Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

Hi everyone, I'm one of Mike's (Sebrof) friends who joined in comparing the Zu Omens and the Tekton Lore speakers last night. I'd like to offer to you my impression of both speakers. I tried to not have any expectation bias affect my judgements, but I must say that I had heard the Omens and Mike's Katz Meow V1 a few weeks ago and I preferred the Katz in Mike's relatively small listening room. I told Mike then, that I thought the Omens were too boxy sounding to me. Regardless, I tried my best to be honest to myself with what I would be listening to last night.
First up were the Lores. I'm not going to comment on how they sounded with the first amp, but I was not impressed. Once we changed amps, the sound improved tremendously. Now, the Lores sounded great! They didn't have the deepest bass, but what bass they had was very musical. The midrange and treble were beautiful and the staging, both width and depth, were very good. I thought drums sounded very authentic and had the correct snap. The vocals were very good, with good air and texture, which gave a believability to the sound. What impressed me most about the speaker was the overall presentation was coherent, that is, one aspect didn't take away from the rest of the sound. I believe the designer made the correct trade off regarding bass extension with musicality for this speaker. In my opinion, this speaker is definitely worth the money asked for it and I believe that one would have to spend one or two multiples of the Lore's asking price to approach its performance.
Next, we listened to the Omens. The first thing I noticed was the the sound came from a darker place, like it was escaping. It didn't seem to be as open and airy as the Lores. But, it still seemed nice, with the first musical selection. As we listened to more and more music, it became apparent to me, that the bass sounded too "one-notey" or "thudy" (how do you like my technical terms?) Though the bass was deeper, it was not as musical as with the Lores. This same type of sound also appeared on a specific drum beat, that became annoying to me. In other words, it detracted from the overall coherency of the sound. To my ears, the designer of this speaker opted for maximum frequency range of the bass and bass wallop, instead of more musical, less deep bass, as in the Lore. I also believe the enclosure needs more stiffening, as it does have a somewhat boxey sound that it never quite escapes. The midrange and treble did not seem quite as revealing as with the Lores, but they were quite good. Imaging seemed good, also.
It may look I am being hyper critical of the Omens, but I'm just trying to be as honest as I can with my personal review of these speakers and to pinpoint the differences that I heard. Also, we set both speakers in the same position and this position may not have been optimal for the Zu. Also, the Zu is a bottom ported speaker and we did not play with the spikes to see what differences we may have heard. It is entirely possible that with much more time for placement and adjustment, the Zus may have sounded better to me.

I might add that if given more time with the Lore, you could have very well tweeked out a better sound from it also.

05-07-11: Gpowered
Now, from your “to the point” review, it is obvious that the Lore gets the edge, but can you tell me, is the differences you are talking about extremely obvious, or subtle?"

In my small room with 'mellow' music, the differences were what I would call subtle. But even in my room when I started to rock out a bit the differences became more pronounced. In the larger room as we pushed the speakers harder I would call them obvious.

"Also, interesting there are these differences, since both speakers use the SAME Eminence driver! Zu modifies it by cutting out the whizzer cone and installing its proprietary phase plug. Were you aware of this???"

You mean the big silver thing hanging off the front? Yeah, I was aware LOL!
The fact that they use the same driver and they sound so different was a surprise to me. What do I know about speaker design? Not much because I didn't realize that the cabinet would make such a total difference.

The other thing I didn't hit on was the highs. One of the guys that was there has a music background (played in numerous bands) and commented on the highs a lot. He said that with the Lores he could tell how close to the bell the drummer was hitting the cymbal or high hat, and that he could hear differences in each strike. He said with the Omens it just sounded like a stick hitting a cymbal.

As I have them back in my room, back in familiar environment, I'm also hearing a lot more imaging. The Katz are probably the best speakers I've had in here for projecting a holographic image, and I'm getting some of that with the Lores. Keep in mind that I've only had the Lores for about a week and I have only started to fine tune positioning so I'm hopeful that that will come. It took me a few weeks to get the Katz dialed in (I got a job and a family you know).

05-07-11: Telescope_trade
Hi,

Just want to make one observation regarding the Omens.
First, when I had the regular Omens ( I now have Omen Defs)
I found that the height of the spikes made a difference in the sound of the speaker (mostly in the bass) in that if to low or to high, it could make the bass less solid, and a tad ragged sounding, and it could sound a bit congested."

Telescope - I agree. I went through great pains to get the spikes to where I thought they were best in my room (about 4 weeks worth). I have the speakers on the carpet spikes tilted up slightly in front. I did mention to the guys that that might be a contributor since we did not re-do that in the new room. And I agree that the Omens are more likely to be problematic with placement, etc.
But - As the Omens were optomized to my room, and I heard the same things from them vs. the Lore in the new room, I believe that tweaking the Omens would probably have brought about only an incremental improvement. I could be wrong. I'd love to keep comparing, but these suckers are heavy and I just want to listen to music.