Recently, I purchased a pair of second hand Lowther DX3 from eBay and they arrived over the weekend. They arrived in good condition and appeared to be in very good shape. After a cursory checked, I hooked them up to my Zen EL84 amp. This was the first time that I turned the Zen on in my new house. The first thing I noticed was that the mechanical hum that was present in the power transformer was gone! This was a good start.
One of my debates in my head has always been, is 1 watt really enough? These Lowther were certainly going to confirm or deny this. Just using my iPod as the source, the amp was near silent with no music. A very faint hiss was heard only when you were so close to the speakers that you'd almost hit the cones. This was also good confirmation. I still noticed that the EL84 were running very hot on the heaters, with 7V plus. This still needs to be fixed.
The first cue of music, was my usual mix of favourite tracks that I was very accustomed to. The sound wasn't great. But mind you, they were simply placed on my dinner table. I had no chance to build any baffles. The good news was that the speakers worked without a problem. As you'd expect, there was little or no bass, thanks for a complete lack of enclosure. Obviously more thorough review will need to be done once they are in a proper enclosure.
My first impression was that piano notes and vocals did sound very natural and real. However, I noticed that there was something that I could only say was a 'Lowther Shout'. Now, I am no expert, but there are so many variables that may have caused this. To note, these Lowthers were the older styled without the rolled whizzer cone.
More thoughts and experiences to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment