Nostalgia is in fashion in hi-fi like never before. At fairs such as High End in Munich you meet constructions that are reminiscent of something from the 50s and 60s. Tube amps are on the rise and forgotten technologies such as the rear-loaded horn and open baffle with full-range elements have been brought back to life on the speaker front.
Few are as revered by nostalgics as British speaker manufacturer Lowther. For nearly 90 years, the small company has been manufacturing their own hand-built speaker units designed for horn loudspeakers. The units are all of the full range type, where a single speaker covers the entire frequency range. With a few exceptions, Lowther’s units are eight inches in diameter, with ultralight paper diaphragms and extraordinarily strong magnets that were efficient enough to use the few watts of the era’s tube amps.
Lowther for life
Horn loudspeakers are expensive, huge and, in terms of frequency range and linearity, are far surpassed by modern designs. But no one buys a British sports car because it is practical when shopping at Ikea! It’s all about emotions and charm. On the Lowther website, it says under the motto “Lowther for life”That you don’t just buy a pair of speakers but it becomes part of a family.
Lowther has lived a quiet and relatively secluded life over the decades. But now that horns and full-range units are in demand again, they are celebrating by resuming production of a line of classic horn loudspeakers. Not last Hegemanhornet, which must be considered one of the most legendary horn models in history. In class with Klipschorn And JBL Paragon – but much, much rarer.
Lowther Hegeman player is a full range horn giant 120cm wide, 120cm high and 60cm deep. In the original version there is one PM4 element, but in the new version you will find a newly designed field coil element. Field coil was the latest loudspeaker fad prior to the 1930s, and is for those who feel that regular full tones just aren’t authentic and exotic enough. Here, the magnet in the speaker is replaced with an electromagnet.
The lone speaker element plays two trumpets. The back loads a folded up bass horn that takes up most of the cabinet by nearly one cubic meter. The front plays in a large plaster mid / high range horn. In order not to make anyone miss the extreme construction, the new version has lights integrated in both sections of the horn!
The Lowther Hegeman was originally built in the years 1950-1951 and the manufacturer estimates that only 20-30 were produced during that time. And since the heart of the building is a large plaster horn, many of them probably broke during the 1970s.
But now there is another possibility. Lowther will build “a limited number”, consisting of four pairs per year. However, you have to pull out the really big wallet to own a couple. The price will be 70,000 British pounds. Even with a Brexit-affected pound exchange rate, it will be nearly SEK 900,000. Excluding import duties.
Build it yourself
Fortunately, Lowther also has business for those not living off the family fortune. The company has resumed production of some of its most famous trumpet models. Some of them are also available as kits, where you are given the sheets of sawn plywood and you have to assemble the horn cabinet yourself. Here you can become the owner of a couple Acusta 115 with PM6A full-range element for 6,400 gbp (approx. 80,000 crowns).
