Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

Thanks, Genjamon. I take it you still have the Lores? Have you heard any other models since acquiring them?

Yep. Still have them. Tried the Lore S when it had just come out. I preferred the Lore for its strengths, acknowledging the more refined sound of the Lore S, but just didn't have the presence and scale in my room and for my tastes. The Crossover and internal wire upgrades have gone a long way to addressing its weaknesses in imaging and clarifying the critical upper midrange. The Lore has responded to every upgrade in y system I've thrown at it thus far. At times I thought it was the limitation in the system only to find later something else being the culprit. At this point I'm not interested in upgrading speakers until I've addressed Everything else in my system first. Don't get me wrong, I think it's absurd that I'm running upwards of $20K retail in electronics into the $1500 Lores (including crossover and wiring upgrades), but that's what has sounded best to me.

Points of comparison. I went to RMAF in 2010 several years ago and heard a bunch of great systems. My favorite rooms that year were the Odyssey room, a couple rooms with Sonus Faber on tubes, the Fritz Carbon 7's room, and a couple more I can't remember. My personal speaker evolution has been Klipsch Lascalas to Hornshoppe Horns to Omega Hemptones to Tyler Acoustics Linbrook monitors back to Hornshoppe Horns and now to Lores for the past four years or so. The longest I've had any speakers, and they have continued to add pleasure as I have taken the system up from Miniwatt integrated amp through a progression of electronics to my current system. Last fall I auditioned Eggleston Andra II's in my home for a couple weeks and decided to keep the Lores. That presence thing again in the midrange. In January I took my entire system up to a buddy's with a better custom dedicated audio room. The Lores with these electronics were way better than his Gedlee Abbeys, which sounded muddy and incoherent in comparison. I think that was a lot of system synergy issues, as he has very different electronics and has his system fully functional now (it wasn't then) and says it's doing great things. Well, he's heard a LOT more systems than I have, is looking for something truly special, and he said he would happily live with my system any day of the week, and he has some pretty high standards.

I don't doubt I'll start on the speaker merry go round again in the next year or two. The cognitive dissonance of Lores matched with my electronics is just too great. But it's great to know that I can confidently keep my Lores and know I'll have top notch sound as a fall-back until one of those others knocks my socks off ;)

Those comments would probably have sealed the deal for me and I would have placed an order for 5 or maybe three plus two Mini-Lores today. Had planned on using my bonus plus tax refund to make it happen - until, that is, my wife (and much better half, lost her job in October and is still (!) looking for work. Sigh.

I'll just need to live vicariously through other people's comments for awhile longer.

The only inherent limitation with an efficient speaker the size of Lore is probably low end extension/flatness.

A sub or two could fix that if needed.

I wouldn't worry about the cost ratio between speakers and the rest at all if things are sounding good.

Its when the room is very large and/or teh low end extension is limited and or the system cannot play loud enough without compression or amp clipping that an additional investment is most likely required.

If bigger, deeper, louder is not a concern, then you have a fantastic chance of getting things to shine their best with a smaller investment in speakers.

Hello the Zu use the ribbon now it is open and surly but loose dome of the dynamics.the tekton with Mundorf cap upgrade is hard to beat for the money . I personally like the Klipsch.i can get used Lascala for $1500
And rebuilt the Xver what a great Classic loudspeaker.just as called down K horn 104 db efficient in reality. Dynamics fantastic snd smooth once you put Mundorf a Silver oil capacitors in the top snd mid section.
I met Paul Klipsch back in the 70s a nice guy with genius. He hooked up a $5.00 radio with a. 9v battery and the K horns were very loud on 1watt.