Where can I get drivers for my Beauhorn Speakers?

Visit Lowther Loudspeakers UK

Can you recommend a hi-fi specialist?

We work with Dariusz at qaudio.com

The original site's FAQ follows.

Do you have any tips on breaking in Lowther drivers? Also, I know that these things can take a long, long time to break in fully, but how do the Beauhorns tend to sound right out of the box?

We run the drivers in for at least 48 hours before fitting them. This means that you can run them as loud as you like from the word ‘go’.

They don’t like being cold (and they get very cold in the aircraft hold) so they will probably sound tight and shut in to start with, but they should open up within an hour. After that they may continue to improve over a hundred hours or so. Some people say much longer, who knows?

I … have heard endless praise of your loudspeakers. But I have never heard a Lowther driver that I could stand. Why does the Lowther DX4 work so well for you? [N.L.]

There is a major difference between our Virtuoso speakers and other Lowther driven ‘horns’ like the Medallions, the Carfraes, the Churchill-Yamamuras, the Lowthers, the Veritas’s, the LothXs… etc. They are only bass horns, whereas the Virtuosos are horn loaded in the midrange and treble. So,although a good deal less expensive than most of those, many people agree that they sound so much better. Read “a chat about Lowther drivers” below.

My amplifier only gives 20 W (or 30/50/100…) will it be enough to drive your speakers?

Well, loud orchestral music needs about 0.02 W (yes, nought point zero two Watts), with loud crescendos sometimes exceeding 0.2 W, so, it’s really a matter of the quality of your amplifier, not its power output, you should think about.

My room has only one usable corner, will that matter?

It’s true that the Virtuosos were designed as corner horn speakers, and that this does give a little more bass extension. But for some time now it has been our preference to place them about a metre from the back wall and ten or twelve feet apart, which we think gives an enhanced sense of space and authenticity to the music, at the expense of two or three notes of bass extension.

This calls for a room of some size, admittedly, but bear in mind that even if your Virtuosos are not sited for their optimal performance, they will still sound much better than the alternatives.

We also advocate toeing them in so that their axese cross in front of the listening position, as this gives a stable image across the room and it isn’t necessary to crowd into the centre to hear stereo.

People say your Virtuosos are ‘bass light’, is that true?

Read what Paul Messenger, Chris Beeching and Ketan Bharadia have said about their bass performance. Read excerpts from our “Reviews”. But, briefly, if your prime interest is in serious music and acoustic instrumental music you will be delighted with their performance. Pop/Rock fans may want the bottom octave boosted a bit.

So, can you recommend a sub-woofer, then?

Paul Messenger points out in his review how difficult it is to match the speed of horn bass with a sub-woofer. The best match we’ve found so far is the Visaton listed on our links page. This makes a brave effort to keep up.