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Strathearn Audio 'Dowling' Speakers - Send to Skip?

N

naimart

Active Member
Hi,

Just unearthed a set of these speakers after 15 years in the loft! - never used them in anger and was just wondering if anyone had :-

  1. Ever heard of them?
  2. Thought they would be worth trying to fix or
  3. Chuck in the skip?

I know they where from the defuct Stathearn Audio here in Belfast and I know the rest of their product was not too good but had heard that their speakers where OK. They are about 60cm tall and 30cm square and are what, appears to be, a hybrid design with 10'' bass unit (needs refoaming) and a 40cm ish ribbon treeter/midrange.

Thanks
Robert
 
They are a hybrid and very rare, if not too much to put right then get the cones done. The panel Mid/Tweeter is particular to Stathearn and some were sold to a German company when Strathearn folded, I never heard them but did read some reviews many many years ago and they were supposed to be very good indeed. If the Mid/Tweeter panels work then it is worth modifying them to take a more modern woofer maybe. The panels are not electrostatic but I cant remember exactly which principle they did use, similar to the Magneplaner I think. True the rest of the range was absolute crap, but the speakers are definitely not.
 
The major problem with the ribbon unit is that the glue holding the magnets in place was very prone to fail - leaving you with a pile of magnets which might or might not have broken through the foil. I tried buying some when Strathearn/Dowling were having their final(?) clearout - three out of four were irreparably wrecked in this way (post/courier mishandling?).

So, if they are in one piece now - be very careful as you handle them.
 
Thanks guys.

Maybe I'll keep them alive for a little bit longer - at least until I can test them out :)
 
Only just spotted this thread - I had two pairs of Strathern Speakers - the earlier ones were in single cabinets with a pink 8" bass flat faced driver and the ribbon mid/high panel placed in front of it in the corner of the cab - an odd configuration but it looked pretty good when the foam covers were in place. The next set were when the ribbons were separated from the bass units so the was a large almost cube box housing the 10" conventional bass driver and a bracket on the back on which hung the mid/treble ribbon panel. Again they looked pretty impressive and at the time I was driving them at first with a 40w Italian amp and later with an Arcam Alpha 2. I lost the units when the magnets started coming unglued on the panels - this was made worse when one of the speakers fell over during a house reshuffle but my insurance stumped up for some new ones but by then Strathern no longer existed so I had to "make do" with Linn Saras - which is what the local dealer said was "the equivelent" at the time. The magnets were the real weakness of the units and once they sart to come away the units are US. One thing to note if you are going to fire them up is that the flat panel is only 0.5 ohms and so there is a transformer in the crossover setup to compensate - and not all amps like driving transformers. PS which sort are yours? - I can't remember them by there ref numbers.
 
naimart said:
Hi,

Just unearthed a set of these speakers after 15 years in the loft! - never used them in anger and was just wondering if anyone had :-

  1. Ever heard of them?
  2. Thought they would be worth trying to fix or
  3. Chuck in the skip?

I know they where from the defuct Stathearn Audio here in Belfast and I know the rest of their product was not too good but had heard that their speakers where OK. They are about 60cm tall and 30cm square and are what, appears to be, a hybrid design with 10'' bass unit (needs refoaming) and a 40cm ish ribbon treeter/midrange.

Thanks
Robert
Click to expand...
Hi, my rather used to be Distributor for Strathearn in Austria.
This speakers are a verry interesting Design.
The flat diagram mid/Bass Driver is Made of 3 layer honeycomb paper, the basked ist a aluminium dicast and a Hughes Magnet IS used. A verry fine design for the mir 70's
The cabinet hast a Triangel shap, to avoid Standing waves. The planar Mid High frequence Driver us a mylar diagram AS known from electrostatics, with Just one aluminium foil track up and down. Called by Strathearn a Magnetistatic driver. Because of His verry low impedance of about 0.5 Ohms, a matching Transformer is used. This Driver is really excelent.
The Last Time I Heard this speakers, was about 1983. Because of the directivity of the magnetostatic driver, a stand with about 30-40cm High is needed.
I remeber, this speakers Had an verry fine,open, detailed and transparent Sound.
Copared with Kef IMF and Quad speakers of the time.
But after all this time a replacement of the capacitors in the x-over ist absolutly necessary.
Have fun!
Should you Like to dell them, please let je know
 
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