Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

Hi there Capellaudio. The speakers you mentioned are all good (though I haven't heard the Golden Ear speakers). But they seem to get rave reviews. The issue is they are vastly different than the Tektons. It depends on what you want. First off, the Bryston and the other ss amps you mentioned are not the "ideal" mate for the tektons. You just don't need to pay for all of that power - you can get control over the woofers with much less! You would be better off with tubes or lower power amps (class D or just low powered class A maybe). The Tekton sound is effortless and very "live" sounding, and will easily handle any type of music. The other speakers mentioned are of the conventional variety... not a bad thing, but more of the opportunity to spend $ on power.

Allot of this depends on the size of your room. Do you have room for the Pendragons? If it is going to mainly be a video/entertainment and some music system, then I would go with all M-LORE speakers and run a sub with it. From what Eric is telling me, the M-lore is the real sleeper in the lineup, and from the recent review, it seems like it is!

Eric can also build a sub and a center channel (he is working on a sub now I believe). Get a nice Primaluna or Quicksilver 25+ watt amp for stereo, and use a decent home theater receiver for the entertainment stuff, and you are done. No reason in my mind to spend big $ on home theater processors, etc... unless of course you are completely into that. But in my experience, higher end gear is only necessary for music critical listening... that's just my opinion.

The other speakers mentioned... good but I prefer the Tektons. They can do allot more with allot less power... and they get me closer to the real live thing in comparison to conventional.. again that's just my preference.

Since this seems to be the forum where people are mentioning their impressions of Tekton Design speakrs, I thought I'd chime in now that I'm 2 months into ownership of my Pendragons.

I'm loving them more than ever!

FWIW in case people are curious, the First Watt F5 clone amp I was using for the review had yet another calibration problem which is now fixed, so the slight imaging issue I mentioned in my review appears to be gone.

They are now by far the best speakers I've ever heard!

I'm even building a set of custom high-power First Watt F5 Monoblocs to use with the Pendragons. This time I'm going to calibrate them using an objective measurement system like a digital scope, sheesh!

Great to hear this! It also coud have been a little bit of break in that was needed. It took my first pair 6-8 weeks to fully break in.

Now we have 2 testimonials of one of the best speakers out there!

I read your personal review Eboleyn. I thought comparing some small speakers to very large speaker seemed a little interesting. Imaging for small to large speakers can be different simply because of the mass compared to the room size. It's kind of like comparing a motorcycle to a ferrai. Both can do the job they are meant to do, but obviously they are very different.

Nice job though. Glad to hear you are enjoying them. Keep up the reviews.

P.S. Pictures seem to be fixed on the mini lore review.

I ended up comparing the small speakers to the very large speaker as I have not heard a large floorstander in that price range that was nearly as good. For example, I listened to both the Polk Audio LSI15 and LSI25, and they seemed ... well, the best way I can describe it is "sloppy" by comparison to the monitors. Both the Polk LSI9 and Amphion Argon 2's have been very well-received as peaks of their respective lines in the past.

The main point being I had been convinced that floorstanders that didn't cost a mint would never be adequate for me in the ways I liked the monitors.

The Tekton Pendragons frankly took me by surprise.