Floorstanding loudspeakers — Lowther Edilia

The Edilia is a floorstanding horn design from Lowther, a British company making full-range drivers since the early 1930s. It belongs to the company's Masterpieces series of handcrafted horn-loaded designs and is made to order at the Northampton workshop, each pair finished in book-matched real wood veneer applied by hand.

Key specs that matter

Lowther quotes a sensitivity of 98 to 105 dB and a nominal impedance of 8 ohm. Frequency response is given as 35 Hz to 20 kHz. The cabinet stands 1200 mm high, 300 mm wide and 330 mm deep, and each speaker weighs 32 kg. The company prices the model on enquiry, while list prices are GBP 26,499 per pair in Britain and USD 35,500 per pair in America.

Engineering and use context

The main driver is the PM7A Philharmonic, an 8 inch full-range unit with an alnico magnet that covers most of the audio band without a conventional crossover to a separate tweeter. Beneath it a DX3 bass driver extends the low end, and its contribution is set by a passive bass control, so the owner can adjust how much low-frequency output the second unit adds. Both drivers share a hybrid quarter-wave Voigt horn enclosure, and the bass leaves the cabinet through an exit that faces the floor. The enclosure is made from Baltic birch plywood. Every driver, magnet and component is cut to specification and hand assembled in Great Britain, and the PM7A units used in each pair are individually selected for this system. Lowther describes the Edilia as a smaller companion design to the Almira within the same series, and it states that the drivers need upward of 1000 hours of use to run in.

Pairing

A sensitivity near 100 dB means that single-ended triode amplifiers of only a few watts can drive the Edilia, and this is the kind of amplification the full-range driver concept is usually built around. The nominal load is gentle for valve output transformers. Because the driver passes almost the full range without a crossover, any residual hiss from the amplifier or preamplifier is more audible than with a low-efficiency speaker, so quiet electronics are preferable in a room of around 20 m2. The adjustable bass level helps when combining the Edilia with a low-powered amplifier.

Alternatives

The Lowther Almira is a bigger floorstander in the same Masterpieces range, using a similar hybrid quarter-wave design with a 2.3 m horn path for its DX3 bass driver.