Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

04-08-11: Sebrof "No, he did not say that. He said he heard a couple of songs on the Superflys in a hotel room.
Easy, tiger."

I realize you own Omens and Tekton speakers. Please do not take any of what I am about to say as negative. I am sure there are many happy Zu owners out there that will read what I am about to say, and perceive as negative or become discontent with their purchase. This is not my intent! At the end of day all that matters is sound quality / design execution, and all of us know personally whether we made the right choice or not. Not one of us has made the right move every time – I have surely been on both sides.

With that said, I am hoping to hear the Zu line for myself at some point so I can make my own judgment once and for all, but I have some inside information that tells me the Lore transcends every speaker in the Zu line up, all the way up to the Essence. I cannot state this as conclusive, but research and plain common sense, along knowing how good the Lore’s are first hand compared to what else I have owned, I believe I have strong indication.

The fact is, Eric helped Zu design some of its offerings - he gets my nod for aptitude when it comes to engineering and speaker building. Does Zu have this level of talent in design and engineering of a loudspeaker? I am not sure.

It sounds like you may have fallen into pricing deceptions by believing the Lore should compare only to $1K-$1,500 loudspeakers. I wouldn’t get hung up pricing – not in this case. Eric does not advertise, and he has less overhead, therefore he can sell a loudspeaker for allot less if he chooses to. He has disclosed that he is hoping to really get his business off the ground with this new Lore model, which reasonably explains why he packed so much into a lower priced offering.

You have seen the list of speakers I have owned, have you not? It is no fluke – this speaker is really that good.

Contrary to Omen, the Lore:

• cabinet is tuned for phase accuracy and damped properly. It weighs more as a result.
• has no strange modification of an already well designed Eminence driver – the whizzer is not cut out with a utility knife and modified with a phase plug for an undisclosed reason – it may enhance some areas but what else is it doing??? Is this why Zu speakers measure so poorly?
• doesn’t have an inverted tweeter housing with no function other than looks (it is not a horn, so what is it)???
• tweeter is better – I have seen the tweeter that Zu uses in the Omen and it is inferior to the Audax Super Tweeter

I should also add that the Lore cabinet is tuned for proper bass weighting, etc. As Eric put it to me months ago, long before I heard them... "everything in this loudspeaker has been addressed."

Good to hear from you Zman!!!

C'mon Gp. Secret inside information??
The Lore and Omen are so close in design I can't imagine that one would be head and shoulders over the other.
If I were to buy now I would probably buy the Lore. Actually, If I didn't already own Tekton I probably would have bought Lores instead of Omens back in December.
The Omens have completely exceeded my expectations that I don't regret buying them (@ $1K). Would I be happier with Lores? Don't know, but I ain't gonna ask Eric Alexander because I know what his answer would be.

I just think you guys are over the top on the Lores. I laugh at the value ratio everytime I fire up my Omens because at $1K they have no business sounding that good. But talk to a Decware owner, Cain and Cain, Sonist, etc. for med/hi eff speaker owners. They'll say the same thing. That's why I check myself. Lots of choices, what's better for one guy isn't necessarily better for another guy, YMMV, etc etc.
Enjoy the tunes guys.

I'm so glad to see the maturity in this post. It could easily get out of hand and it hasn't.
Thanks guys, I love the input that's going on here.
For what it's worth. As I was looking into the Zu's or Tekton Design line, I talked with Eric (I know it's based on a bias) about the Lore and he said that it will compete with the Essence speaker. Eric has listened to all the Zu speakers and he didn't seem to be a over the top person.
He could have said they compare to the Superflies but he was confident that the Lore was better.
I haven't heard the Zu line up so I'm baseing what i say to what Eric conveyed to me.
I know Zu is making a speaker that is a very good speaker.
But the Lore is without a doubt the best speaker I've heard compared to anything I've ever been able to afford.

I wish I could audition a pair of Superfly's for confirmation.
I trust that Sebrof has as much experiance as any of us and he states that the Omen is a great buy at $1000.
But also states that if he had it to do over he might choose the Lore.

We're over the top for the Lore simply because it's performance is right up there with the best there is on the market.

My Listsning room is small, so I can't put a $30,000 speaker in there to see if it's better or not. It would surely overpower my room.
But for every other speaker that will not over power my room, the lore has outperformed them all by leaps and bounds.
I can only speak from my own experience and a fellow audiophile that has spent time in my room listening.
He has had $30,000 speakers in his system and can't say enough about the performance that the Lore has acheived.

I had my doubts after I ordered the speakers.
I couldn't comprehend how a guitar speaker would be able to do what I was hopeing. I am more than pleased with the results.
Please take what I say as what it is. My oppinion on a product that I didn't have much hope for. I was wrong.

04-08-11: Zmanastronomy
My Listsning room is small, so I can't put a $30,000 speaker in there to see if it's better or not. It would surely overpower my room."

The key for me was that I tried for years to get big speakers to sound good (Maggie 12s and 1.6, ML Ascent, KHorns, others) in my 12' x 13' room. The first full rangers I got were the Tekton Katz and I was amazed at how much better they played in the small room, and how they filled the room with only 4 watts. Same with the Omens. An eye opening experience to say the least.
I would guess that there are many out there that look at some of these full rangers, or read stuff in these forums, and think they won't work even if they are in a small room. I'm glad I took the chance. I really don't see myself changing around much any time soon.