Zu Omen or Tekton Lore

SIO = Mundorf Silver-in-oil, it is Erics recomended upgrade that you can purchase from him. You can buy parts and diy but for the price he offers the upgrade is nearly worth the parts alone.

Andysf, no need to get defensive about your Glen Beck comment. Your reaction was quite normal. Any fan of GB can't be all that bright.

01-11-13: Andysf
Didn't mean to get political and stir up bad feelings.

Sure you did or you wouldn't have done it.

Rischa

Have you had a chance to put the Lore & M-Lore in the same room to see what difference there is???

Still rockin' my stock (no upgrades) Lores in the man-cave, and M-lores in the family system. No urge to upgrade here. As I write this, I'm listening to the Classic Records mono reissue of Jackie MacLean's "Swing Swang Swingin'" on the Lores. The music is dead center between the speakers, which are about 8' apart. Sounds sublime to me.

As for the Beck affiliation, I couldn't care less. I'm a Liberal myself, but I don't see what that has to do with speakers.

I told Eric that when I find a brand I like, I'm pretty loyal. I'm sure my next pair of speakers will be Tektons.

Didn't mean to get political and stir up bad feelings. It was really more of a visceral reaction. I have nothing against people supporting the Republican party. I just don't like Glenn Beck. Lots of people don't. He was fired from his show on Fox News. Even Walmart pulled advertising in the end, along with about 50 other companies. So you don't have to be a liberal not to like the guy. The audio was posted by "Clark Pace" who I assume represents Tekton. There are 8 other Tekton videos on the same site so I have to think this is something Mr. Alexander wants us to know about. I respect him for his ability to create a great product-I only question his choice of recipients of free speakers. Jealous, too!
Actually, if he wants to use a Republican spokesman, he should send some speakers to Jon Huntsman. Huntsman is a much more appealing guy, is also from Utah and was a professional musician so might have something interesting to say about recorded music. Just a thought...

What's SIO?

I still very much like mine.

Still want to play with the crossover too, but I'm a pretty big nerd when it comes to this stuff. I also put in a Duelund resistor, and cotton insulated wire. I'd really like to try Duelund caps, but I think they're too much for me now, I'll probably put them in my pendragons when I get them ;)

If you can afford it I really do think Erics recommendation of SIO would be the way to go, he does know what he's doing. A SIO cap in my preamp seemed to bring out more depth, soundstage and dynamics that the lores had to offer if that has any correlation. They're also very resolving in the highs and smooth in the "live" area.

Actually, the Glen Beck endorsement endears me more to Tekton products...to each his own.

And if you listen to the audio recording, you will hear Glen Beck say that Eric didn't want his help in promoting his products. Glen talks about it being because of his "small guy" virtue, but I also suspect it's because Eric realizes it's not a good idea to mix politics and business - that GB support would polarize and negatively impact him through that polarization. I dislike GB's politics about as much as anyone could, but I don't begrudge Eric his beliefs, nor do I even know what they are based on simply knowing that he sent GB some speakers.

Scutterflux, thanks much for those details. Very helpful, and I'll look into those ideas a bit more myself, as I still haven't decided on a direction with the crossovers.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think the reason Eric sent Glen Beck a pair of speakers was due to fact he was a fan. Glen Beck actually referred to Eric as "some guy" and did not associate the gift with political affiliation. I am not a fan of Glen Beck; my observation is there are others that are not fans as well. Those people, myself included, are suspect of anything Glen Beck might say, therefore they may also be a little suspicious about the his complementary review of the Tektons and possibly refrain from buying them. If Eric is guilty of anything it may be he did not put enough forethought in sending the Tektons to Glen Beck because of a possible negative political connection.

I applaud anyone who takes a stand, but I don’t believe Eric was making a political statement when he sent the Tektons to Glen Beck. I have a pair of Tekton Lores, if you choose not to buy a pair of Tektons based upon an improbable political connection it will be your loss.

" I was seriously interested in these speakers but hearing that the company owner is a fan boy of Glen Beck who sent him a pair as a gift kind of puts me off buying them."

Thats your loss, and childish I might add.

Right on, Sebrof! Politics should have no place here.

01-09-13: Andysf
GLEN BECK? I was seriously interested in these speakers but hearing that the company owner is a fan boy of Glen Beck who sent him a pair as a gift kind of puts me off buying them.

I never begrudge anyone their beliefs. I do not smile when I think of a world where everyone thinks like I do.

It's funny how in the name of tolerance, liberals have become one of the most intolerant people in the world. It's either your way or the highway.
Very very disappointed!

GLEN BECK? I was seriously interested in these speakers but hearing that the company owner is a fan boy of Glen Beck who sent him a pair as a gift kind of puts me off buying them.
Usually a mistake to mix politics and business these days.
I would buy these before I bought something from China but there are plenty of other choices out there of other US made speakers.
Disappointed...

This thread has died off so I thought it a good time to ask.

Who still has their Lore or what ever model? Still happy?

Same as above for Omen owners.

If you changed speaker, to what and why?

I for one still have my Lore's. I'm serously thinking of upgrading the cross overs. I bought them used so although the caps would cost as much as the speakers did, I think the end result will be better than if I sold them and spent the same amount on something different. ($1300.00)

Genjamon,

SSG is a Russian silver mica capacitor, I was running .1uf values which is a very large value silver mica. They're more detailed than any capacitor I've heard, and I have some really nice teflons. They ended up sounding compreshed and hashy after I got over the thrill of the detail.

KBG is a PIO Russian Capacitor, some say it's copper film, but I havn't taken one apart yet. I actually doubt it, Russian pio caps oil makes aluminium yellowish IME.

The KBG's mellow the tweeter a bit as well as a little more relaxed and natural sounding. Still not perfect but an improvement IMHO.

As mentioned earlier on this thread there is a hotness in the lower treble and is mistaken as the tweeter, but with the high crossover point it's more likely the upper range of the woofer as a few guys here have discovered. I reduce the resistor I mentioned even more (1.5ohm), I may try taking it out period but I'm not in a hurry to try as I think the Lower treble helps add to the "live" feel.

I am hoping that someone can compare these two speakers sound characteristics to those of Reference 3a or Nola .
I am in the market for larger speakers than my present Di Capo i's . I need larger bass drivers of at least 10 inches and can not afford the larger Nola or Reference 3a units .
Thank You

Glenn Beck talks about Tekton.

You're gonna need to help me out. What does SSG mean, and what is a KBG?

Yes, I just pulled out the crossover with a bit of force, you shouldn't have to pull too hard.

I've removed the ssg bypasses and I'm running just the kbg's right now, and it's better toned, coherant and dynamic, ie,; less detail but also less compression in the highs. Those ssg's pull out too much detail I think by compressing the highs.

a couple other things you could do; With the shunt, instead of changing capacitor values is reduced the 3ohm resistor to 2ohms. This seems to help a touch, just right for me, I did try some other value capacitors and settled on this for now. Also some additional batting behind the speaker helps alot to focus the image.

I still think if you can afford it the SIO would be synergistic with helping the soundstage and detail of the Lores, but I've never actually heard it just speculating on my SIO experience in amps.

Has anybody tried the Lore with a Miniwatt N3?

Cool, thanks guys. Any preferred methods of reattaching or securing the crossover once reinstalled? Hot glue might not be the easiest for similar reasons as soldering while still attached.

I just forced mine out. It came out easily and the bracing was quite strong.

The xover is just hot-glued to the speaker brace. I used a screw driver to gently pry the xover board off the brace. You will not hurt the brace - the xover board is very thin and would break long before the brace.

Is there a trick to dealing with the glue to the brace? Or do you just force it? I wouldn't want to damage the cabinet brace and am concerned about physically forcing the crossover. I guess if you have to rebuild the crossover from scratch, I might as well just not even remove the old one.

I was able to mod the shunt capacitor with a higher value to tame the upper midrange a bit. That's been interesting. If/when I rebuild, I might put in two or three different values with a switch between them for that shunt cap to make it be a bit tunable on the upper frequencies.

You have to remove the lower woofer and the crossover is glued to the center brace. You have to pull it out and then you will have to cut the wires to pull it out. It would be very tight to work on it inside the cabinet.

If you mod the crossover, you will need to rebuild The entire crossover from scratch, oral east I did. The good news is that the parts are very inexpensive so it's not costly.

Regarding crossover mods, I'm also curious if people are modding them inside the cabinets, or if you're able to remove them from cabs. I've opened mine up a couple times and don't see how the crossovers are attached internally, assuming some kind of glue, and not wanting to start trying to force anything in there. Is there a trick to it, or do you just have to be really agile inside there with your soldering iron?

My Pendragons ship today. I hope to have them early next week.

Shakey

Scutterflux (or anyone with hands-on experience with changing out crossovers, caps, resistors, etc.):

I suppose it depends on the speaker, but specifically with the Tektons, how difficult is it to change out these components? If one doesn't like the change, how close is reverting back to stock going to get one back to the original sound? It seems to me that replacing components back and forth is still a change from its original configuration. Kind of like the Heidenberg principle...

Eric just announced my SE Pendragons will be with m in a week.
Eric new custom drivers and he now has some New crossover
Additions tell this will be very good.i have modded crossovers for years
The new Duelund resistors are the best by far Ever made,and the Munorf Silver oil are special. Through the grapevine Eric has also got his hands
On the hot new Jupiter- HT flat stack caps to compare to really shake up
He competition he Jantzen Copper Copper coils he uses are excellent.
These SE uses custom Seas Mid- Woofers,and the 3 tweeters are the very
Good Scanspeak - ring radiator from their upper discovery line.
Zu speaker ,are not ,accurate bloated bass,and get this -charge $2k
For custom paint. Eric will do any color depending on complexity
For $350- $650 .Eric is a very good honest guy ,and a great guy for the
Working Audiophiles out there.

Just want to comment on the KBG crossovers with SSG's bypassing them...Oh wow there's resolution, and more natural sounding too, everything sounds more real, more organic. The bass is tighter and much more defined, I've never heard the zing of the round wound bass strings on Blue Rodeo's 5 days in may! There's so much more detail. More soundstage information and images are clearer defined. Albeit the soundstage depth has not improved, but again it is more defined, the back details are brought to where the soundtage existed before. There's more drum stick on cymbals and dryer violins resonating with better seperation in orchestral. Horns, vocals, drums, piano all sound more real. Highly recomended upgrade for a budget.

I might try it without the SSG's later on but I have a feeling that's were allot of the detail is comming from.

Now to experiment with the Zobel a little. If you put the specs into a zobel calculator it comes to 8.61ohm and 14.11uf, that's much larger than 8ohm and 4uf or the 3ohm and 5.6uf already in the crossover.

I'm in the process of upgrading the crossovers, and need a little advice.

I was curious about the zobel, the crossover I recieved from Eric has a zobel, but is 5.6uf and a 3ohm resistor. I believe the zobel you guys talked about is a 4uf and an 8ohm resistor. Now is it a replacement for what's there or is it put in parallel with what's there? Or would you leave well enough alone?

Did you guys experement with extra damping material, what did you use and what where the effects?

And as a side note, I'm not going with the mundorf sio yet... I can definatly see why they are suggested, I think they would be synergistic with this speaker, but alas finances at this point. Anybody try any PIO, I'm going to try Russian KBG first and possibly try bypass with SSG Silver Mica.

Sebrof, thanks for heads up. I also read a review about pendragons vs omen defs that seemed to answer my concerns. In that thread a reviewer stated that for him the omen defs sounded too different from "normal" speakers and it was as if you were sitting in the front row vs mid hall. I guess that is how I felt when I heard the std omens. Not saying that it was bad but just not for me. Of course there is no substitute for listening to them. If anyone has a pair in NYC I would be much appreciative.

09-21-12: Jkontuly
I have heard the Lore-S and I liked them a lot but thought they might be a little too smooth for rock. I have had it suggested to me that I might prefer the std lore. However, the subject is Omen vs Lore which leads me to believe that they sound similar to the Omen and no offense to the many people who love zu but I just found the sound too different to what I am used to.

I had Omens and Lores at the same time and compared in a couple of different systems and rooms with 2 friends. Go back to May 2011 in this thread if you're interested.

I have heard the Lore-S and I liked them a lot but thought they might be a little too smooth for rock. I have had it suggested to me that I might prefer the std lore. However, the subject is Omen vs Lore which leads me to believe that they sound similar to the Omen and no offense to the many people who love zu but I just found the sound too different to what I am used to.
Right now I have Totem Rainmakers. I would love the Devore 88s but they are WAY over my price range :(

They show a picture of the new Pendragon center speaker in this thread here...

http://www.hometheaterequipment.com/floorstanding-speakers-62/tekton-design-pendragon-loudspeaker-official-thread-1244/

Eric is now offering a Pendragon center, rear and dual 12″ subwoofer. Not much info yet. They aren't on his products page -- you'll need to go to his Blog for more info although I have read elsewhere the center is offered at $800.

I have the Lore for over 6 months now and I do listen to Gaga and Madonna quite a bit. I can say is the Lore is great on pop as well because you sometimes got these over compressed pop songs like Madonna's Hard Candy, the bass just sounds terrible and distorted on any other hifi speakers except professional speakers but the Lore will reproduce every bass hit without a sweat distortion free because it's just quick and easy to drive.

Great thread. Let me state I joined the Lore family in May 2011, and have never looked back. See my adventures at AudioCircle (screen name Jazzaudio). I purchased mine from Eric with Sonicaps long before he offered Mundorfs as an upgrade. Why Sonicaps? I had a single-ended Eddie Vaughn tube amp that used Mundorfs and I was blown away by the sound. I also upgraded a pair of Klipsch Fortes with Bob Crites crossovers that featured Sonicaps and was also blown away by the sound (this time in direct comparison to 30+ year old original caps.) Sonicap reviews at 10audio.com and Humblehomemadehifi.com, and comparisons to the Mundorfs, convinced me to try the Sonicaps in my Lores. I'm using a Dayens Ecstasy II solid state integrated amp, and getting incredible sound!!! Fast, quick hig hend with Zero harshness. Great depth and soundstage. Tone, tone, tone!! Deep, tight bass....with tone!

Holley, Mikirob,

Thanks for the reply guys.

One other thing, from the photos included in his review, the BMW's Cyber Grey Metallic paint scheme seems to match up well with the color of the Eminence driver whose color I have never quite cared for much.

Just got around to reading Andrew Robinson's review of the Pendragon. An interesting take on them.

He seems to suggest he is purchasing the pendragons. I might be reading too much into it but he does say they are now his "new reference loudspeaker against which all future loudspeakers, regardless of cost, will be judged". I don't know if that means he is keeping them, along with his Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamonds.

That's two reviews of a Tekton speaker he has done. One day, I'd like to see him take on one upgraded with the Mundorf caps.

Batch, Nicodemix, and Bc63, thanks for the replies. It's doubtful I will ever move to a vinyl set-up so it's CDs, and eventually streaming for me.

Batch, the comment on Lady Gaga and LMFAO had me LMFAO. Would I listen to that kind of music crtically? No, but when I am working around the house, I can see myself listening to a compliation that would include material by both.

I understand that the better speakers will always reveal poorly recorded material for it is. I just don't want something that is uber-detailed and it seems like you all have addressed that point rather nicely. Thanks again.

I suppose the better approach for me is to order both the standard and Seas-based version and see which suits me best.

Sleeper52,

I have had a pair of Pendragons for a few months now and have tried them with Audience AU24 'e' series (pricey), Morrow SP3 (good value), and 14 gauge ofc copper wire from Parts Express (cheapo stuff - did this when I wanted to try the speakers in the rear of my room). Honestly, the Pendragons sound great with any of them. They do not seem to be as cable dependent as other speakers I have owned. That being said, I love the Audience stuff -- their cables just seem to give great tone and balance, and have proven my favorites for many years with many different systems.

I'd go cheap for starters, figure out where you like the Pendragons placed, and then look for some different cables if you are so inclined.

Eric formally worked with Ray Kimber of Kimber cables, call, and seek his advice. I'm a long time user of Kimber 8TC, can't go wrong with them in most situations. Of course, I also use and have used many other brands.

Have a pair of Pendragons on the way. Just would like to ask for recommendations for speaker wires. I read someone recommend Kimber Kable (4TC, 8TC, or 12TC??). Any feedback on which of these to get? Also, do you guys have other recommendations?

Just go me some Pendragons with SiO. Can anyone recommend some bang for the buck speaker wires? I've heard someone recommend Kimber Kable here.

I agree. I find the lore's one of the best "all rounders" I've come across. They can be true to sorce. So it will show if the recording is poor but not to the point it's fatiguing. I find they like good valve amplification.