Ralph Donaldson

As you can see on the photographs, I have my Oris system setup in a live-end, dead-end room with the horns spaced about ten feet apart on center in the dead end side of the room.

The Oris horns set on the top of the woofers. The woofers are ones that I have been using for over five years and since I continue to be very satisfied with them, I shall continue to use them. The woofers are made from Cebasse 21NDC drivers, two drivers per box, that are mounted in QB3 vented enclosures. There has been a great deal of discussion on the blending of the woofer sound with the Oris. I have never been able to detect any discontinuity between the woofers and the Oris, crossing them over at 180Hz. There is no problem with the "speed" of the woofers.

Since the rear chamber was not yet available for the Oris, at least in the US, I made rear chambers from 14 inch ID heavy wall tubing, 18 inches long, and lined the interior with one half inch thick wool felt and lightly stuffed the space with long fiber wool. I also have the phase plug extenders which I regard as essential. I started out by using my old PM2A drivers in the horn and they sounded very good. I recently upgraded the drivers to PM4A's and the change, though expensive, was well worth it.

Enough about the system, how does it sound? My Oris system is simply the best that I have ever had in my home, and probably the best that I have ever heard, though I readily admit that there are many fine speaker systems that I have never heard. My listening preferences lean heavily toward classical and what has come to be called "world" music. I have seen it stated on Internet discussion groups that Lowther's cannot reproduce rock. I can assure you that Lowther's in a Oris system can. Grace Slick never sounded more dynamic and alive that I heard her the other night with my system. I believe that the ability to reproduce brass and percussion in a realistic fashion is the acid test of a speaker's dynamic capabilities. The Telarc recording "Passage" is a great example of both percussion and brass and hearing it for the first time through the Oris was both startling and gratifying.

I had several reservations about the Oris front horn's ability to accurately reproduce a sound stage. One recording that I like to use to appraise a sound stage is "Ludus Danielis" on Hungaroton. This is a complex work made of several large choral groups, small ensembles, and soloist in a huge acoustical environment. My reservations were soon dismissed, the entire system had more depth than I had heard before in my home and placement of the individuals and groups was near perfect.

If you have taken the trouble to read the above rather lengthy discourse, you will have discerned that I am a very satisfied user and recommend the system to anyone with the room for it and a desire for the among the best possible reproductions of music in the home.