Big horns, warm valves and a word on AI music

From the show floor

There's nothing quite like watching a pair of 4ft Voigt Horns fill a room. At this year's North West Audio Show, that's exactly what we did, our full-size Voigt horns, driven by the PX4 valve amplifier, playing to a steady stream of listeners right across the weekend.

The reaction was everything we'd hoped for. People sat down meaning to listen for a minute and stayed for the best part of an hour. That effortless, single-driver coherence, the feeling of a real performer in the room rather than a pair of speakers, is hard to put into words and impossible to forget once you've heard it. Our thanks to everyone who came, listened, and lingered.

The pair in full flow, the room stayed busy all weekend.

In other news

There's been a notable shift over in the streaming world. Tidal has confirmed it will stop paying royalties on tracks identified as fully AI-generated, and from mid-July will start flagging them with an on-screen label. The policy takes effect on 15 July. AI music isn't being banned outright, listeners can still choose it, but Tidal won't monetise it, and it's clamping down on AI tracks used to impersonate real artists.

We think that's a sensible line to draw, and it points at something we're reminded of every time we sit someone in front of a resolving system: most AI-generated music simply doesn't hold up. On a modest setup you might not notice. On a full-range horn you hear straight through it, the smeared transients and haze of heavily compressed, loudness-flattened files; the flat dynamics, a soundstage that falls apart because the spatial cues were never really captured in the first place.

A great system is a magnifying glass. It rewards real musicians playing in a real room, and it quietly reveals everything that isn't. Which is, when you think about it, the whole case for recordings and systems built with care.

What do you think?

Worth a watch

If the horns caught your eye at the show, this one's for you. "What is This Speaker? | Lowther Voigt Horn - Honouring the Origins of Hi-Fi" tells the story behind the design that turned so many heads over the weekend.

Until next time — thanks for reading, and happy listening.

The Lowther team