect of the various resistance of cables, which subtly changes the back IMF signal of the Amplifier. Load speakers have the same effect on amps. This phenomena has confused non technical audiophiles for years, and the Hi-Fi industry encourages the confusion to sell more stuff. If the impudence is matched on all components they'd all sound the same, but the industry doesn't want that
You're 100% mistaken in your beliefs. Take three wires, one copper, one gold and one silver of the same length and gauge. Now cover all three with the same exact insulation and I can tell the difference between all three on any audio system I'm intimately familiar with! I can do this with speaker wires, digital wires, interconnects, and yes even power cords! Plus I can do this well above the levels of chance...
HI, yes.. I love the full range sound myself.. jbl d130 the altec 417 and the biflex series.. have the L100 jbl's but to me they lack something ? the l300 are very nice indeed.
I have a pair of GRADO bookshelf-sized speakers built by Joseph Grado himself (headphones fame) in the early 60s, that are probably just as rare, if not more so.
Yes , you are right - cables sound different. Problem in my opinion is that there are no 'better" and "worse"They are just like fixed tone correctors and this correction should be accompanied by existance of adequate fault in speaker. Without fault or with wrongly matched fault they may worsen effect. Too many people put hell of maney without reasonable result.
Yes they went to a vintage speaker enthusiast in Italy - The price was $23,100.00 - I should have kept them as I realized after their departure I missed the truly stunning coherence the presented while playing music - All the modern attempts I had heard to optimize the lowther's failed in comparison until I recently discovered the Ferguson Hill FH001 Horns - which I am now listening to - I will be positing a video on these soon
The music was not from the speaker as it is impossible to translate how marvelous this set sounds over the internet. I sold them after finding a modern equivalent - The Ferguson Hill FH001 Horn Speaker - I will do a video on them soon
"Interconnect cable" Um, I sure hope the speaker wire was inexpensive lamp wire from your local hardware store? If you'd like to learn the SCIENCE of electronics The ARRL Handbook for any year since 1930 is an excellent start. Learning this hobby will require some concerted reading and basic college freshman math. By knowing these things will save you from being ripped off by the many unscrupulous snake oil sellers that have gotton much worse over the last few decades.
my speakers are not so crappy,the big brothers of the tube freaks from holland ad9710 m7,favorite.big brothers are ad1255m7 ,the replacement for the famous ad5200m,1 speaker no electronics 97db,and 30hz-18k.what did they cost me?err? 30 euros,I robbed the guy,not intentional i did not know what was inside?very special speakers as the 9710 also,have a floating copper ring in the voicecoil,that maintains a fixed impedence across their entire range of 7 ohms,built for tube amplifiers.
@@christopherhines2718 -- No...What I was getting at is how people are like "hey man, listen to my speakers", while filming with the crappiest of sound. Literally tens of thousands of videos on RU-vid like that. You can't reproduce an in person experience even with the best microphones. You have to be there.
There is a video of the Klipschorns (BIG) and there is no apparent room influence at all (sounds like a direct feed) but you can tell it isn't when he moves the camera around. Really great sound with his macs. If you look up Klipschorn speakers you will probably get it. It's in a cosy rich person's room with a polished floor.
Curious about the ohms, where does it indicate the ohms settings required from the power amp and the Max power handling capabilities of each unit ... ? It's a beautiful and functional historic furniture art ...
The drivers were 15 ohms back then and they would only handle about 20 Watts RMS - however since they were very efficient and when loaded in the Hegeman's horn loaded cabinet design this efficiency was raised even higher - they would play as loud as most modern speakers with massive power driving them
At the time most of these Lowthers were 16 ohm and would handle about 20 to 30 watts RMS - but as they are very efficient you don't need much to reach satisfying levels
What is the function of the cabinet set between the speakers? At first I thought it was a sub but then see it has a drawer? Does anyone know? Thanks! These speakers are incredibly beautiful! Thank you for posting this. Love the Bill Frissel music too! 😎👍
Definitely not the ‘rarest set of home audio speakers in the world’ since many audiophiles own speakers that are completely unique. I love these Lowther Hegemans as I am a lifelong Lowther horn speaker enthusiast and these are stunning both visually and audibly, the PM4 is a superb driver. My own speakers being rarer/unique though as I have pair of Newton Column back loaded, full range horns fitted with Lowther PM2A drivers - if you know of another pair then let me know but I am convinced no others exist in this configuration.
So let me see if I have this right. You have a set of one off DIY back loaded horns that someone only made one set of and you are comparing that to this speaker that was in production in 1950 from the Lowther company. So I pose the same question to you. Can you point to any other pair of these Hegeman designed speakers anywhere in the world? The only other known Hegeman is a single in a museum
I stand corrected as I should have done a youtube search before responding - looks like a pair of these was available in 2018 based on another youtube video. This set was likely produced in England as they are the traditional finish for most surviving vintage Lowthers. Since this set was from the Radio People LTD in Hong Kong they were finished in Teak. The Lowthers dealers from this time period had to have their own certified wood shops and build the cabinets to Lowthers provided plans. Still think this qualifies as the rarest set of production speaker sets in the world until someone can show me any other speaker where so few still exist.
I am not comparing my loudspeakers to the Hegemans in any way. As I said, I love Lowther speakers and the Hegemans would be a great speaker to own. I am simply comparing them to all unique speakers that are owned by many hifi enthusiasts. They may be described as ‘one of’ the rarest but not THE rarest since by definition all unique speakers are as rare as it is possible to be. By the way, my speakers were not ‘something someone made as a one off’ i.e. they were not DIY home-made, they were built by a professional speaker builder in Sweden back in the early 1980s, and only a handful of pairs were made and shipped to the UK. Since I have never been able to track down another pair or find any reference online (and they originally had PM6 drivers rather than my PM2A) I would describe them as ‘probably’ the last surviving pair. Yes there are very few remaining Hegemans. I have visited the Lowther Voigt museum near Heathfield as the owner re-coned my PM2As for me. I believe (I am not 100% sure as it was quite a while ago) I may have seen a single Hegeman amongst his amazing collection of Voigt and Lowther speakers and amplifiers. I guess it also depends on what constitutes as a ‘production’ speaker. If so few were made then maybe it wasn’t a production speaker. As an analogy in the car world an Aston Martin DB10 was made by car producer Aston Martin but never went into production, one is owned by a private collector so is extremely rare but it was not a ‘production’ car. There are many unique loudspeakers out there - they are all therefore ‘one of the rarest speakers in the world’ whether they were ‘production’ or not.
@@grahamlockwood6242 While your logic is sound I am not sure why you felt the need to drop your first comment which on its face is adversarial and could be argued against as a simple difference of opinion. This Lowther was state of the art in 1950's. While one could certainly argue your Swedish speaker builder had access to more technology in the 1980's in which to get good results it is still not an apples to apples comparison. There is a reason I was able to sell this set of speakers for $23,000.00 back in 2010. They are incredibly rare and were designed by one of the most talented audio engineers of all time - Stu Hegeman. So at this point I would suggest that we both just relish in the fact that we both love the Lowther designs no matter who builds them and not continue down the rabbit hole of a semantics dispute. FYI I currently own the Ferguson Hill FH001 which is a superb Lowther based speaker design using thoroughly modern materials and computer aided design. So no matter what period of history or who the builder is - folks who love Lowther's full range single driver principles find it difficult to accept any other design approach
I am not trying to be confrontational, I just didn't agree with your original statement that these were the 'rarest speakers in the world'. I have owned my speakers from new (around 1985) so have been using them continuously for 35 years (although the drivers were upgraded only about 5 years ago). 35 year old speakers are still not exactly new either in materials or technology and the drivers I have are from around the early 1970s I believe . At least we both agree on one thing: Lowther based full range horns are great speakers and if you have them in your system you are likely to keep them for very long time. I would love the opportunity to hear your Hegemans as I have never heard them but I have heard the original Voigt corner horns playing in a system and they are another 'very rare speaker'. Amazing that those 1930's speakers still sound great 90 years on.......long live Voigt/Lowther! I don't know if you have also seen this www.hi-fi.ru/auction/detail/1002674?refsource=hifishark
A lot of box for not much speaker, pretty low tech imho, but pretty, and big, and probably sound best on a set of tube amps in a big house, each to their own I suppose.
You are correct in that the main cabinet is 4ft wide by 4ft tall by 2ft feet deep which houses only a single 7 inch driver - but that was the only way to get low bass out of this kind of set up at the time. Also keep in mind these were designed in 1950 which is even before stereo was a thing.
Yes with parts and plans coming from outside the rim UK - then to Hong Kong for the cabinet build and final assembly- onto Formosa with the original owner - and finally the USA these speakers had made the rounds
Because back then music sounded like a tin can with no bass because nobody had speakers that could reproduce that until at least the 60s. Proper 3 way horns have phenomenal bass. Listen to a Klipschorn it will blow you away.
sure would love to hear what they actually sound like. I wonder if high-efficiency designs of that type are more efficient but also more colored? I only ask because a 60s pair of universities I used to own [in a cabinet the size of a medium-sized refrigerator] were fairly colored. but boy would they get loud on just a watt or so.
Your instincts are on the right track - older designs like this are more efficient and more colored when compared to modern audiophile speakers. But this is no longer an issue that bothers me. I would rather have a speaker that has the spring of a live musical performance then one that has a ruler flat frequency response. And when you talk about a design like this speaker you can forgive it's errors because it will absolutely stun you in it's ability to sound like a real person is in the room singing to you. That being said I now use a modern design that uses the same principles this speaker does - Ferguson Hill FH001 Horn Speaker System - which reduces much of this vintage designs shortcomings to a minimum
the moi channel If you are referring to the Ferguson Hill FH001 Horn Speaker System - no it won't - but then again there are very few speakers on the planet can I can do that frequency properly. The FH001 does come with a companion set of bass drivers called the FH002 and a dedicated bass amp FH003 with active crossover that hand off to the horns. This allows the Ferguson Hill to have all the magic of a full range lowther horn but with a very solid low bass. However for the lowest notes of organ music I would still add a REL studio or stadium subwoofer
the moi channel The FH001, FH002, FH003 systems sell for $40,000.00 - A used REL Studio is around 3K - But then again this vintage set of Lowther Hegeman speakers sold for $23,000.00 when I offer them online
You have really hit the nail on the head. Once you have heard a good full range driver you can never accept the lack of coherence of any multiway design
I guess you think they had space age plastics and computer aided CNC milling machines in 1950 - These speakers were State of the Art for Fullrange Single Driver speakers at the time and most modern attempts to do the same thing are only differentiated by more modern materials - But to answer your question they make one of the most coherent sound presentations of recorded music ever
I respectfully disagree with your comment on cable - while some things cable makers try and claim is smoke & mirrors - cables do sound different. I might not be able to measure the difference in current peaks between the same gauge solid copper and solid silver wire they do present music differently - while you should not make cables the first priority in the playback chain, to total dismiss them is missing out on possible real improvement
"As long as the "cable" is sufficient to handle the current peaks, it will "sound" no better nor worse than any other cable which can handle the power." You assume that we can only hear what can be measured, that everything that can be measured can be heard, and that nothing new is learnt over time. You assume that current handling ability is the sole metric.
It's not like many think. Above technics there is finally human brain. If You make (with even crappy stuff) few comparisons between sound Your psychics shall compensate a permanent distortions and You shall get information which is better and which worse and why. .
This video does not match what I hear. You turn speaker round but sound is still the same. It seems to be not real recording by microphone, anyway impression by view is great. I also prize old speaker gear for big membranes with their gentle movements thus allowing with only tweeter to sound enough.
ITS ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC. IF YOU LOVE BOSE SO BE IT .SOME PEOPLE LOVE MCDONALD'S MOSTLY CHILDREN. AND PEOPLE THAT CANT AFFORD GOOD FOOD. I MUST ADMIT I EVEN LIKE A BIG MAC ONCE IN A WHILE LOL.
Cables sound different - there is better and worse - lamp cord when compared to a cable with lets say Teflon insulation and high purity copper is a clear loser. When your get up into the $20,000.00 plus speaker cable those folks are using more choices to continue small but real improvements - but at these prices it seems silly to most audio lovers. However if you have a $250K set of speakers and another 150K into source and amplification. These crazy priced cables may be in line
I have heard some cables might have enough capacitance to effect the sound. But for the most part, wire can be simplified as a resistor, which is passive, and can't alter the signal ( it could attenuate it, but that doesn't change the signal in an important way.)
EpicEverythingDude75 You're right, we are all allowed an opinion. I think older Bose speakers really are something to be admired; especially as far as innovation goes. I'd love a pair of 901s.
Gerald Wolf Even the new gen 901's have lots of technology packed in them. like Bose's new enclosure design that virtually eliminates enclosure resonance for better sound. They still use the same drivers, but Bose said that they have made almost 100 improvements upon the older design. I want the new ones so badly, but I cant afford them :-( I do however have the 301's, witch are just as good. they have amazing sound for a very compact speaker with a small footprint :)
***** I have the 301 Series IV from 1996. My dentist friend who is in his 55 bought them for my b day last year and I LOVE them. He must have paid a good amount for the pair. Best gift i ever got. They have epic low end. They have a massive 8 inch long throw woofer. The bass is epic for their size.
+Jules Barry Also it is my understanding that companies like Lowther only provided the drivers, horns and cabinet build plans to its dealers in the 1950's - so the cabinets would have been built it the dealers wood shop along with many other types of cabinet designs - so its serial number would not indicate how many of these were produced
+Ferguson Hill USA ; I have read that there were possibly/maybe (no one knows for sure) 20-30 units made in the very short one year 1950-1951 production run. Of course if that amount is true, then those that have them in their possession are not letting them (for good reason) go.
Jules, if there were 20-30 units made, then the "rarest set of home audio speakers in the World" they are not. As claimed by theaterboyebay. That claim would be for "One of A Kind" speaker pair, no duplications. Of which I'm sure there are many.... I can claim I have one such pair of speakers I know for certain no duplicates exist, as I built them.
@49kasey What the fuck difference does it make? Any audio reproduced on RU-vid via a camera won't even come close to the actual event. It's not even worth considering. What, were you gonna drop the $20k and change it would take to buy these based on an audio clip recorded by a hand-held camera? Read a book, son!
TheaterboyeBay, i have a pair of Klipsch Bella in my room and they are fantastic as you know, the competition was huge during the HiFi haydays of passed and finding rare speakers of beauty are hard to get when anything that sounded great and full bodied like the A7 Altecs that i finally replaced (they just didnt have the furniture good looks to keep in the Parlor )and of coarse, feeding them with a Scott LK-150 tube amp is heaven to listen to ! I know you can Appreciate it !!
I still have a couple pairs of A7's but as you mention they will never look right in a living room. Altec did make the Magnificent with had a very nice wood finish which has the same drivers as an A7 but the bass horn was a bit more shallow then the cabinet on an A7. So as you have found the Belle Klipsch is one of the few other choices that can perform like the Altec's
Why is the word Bose being used here. ? They make some of the nastiest over priced speakers on the planet..I've actually given a couple of sets away because they sounded so shit
Bose stole the technology from Admiral Radio Corp when they developed the tunnel reflex sound speaker system widely used in there console stereos for years !! Way before Bose even existed. The Admiral system sounded excellent. I sold them New from my Dealership for years.
Tony Louis another reason to not buy bose then..I remember pulling a pair apart and it was a series of tubes that led to a very cheap driver and remembered thinking why are these £250... They were just heavy plastic and had no nice tone to them..just boomy bass with a bit of top end..my friend has a studio and they laugh at the idea of using bose
