Lowther in bass reflex or Cain Abby

Check out the new Lowther Alerion. The smaller Lowther in a Cain cabinet. http://www.lowther-america.com/ I have heard them and they sound excellent, but you will need a sub.

While I agree that single drivers are not for everybody, the last word I would use to describe a Lowther system is cold. For whatever weakness' they have, and all speakers have them, I have never heard them described as lacking in emotion. In fact, this is the one attribute that almost everybody uses to describe them. If they sounded cold it was not the speaker.

I live in MN if your close come and take a listen to my abbys. I have not heard the lowthers, so I cannot comment on them, but the Abbys are really magic. I have tried the onix sp3 and the eastern electric m520 and enjoy the experience they provide. I listen to almost every type of music on them from clasical to new rock.

Jtgofish,

I don't know which single-drivers you have listened to, but as Herman has mentioned, my Cain & Cain I-Bens are anything BUT cold. And this is from a guy who loves a "slightly warm" sound ala Jean Marie Reynaud speakers which I owned for 5 years.

The real problem is that single-driver designs are difficult to execute well and can be ruthlessly revealing of their own and all upstream flaws. As a result, there are far more poor examples than there are great and system matching takes a real committment to effort.

Anyone in the Los Angeles or Southern California area is welcome to come on over and hear for themselves. Just drop me an email.

finding speakers to fit an amp is a bit like the tail wagging the dog.

Interesting comments.I have always prefered warmer sounding speakers like Spendor and electrostats.So by comparison the Lowthers are cold.The Fostex are colder still.I have also used a Coral 10 inch which I rate ahead of the Fostex.
Maybe we have different understandings of cold.What I am referring to is the ability to convey the emotional aspects or feeling of the music.For many types of music this not really missed.I listen to a lot of acoustic roots music in which much of the substance is based on expression and timbre.Artists that typify this are Guy Clark,Francis Black,Mary Black,Kasey Chambers,Eva Cassidy,Shawn Colvin etc.On this type of music the relative coldness of the wizzer cone type speakers is revealed.I also have Edgar Mid horns that are superb on this type of music,as well as Crown electrostats and Toshiba SS30s[stunning sounding speakers].Other speakers I own like ESS Heil ribbons are not so good.
I use a 300b preamp [Supratek Cabernet]and EL34 monoblocks so I don't think there is any other cold sounding components in my system.
Anyway this is just one persons opinion.If you don't listen for the same things in music as me the Lowthers may suit perfectly.I do think however the back loaded horns have major phasing issues caused by the negative phase coming from the back of the cone and interfering with the sound coming from the front.This is not so much an issue for bass but it is for midrange performance and I think any such speaker needs carefully applied damping within the horn to minimise this.

JT