Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

For a time, this was one of the hottest threads on AudiogoN. Why it cooled, I don't know. For me, I was interested in purchasing the Pendragons. Maybe it was the delays some (many?) customers were experiencing in getting speakers delivered, that played a part. It did for me: I went in a completely different direction and purchased a pair of Ohm 5000s. I am very happy with these speaker, but I digress.

I still want to reconfigure completely my HT set-up and I have decided to reconsider once again Tekton, this time the Lore S - thinking at least 3 (LCR) but maybe five all around.

By all accounts, Tekton speakers are great speakers but I still don't know what to expect. Delivery seems to still be hit or miss with some waiting a few weeks to 3 months (which is, IMHO, not unreasonable at all for custom-made speakers), to many months - which is not so good.

The only way to know for sure if the wait is worth it is to hear for myself so if there is anyone within a day's driving distance of Charlotte, NC (that would include Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Orlando) who'd be willing to allow a home audition of either of the Pendragons or Lores, or the Enzo, I'd appreciate it.

BTW, some of the best reviews of Tekton speakers I have ever read can be found over at Part-time Audiophile. I've recommended his reviews before in this thread. He now has a recent review of the Pendragon S and his Maggies 3.7 mated with a number of different amps. In my estimation, it is one of the best audio reviews of any kind ever written.

You can read the review, "Magnepan and Tekton meet Pass Labs, Odyssey, Job, Merrill, Red Wine Audio, First Watt and Vitus Audio" here.

Last weekend I took my Lores to visit another audiophile, along with most of my system. We had a long day of swapping out equipment on his Gedlee Abbeys and then the Lores. We had on hand:

DB Labs Tranquility SE with recent Gold level upgrades
Lampizator Level 5 boards, Duelund caps, upgraded tubes

TRL Dude Pre
Bent Slagleformer passive pre

Atsah ncore monoblocks
TRL Samson monoblocks
Job 225 stereo amp
NC400 ncore monoblocks

It was a silly amount of equipment, but the system completely gelled with the following combination, and we both agreed we could be happy forever with this setup:

Lores
Samson amps
Dude pre
Lampizator

Now, granted my Lores have about $600 in completely rebuilt crossovers and silver internal wiring, and bypass entirely the binding posts. That said, this is absolutely silly!!! $1600 speakers with $16,500 in electronics and another couple grand in cabling!

But the reason I share is that it was the best sound either of us had heard within memory, and the more important point is that the Lores are capable of responding with whatever level of electronics you are able to throw at them.

Am I saying that they're the best speaker out there? No, and I'm actually always looking at my options for upgrading. But I've tried some significantly more expensive speakers over the past three years I've owned the Lores, and decided to stay with the Lores because of what they do right.

My friend is seriously considering the Lores after last weekend...

Thanks for resurrecting the thread, Finsup.

Genjamon,

Could you go into some more detail about your Lore's mods? I own Lores, but I've never opened them up... I just assumed it is a single cap before the tweeter.

- Woody

No, it's a full crossover network. The woofer is not run fullrange - crossover is in the neighborhood of 3khz I think. Three caps, two resistors, two inductors. I replaced the caps and resistors with higher quality - Mills for resistors, and a mixture of Clarity SA, ESA, and Mundorf Supreme for the caps. 18 gauge silver hookup wire replaced the zipcord stock internal wiring. Bypassed the binding posts by routing the internal cabling through two small holes I drilled into the cabinets just above the binding posts, using binding posts to clamp to the speaker cables from my amp.

01-28-14: Ictwoody
Could you go into some more detail about your Lore's mods? I own Lores, but I've never opened them up... I just assumed it is a single cap before the tweeter.
- Woody

Woody, the caps in your Lores are Dayton. I believe Eric used Dayton on the earlier Lores and then switched to less expensive caps later (not that Dayton are super expensive). I've got a good pic of the XO from when I did the Dynamat mod on yours, PM me at that other site if you want me to send it to you. Assuming you're the same Ictwoody I sold mine to ;)