Based largely on this thread and also having heard the Zu Soul Superfly at RMAF in October, I decided to give Eric and the Lore a chance. Put in my order in early March, and they finally were shipped late last week after some delays (it's clear that Eric is kind of at the limit of his capacity right now), finally made it home from picking them up from Fedex last evening. I also got the walnut veneer finish.
Quickly swapped them out for my Hornshoppe Horns in my system, and immediately turned them on a medium-high volume to begin break-in - then left the house for bowling league. The finish is very high quality. I'm a little less than totally satisfied with the look of the gray drivers compared with the beautiful wood finish - they could use some black grills to cover the drivers in this case, although the gold tweeter could easily stay visible and make me happy.
Immediate impressions before leaving the house were that there was more tone and fullness than the Fostex-based Hornshoppe speakers, certainly more bass as expected. There were also enhanced spatial cues.
Returned three hours later after bowling along with some of my buddies. We put in the Ween Live in Chicago DVD, cranked the volume, and had an awesome time. If things continue to improve from here, I'll be a very happy person.
A note of comparison to Zu. I didn't listen extensively to the Soul Superfly, but I did listen to a couple songs. Keep in mind it was at a show, and not in my home with my setup. I also don't have the same supporting electronics, so YMMV. However, I can say, even given all those caveats, my initial comparative impression of the Lores vs. Soul Superfly are that the SS had more meaty tone but that the Lores have more spatial development and cues while retaining a lot of that tone. The dynamics are certainly there in spades. My buddies said that these speakers really sound like you're there at the event. We were listening at near concert levels - yes our ears were ringing a bit by the end of the DVD, just like at a concert. It sounded like voices in the crowd and claps and cheering were right there in the room with us. And the music was really damned sweet.
Anyway, I'll keep this thread updated as I continue with burn-in and as I have a chance to listen to more of my music, especially the well recorded stuff.
System Equipment:
Mac-Mini - SSD, headless
dB Audio Tranquility SE DAC - with signature USB cable
Hornshoppe's The Truth pre-buffer
Dayens Ampino
Lores/Hornshoppe Horns
AV123 MFW-15 subwoofer fed by stock Behringer DEQ2496, using RTA and pink noise to set up parametric EQ for proper integration of subwoofer with main speakers - flat bass response to 20hz in my room/listening position, and also good integration with mains
~Ben |
I'd call the driver a slightly blueish gray. Not the perfect match with a wood veneer in my opinion, but I don't notice it as much as when they first arrived. Not really a big deal to me. I have much worse aesthetic issues in my living room than these minor issues on otherwise very fetching speakers. I did suggest to Eric he should consider grills an option, especially for wood veneers. He said he's been looking into it with an industrial engineer, and he hopes to offer a retrofit for those who already have Lores and would like grills. He didn't mention anything about timeline. Honestly, if faced with the prospect of shipping costs to and from Eric and also time without the speakers, I'd probably be fine not even going for grills. I'd sure miss the tunes while they're away. |
I agree with Sebrof - hearing a few songs in a foreign room with foreign equipment isn't enough for a full comparison. Furthermore, this was way back in October. That said, I do remember comparing the Soul Superfly system to other systems at RMAF. It was not in my top 5 systems, and I recall coming home to my system and feeling it was definitely in the top 5. The only affordable system that was in the top 5 other than my system at home was the Odyssey complete system - $5500 for everything except source. It rocked, had finesse, soundstage depth/width/height, etc. I'm committed to high efficiency, otherwise I probably would have bought that system and sold off my current one. What I was hearing last night was very much in line with what I liked about those Odyssey Lorelei's driven by the Odyssey electronics. Dynamics, space, tone, etc.
Not that the Lorelei's and Lores can be said to be exactly the same or should even be directly compared - I'm just saying the main attributes that wowed me about the Odyssey system have been introduced to my home system through the Lores.
Comparison to Hornshoppe Horns? Well, last night's listening showed the Horns to be lean and less spatially resolving in comparison. They're great for what they are, but the Lores are a whole other animal. Lores could play louder with greater ease and scale - the dynamics were more substantial. They Horns image well, but the soundstage is greatly expanded with the Lores, in width, height, and depth. There is also greater tone and micro-resolution, most notably with guitar. Then again, I WAS listening to a live Ween concert, so you better believe guitar was where a lot of the action was. In terms of dynamics, percussion was also much more resolved as a result of better dynamic ability. As a former drummer, this was a great result for me.
Ok, guys. Don't take what I'm saying here too far too fast. I just listened to one DVD for a couple hours very early into the burn-in period. I really like what I'm hearing, but I'm no fan-boy, and I'm willing to offer criticism as much as note what I like. I haven't heard Omens, and I'm not trying to make that comparison here. All I can say about my LIMITED experience with the Soul Superfly is that they were "interesting", but did not wow me at RMAF. Lorelei's did then, and Lores are right now, in my room, in my system. Who knows how the Superfly's would do in my room/system, but I'm not that interested to find out given what I was hearing last night. Let's see how the Lores fare with a load of my other music. |
As for wattage, the 25 watts/channel of my Dayens Ampino has been PLENTY for my 8 X 15 X 22 ft living room with significant sized opening to dining room.
I've spent a good amount of time this weekend working on subwoofer integration with the Lores. With the Hornshoppe speakers, the last couple octaves of bass are just completely missing. My subwoofer was pretty much on its own with anything under 100 hz or so. My microphone on pink noise measures the Lores performing down to 30 hz before really trailing off. I find the Lore bass to be there, but to be a bit light for my tastes and in my room. Subwoofer supplementation is definitely desirable for me. It's definitely much trickier to have to integrate a third bass driver into the room, though. The EQ curves I have to work up in my Behringer are more difficult, and then there's always a difference between the measurement and what my ears are telling me.
I find the bass quite tuneful and articulate with the Lores, but in my opinion they do need some support for weight in the bass arena and also deepest extension.
At this point, the Lores have about 25 hours of solid performance on them. I wouldn't say that they have opened up substantially more since about the first 10 hours, but I have been listening to them almost continuously, so I'm probably not noticing changes if they are happening gradually.
One concern that has arisen involves some of the mp3's I've played. Most of my collection is lossless ripped from my CD collection. However, I do have some mp3's downloaded from the internet, at various bitrates. I have found with a significant number of these mp3's that volume peaks create a "popping" or "ticking" sound in the tweeter. It's significant enough for most of those songs to make them unlistenable. It's not my amp clipping, as the popping happens no matter the volume of playback. It's the way the Lores are working with the signal itself. Not sure why Lores would be different, but the Hornshoppe speakers never did this on these same files, nor did Omega Compact Hemps or Tyler Acoustics Linbrook Monitors I've had. I hope this situation resolves itself with further burn-in. |
Switched back to Itunes to try out those mp3's this afternoon, and no ticking/crackling. I was using Decibel as my player. Looks like I need to have a chat with Steve Booth about what his software might be doing. He might be able to identify the issue and include a fix in his next Decibel update.
I wouldn't say the Lores are overly bright for my taste - I'd say they're just about right, but I'm using a good combination of absorption and diffusion acoustic treatments in my room, so that probably helps a good bit.
I'm not using any filtering on the Lores in the bass dept - they're running full-range. I'm not interested in doing filter unless absolutely necessary. I have some of Ed Schilling's magic cables going from my amp outputs to the line-level inputs on my Behringer EQ, the the EQ outputs to the subwoofer line level inputs. Crossover point is about 100 hz, but that's deceiving. I have a lot of cutting in the EQ curve throughout the bass freqs, but I'm battling a healthy null around 70 hz in my room, despite good bass trapping. |
I'm using Anti-Cables speaker cables and Signal Cable silver interconnects. Pangea and Signal power cords. No power treatment.
I would say I DO want my system to be able to kick me in the chest at 30 hz if that's what the music or soundtrack calls for it. That's why I have a monster subwoofer capable of doing so. I don't expect my main speakers to be able to do it alone, especially in the price range I can afford. That said, I don't like boom and bloom in my bass, so mains with good bass resolution and tone is vital, as is careful integration of subwoofer. That's why I bought the Behringer, to allow me to do this in highly customizable ways with my room's specific acoustic needs.
I have no complaints with the Lores in the bass department. However, if I were to run them absent a subwoofer, in my room, I would find the bass instruments to sound recessed compared to midrange. For instance, I don't want the bass guitar to sound like it's playing second fiddle to electric or acoustic guitar, like the bassist is hanging out way in the background and the vocalist and guitarist are front and center. I like it to sound like bass, drums, guitar, and vocals are all playing at comparable volume levels. Another way I like to judge frequency balance is listening to the drums. From cymbals, to snare, to tom toms, to bass drums, all drums should sound like they are at relatively similar volume levels. If the kick drum sounds quite a bit louder than a solid tom tom or snare hit, the bass is too much.
So, what I do is take that Behringer and a microphone, play some pink noise, do my best to EQ bass to be flat consistent with integration with mid-bass and midrange. This will get the proper EQ for deep bass as well as dealing with the major inevitable wobbles in bass freq. response in most rooms. Then I shut off the pink noise and play a variety of music, musical styles, etc, listening for bass levels that balance as like I described my preferences above. If I need to add or cut gain from the subwoofer, that's what I do. I usually go back and forth adding and cutting a little here or there to get it right for my tastes. After a couple hours, I'm usually pretty satisfied, and when I play a song with a good walking bass from low to high, it sounds pretty balanced to me with good integration to where the subwoofer drops off into mid-bass.
YMMV!
I have the Lores about 18 inches from sidewalls and 35 inches from rear walls. Listening position is about 9-10 feet from each speaker.
Part of the issue for you guys might be that my listening position is in a part of the room with not a lot of bass acoustics reinforcement. i find this easier to get the right EQ across the spectrum. It's just off the center of the room, so I avoid a significant number of specific frequency nulls, but I'm also not getting much wall reinforcement in bass. Therefore, I need subwoofer and EQ for solid bass performance. |
Well, I think there are enough variables with room acoustics and seating position alone to throw the whole question of bass weight up in the air. Then add personal taste on top of that and you really have very little solid foundation for useful comparisons in this kind of internet chat setting.
Basically, no speaker is perfect, but I'm having a grand time with the Lores given the many compromises of in-home sound systems. Maybe someday I'll get around to building a proper outdoor amphitheater so I don't have to deal with these acoustics issues anymore... ;) |
I'm pretty sure one of the videos shows him making one of the cabinets with walnut finish... |
I would say the comments from the comparisons these guys made fits with my memory of the Soul Superfly at RMAF compared with what I'm hearing with my Lores. I'm interested if Roscoeiii can find some Lores to compare with his Superfly's, but I would wager the result will not be very different.
I'm also a former drummer, and I can definitely relate to what the guys are saying. The nuance of cymbal strikes is great, but so is the attack and midrange detail of the other drums.
Just to let you guys know, I'm nearing a point where I'll be comfortable swapping my Hornshoppe Horns back in for a comparison. Not quite settled yet, and I have some new interconnects I want fully burned in before the comparison. |
Well, I would say I've listened to some pretty heavy rock on the Lores with quite a bit of pleasure. My first night's listening session was with a live Ween concert at concert levels, and I was FULLY rocking out on it. Some of my heaviest bass music is probably my Soul Coughing albums. They have some really intense synthesized bass going on, and especially on Ruby Vroom, it's really high quality as well (upright bass for that stuff). I would never say the Lores were "confused" on any of this material in the bass region.
Your biggest risk with heavy rock, in my experience, is that it's been recorded/mixed using "modern" techniques that quash all the dynamics. If this is the case, the Lores will sound loud but compressed, as that's exactly what the recording is offering. Sometimes that's listenable, other times not. YMMV I could see strong potential for heavy metal to be unlistenable if it was recorded/mixed badly - think modern Metallica. On the other hand, some more underground heavy metal is actually extremely very technically demanding, and I bet some of those recordings paid attention to quality. Not being a heavy metal buff, I can't suggest a good example there.
Bottom line, the Lores will completely rock if the source material and amplification is up to the challenge. |
Have you also tried the Lore with your Primaluna amp? I would be curious about the pairing. |
I'm actually not a fan of the adversarial direction this is going. Not that I'm opposed to comparisons, and I have definitely contributed my own observations. I guess I just don't like the idea of the manufacturers getting into a verbal arms race. Does that kind of controversy help either/any of them? |
I use mine in a mixed music and TV situation. All 2-channel for both. It's been absolutely fine for me for both purposes, but I'm not as picky with movies. I have to say the most fun I've had thus far with my Lores has been with a Ween concert DVD. |
I think it's important not to get too distracted by the impressions of a single person. Clearly, Gpowered and Cwazz are not only listening very differently, but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum in their opinions about the Lores. Not much valuable information can be gathered by an extended discussion among people who clearly are not on the same page to begin with.
I happen to be another person who hasn't been completely satisfied with the bass response in terms of being able to play the Lores full range without any bass support. I was very appreciative of Cpapace's enumeration several posts ago about the different variables at work in bass response. In fact, I wish Eric himself was this thoughtful in his postings about the topic, as I'm sure he understands all that.
I found Eric's blog post on his website about measurements to have a confrontational tone rather than an explanatory one, unfortunately, and somewhat insulting to someone in my position. I definitely don't like peaky or boomy bass. As I've explained in my initial posts, I actually like a very balanced bass sound and go to significant steps to find it. I just like my bass to sound equal in weight to midrange and high frequencies. In my room, with my equipment, this has required subwoofer and equalization as well as room treatment. What's wrong with that!!?? I can tell you I've gone through effort to remove peaks using equalization, and the result is a very articulate bass reproduction. It's nothing like what Eric insinuates on his blog.
The simple fact of the matter is that Cpapace's listed variables can easily combine to a situation where the Lore is weak in the bass department for a given listener and their environment.
It sounds to me like Cwazz isn't interested in experimenting with different electronics to get the most out of the Lores. At the same time, Eric has made it pretty clear through his marketing that he considers the Lores capable of playing great with even mid-fi or inexpensive electronics. What's wrong with Cwazz being a bit upset that this hasn't been the case for him? Still, I would expect he might want to use this forum to explore more options for his situation rather than just running the Lores down the road.
Anyway, I'd rather spend forum time talking about the Lores somewhere between the fanboy and skeptic perspectives. Most of us realize no speaker is perfect, and most of us can talk about both strengths and weaknesses of our speakers and electronics.
I, for one, am very happy with my purchase of the Lores, despite them needing a bit of bass help in my situation. They continue to let me hear deeper and clearer into the music, and to allow me to connect more emotionally to it as well. For the price, they continue to be a grand bargain. I'm just mad that Eric has now created an upgrade option to tempt me. I wanted to just remain happy and uninterested in upgrading the Lores for a very long time. |
Sorry I misinterpreted your position a bit, Cwazz. I know in your earlier posts you had positives to say about the Lores in addition to being unsettled about the bass performance. When you said "As far as being happy , the Lores were a step backwards in that quest." in one of your last posts, I thought you'd become fully dissatisfied with the Lores.
I'm not really familiar with your electronics, but others have insinuated there may be better pairings with the Lore. I'm curious if others could make some general recommendations for improvement, those with greater familiarity with what you have right now. |
Well guys, I have some minor apologizing to do. I've been playing around with Lore placement all afternoon. I had done some significant placement experimentation in the first couple weeks and thought I had a good idea of what was going on. A few of you had recommended trying them very close to the front wall as well as others recommended toe-in so they cross well in front of the listening position.
I had previously resisted placement close to front wall due to issues with TV stand placement as well as subwoofers. I had concerns these things would obstruct Lore drivers, requiring me to move around a good amount of other stuff in the room in order to try this Lore placement. Today I finally had the time and room availability to work on this. I was able to get cables and other stuff out of the way to push the other "furniture" back about five inches toward the front wall. This allowed me enough flexibility to move the Lore's as close as 6" from the front wall.
Well, my goodness. Turned off that subwoofer, and lo and behold, there's plenty of "Shelter" song on his first album, the bass is peaky in one of the bass notes. I can confirm that that's the actual signal and not a room mode of mine. Something about their recording process on that album must have had a resonance at about 40 or 50hz, because bass notes at that frequency really spike in the signal. And this is how it sounds to my ears as well. Reproduce this approach in all the songs I'm listening to, especially while optimizing bass, and I have a pretty good idea what stuff is just part of the signal and what is due to speakers and/or room.
Ok, with that said, low bass comes through adequately on the Lores now that I have them placed closer to front walls, enough that there is no need for subwoofer for most music. I will need to go back and redo my EQ on the subwoofer so it's crossed over around 35-40hz or so and only supports sub-35hz. There's no need for it above that range.
I ended up with the rear of the Lores 15" from my front wall, and same distance from sidewalls as before (18" or so), with mild toe-in. I didn't like the aggressive toe
-in. It collapsed the soundstage too much and also cause some smearing in imaging and instrument separation.
This is only about 5" closer to the front wall than previously - very surprising to me that these few inches would make such a huge difference in bass response.
Anyway, sorry guys for not fully exploring placement before coming to my previous bass response conclusions. Cwazz, if you haven't yet played around aggressively with speaker placement, I would really recommend it. |
Ok, my damned EEE netbook likes to randomly delete stuff sometimes. A good chunk of the third paragraph in my last post is missing. The missing chunk describes how my Behringer EQ has a real-time spectrum analyzer, and signal is fed in parallel with the speakers - direct from the amp. Basically, the point is that I have a graphical display showing me the signal the speakers are seeing. This means I can compare what I'm hearing with what the signal looks like. I can tell if a peaky note is actually that loud, or if the signal has it the same as other notes in the song. This allows me to know whether the sounds I'm hearing are from speakers/room or if they're from the signal itself. It's a very handy thing, removing one of the most important variables, whether the system sounds like what the signal says or not.
Of course, it's fairly crude in that it depends on my perception of audible loudness of different sounds compared to what I'm seeing on the display. Still, it gets me much closer to the truth than without it.
I then introduced an example. Ray Lamontagne's "Shelter" song off of his first album. From that reference onward, the rest of my post is what I intended. |
I do understand the boomy/heavy issue as well. As I said, I ended up with the Lores about 15 inches from front wall. I started the experimentation at 6 inches. I moved them out a couple inches at a time, and in each case the bass became more balanced, defined, and less boomy. I was quite surprised that bass weight didn't change all that much between 6 inches and 15 inches. That's about 10 inches! The new position is only 5 inches from before experimentation, and there are light years of difference in bass response! Very strange... At least now I have found the right balance of definition and weight for my room, making the subwoofer optional at this point for when I want to be a bass freak. |
My room is 16X25 ft with 8ft ceilings. It's a early 50's ranch-style house, with suspended floor over crawl space. The room with the system is rectangular, with the house's front door on left wall at rear, 5 foot opening to dining room on right wall at rear, 3 ft opening to hallway on rear wall to the right. All these positions relative to listening position 1/3 of the way into the room from the rear wall. Speakers and system are along front wall, with rear of Lores now 15 inches from front wall, 17 inches from side wall. I have GIK tri-traps from floor to ceiling in front corners, GIK absorption at first reflection points, GIK diffusion panels on rear wall directly behind listening position and on front wall between Lores and the flat panel TV in the middle.
Yes, it's possible I've lost some soundfield depth not having them farther out in the room. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to have them 3+ feet into the room due to competing space needs for other room purposes, and I've never tried them that far out. Maybe the next time I have an afternoon free for plenty of experimentation I'll try that option and see what I think. For now, I'm quite happy I've found an option that doesn't require a subwoofer. There are some benefits to lower Lore bass output and using a subwoofer, in that I could use the multi-parametric EQ capabilities of my Behringer to deal with room modes very effectively. However, there are coherency negatives that Paul has mentioned, and I right now I'm enjoying them thoroughly without those coherency issues. |
Yeah, I've been trying to give Cwazz every benefit of the doubt, but at this point I'm just not sure he's really interested in seeking the solution to his issues.
Despite this, let me share an experience I had toying around the other week. I had found that speaker placement mattered essentially in getting enough bass response for me with the Lores. I have an Ampino, which has volume control, but was also using a preamp/buffer. I thought I would experiment with just using the amp and eliminate the preamp.
I found that details were somewhat enhanced, and greater air, but to the detriment of full-bodied instrument sounds, and most importantly, BASS!! Putting the preamp back in there brought back the bass extension, musical drive, while only modestly reducing detail and air by the slightest bit. In fact, I am not so sure it was not simply the psycho-acoustic effects of more bass energy that I was hearing and not actual reduction in detail.
Cwazz, and everyone else, having the right mating of electronics and speakers is ESSENTIAL when you have high expectations and you're playing with this level of speaker quality. |
I can say I'm still very happy with my Lores. I would also like to say that I now understand the full bass response of the Lores after doing a lot of work positioning them - and they DO make right down to about 30 hz if they're getting the right room reinforcement. In my case, it was a matter of just a very few inches placement that made the difference between the bottom being 40hz and 30hz. I don't use a subwoofer for music anymore, no need. I do turn the subwoofer on for movies, though, as those really low frequencies are needed for enough impact.
The dynamics of the Lores are as addictive as their tone and nuance. For this reason, the Pendragons are quite tempting. I'd like even more dynamics without giving up the overall sound of the Lores, and I'm sure the Pendragons go a long way there. But I'm very happy with where I am right now, and not interested in going a different direction for quite some time at last.
Over on one of the audiocircle threads about the Lores, a guy described a series of cabinet and driver frame dampening he did that really improved imaging/clarity. I plan to try that soon, but man I'd be surprised if it could make things that much better.
Are the Lores the best speakers ever - definitely not. Are they worth $10K? I have no idea, as I've never had speakers of that caliber in my system at home. I can say that they're way better than any other speaker I've had in there, including Tyler Acoustics monitors, Hornshoppe Horns, Omega Hemptones, Klipsch Lascalas, and Zu Druids. They don't have the dynamics of Klipsch, nor the complete coherency of the 4" Hornshoppe single drivers, but they have the best combination of tone, dynamics, frequency extension, microdynamics and nuance, large soundstage, and competent imaging of any speaker I've heard in my system. |
Zman, I suppose I would be a casual listener by your definition. I have found a positioning of the Lores in my room that does not have bloated bass at all, has just as articulate of bass as when the speakers were a little farther out into the room, but it goes down to the full 30 hz. Now, as for soundstage, I'm sure you're right that I'm sacrificing soundstage depth. I guess that's a compromise of having the system in my living room. That said, I'm a bachelor, living alone, and have the ability to make of my living room what I want. In this case, I do have quite a lot of room treatment (including absorption panels in front of TV when not watching it), and furniture is comfortably arranged in ways that make it a nice lounge as well as decent sound. Is it fully fully optimized, no, probably not. It's not been compromised for the needs of a family, though!
Also, I totally agree with you about a subwoofer being an excellent tool. In fact, before I had the Lores, I had Hornshoppe Horns, which needed subwoofer support all the way up to probably the 80-100hz range. In that case, I was using a subwoofer along with an active EQ customized for the sweet spot. With the Lores well positioned for quality bass response, I don't feel like I'm lacking anything until I'm sub-30hz without a subwoofer. I'd say that's pretty good, but it does make me curious about the Pendragons, and I wonder if you could get away with less wall reinforcement in the bass area with them.
Ok, that's it for my ranting response. |
Zman did get me thinking and motivated to further explore positioning. I did a lot of positioning work a while ago to get the right room reinforcement for quality and quantity bass. Yesterday I gave up the bass quest entirely and embarked on a quest for soundstage depth. I moved the speakers out into the room about 2 feet more and about a foot further from the sidewalls. Indeed, the soundstage depth expanded greatly, and the bass suffered. I think I'll keep it in this configuration for a while, as I have the space with my current setup. It's not as nice and tidy as when the speakers were closer to the corners, but I do like the much much greater soundstage depth. It's helping a lot with both my high quality recordings as well as the lower quality ones - the music has more room to "breath", so the layers of the music aren't compressed on top of each other nearly so much.
As a result, I have re-engaged my subwoofer with room EQ, and while the bass isn't as coherent and will take me a while to tweak until it's just right, it's there in the right quantity to keep the system full-range. I'm not having much trouble with the speakers disappearing for the most part, although I bet some high quality monitors may do a better job of that. I do intend to do the cabinet and driver resonance tweaks, which I am told should reduce the sound of the cabinets and help them to disappear even more. |
Has anyone tried any Red Wine Audio with their Lores or siblings? With Vinnie's new 15 watter coming out, I'm anxious to try his newer stuff. I had a 30.2 integrated that I sold a couple years ago to go cheaper and still nice with the Miniwatt, then with the Ampino. But I haven't heard his stuff with the new battery technology nor with the tube buffer, and I'm getting curious as to how they'd work with the Lores. Thoughts? |
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 talked to Eric yesterday about the new options, trying to sort out a recommendation for my brother. He said the Lore-S uses Seas drivers, a step above the Lore in refinement. There's a rub, however. As the Eminence in the base Lore is designed as a pro-audio driver, Eric said it has more punch than the driver in the Lore-S. The Seas driver, on the other hand, will have more of a regular hi-fi sound. The Lore-S driver is also 8" as opposed to the Lore's 10", and the cabinet is thus a little narrower. |
Or for a bedroom system you could consider going for the Lore-M. It might not be quite as placement-sensitive without the whizzer cone, and also might do better at a closer range. Probably subtle differences, and I wouldn't know for sure, only having heard the Lore. |
Yeah, I've been wondering if the m-lore and maybe oriel as well have a little different character than the lore itself. The lack of whizzer has to do something, and I wonder if it might not shift the overall frequency balance just slightly lower.
As for me, I have some tentative plans in place to be auditioning the Lore-S in my home in the coming weeks. Won't be all that soon,and I won't have benefit of side by side comparison with my Lores, as we're swapping for a period of time. I'll be sure to post my impressions though. |
What's your placement like, Goramon? I find tilting them up a bit above the listener's ear greatly smoothed things out for me and added lots of ambience and soundstage depth too. I've been meaning to try opening them up and dampening the cabinet with Dynamat, as I suspect that would help with the last bit of imaging and soundstage. They're excellent stock, but there are still occasional times when an instrument, usually electric guitar, sounds like it's coming straight from the speakers and not from the rest of the soundstage. |
Sebrof - looks like the V3 Katz Meow have the same drivers as the Lore-S, and they're virtually the same price, too. Not surprising they have pretty similar sound. Yeah, if pressed to choose one or the other - which I am - it's quite a hard choice. I've had my list of go-to music for comparing cable swaps and other equipment swaps with the Lores for a while, but with the Lore-S I'm going to need to listen throughout my catalog to make this decision. There is music the Lore-S is doing a lot better than the Lore did, but then music the Lore-S can't compete on - and that's all with the same amp. If you start talking about messing around with amps, cables, etc, this could be a whole different animal. Too bad I can't afford them both, like you, Sebrof... |
I got the NCore modules installed in a chassis and running this week. They are very smooth, detailed, great soundstage depth, imaging, tone, pretty much everything. They are not the most dynamic, but a good match to the Lore in this regard, as I have tried some punchy amps with them that we're too much.
I'm just starting to get used to the sound of these amps, but they are definitely special. If you haven't heard of them, I would check them out. |
I now have the Lore-S in house as of last night. They only had about 10 hours on them before showing up at my place, and I put about 5 on them last night. I'll be playing them while I'm at work all week and also in the evenings, so I should have about 100 total hours on them by the end of weekend.
I have a bit of a head-cold, and my left ear was kind of plugged up last night, so take my impressions with a grain of salt.
So far, I would say the Lore-S has a lot more clarity, detail, resolution than the stock Lores I have had. It also seems smoother and more laid back, definitely more refined. About the same amount of soundstage depth, but not as expansive a soundstage yet - we'll see what happens with break-in.
What I miss is the level of energy, presence, and liveliness of the Lores. Eric described it as "punch" over the phone. It's that kind of energy that really makes them great for live music recordings. I think the Lore-S are not as efficient/sensitive as the Lores, down around 95-94dB or so. They also have an 8" main driver, rather than the 10". It's going to be a hard choice most likely between the extra refinement of the Lore-S and the dynamics/energy/presence of the Lores. Again, we'll see what break-in does. |
Sionlim - "I do however rock out and blow my windows out.
The Lore is very tempting, but refinement is actually what i really want."
Well, the Lore will rock out, for sure, and the Lore-S have much warmer and rounder tone to instruments, kind of a fuller sound. But they still have good dynamics, just not quite the full live feel of the original Lore. Lore-S could be the right balance for you.
However, I'm quite curious what the changes Goraman has done to his Lores do to add extra refinement without expense of dynamics. If I could have these Lore-S with that extra bit of dynamics of the Lore, I'd be in heaven. I also think the frequency balance of the Lore-S is ever so slightly tipped down, while the Lore is ever slightly tipped up. Or at least, the Lore-S is tipped lower than the Lore. Depending on associated electronics and cables, that could make a difference.
I'd really love to hear from someone who has tried the Lore-M as well as Lore about any differences there. |
Well, I also forgot to mention that I didn't find the Lore-S very sensitive to interconnects or speaker cable swapping, not as much as the Lore is. I have the copper version of Sweet Reveal cables from Tuan over on Audiocircle and some level two Morrow interconnects (silver coated copper) I swapped between, and I also have some litz braided single core copper speaker cables I swapped with some Clear Day shotgun solid core silver cables. Didn't sense a whole lot of difference on the Lore-S, while on the Lore I very much prefer the solid copper interconnects over the Morrow. Haven't yet made up my mind on the speaker cables though, as the litz ones just arrived at the end of the Lore-S audition. |
Hey Rischa, glad to hear you're giving them a go. I don't think you'll be disappointed. A word of advice to make sure and mess with placement a good bit. They sounded great to me out of the box and without toying with placement to a great degree, but I have found great additional refinement in finding the right placement for my room acoustics and seating position. Bass weight, soundstage depth, and to some extent high frequency balance can all be affected significantly by movement. Close to front wall and you'll get a lot of bass, farther out into the room, not nearly as much weight. Soundstage depth is remarkably improved by moving them out into the room. And most critically for me, the whole presentation just became a lot more natural, spacious, and refined when I tipped them up a bit with some wood under the front spikes. I went many months without that tweak and was shocked when I first heard it.
Apologies if you're already very familiar with positioning tweaks and how to get the best sound. Just thought it was worth repeating in case, and also for the benefit of others. |
Wow, this thread has gone really quiet lately! Thought I'd try to bring it back to life a bit with some final thoughts about the Lore vs. Lore-S comparison.
I now have my original Lores back in the house after a couple weeks of giving the Lore-S a try. I really don't have much more to say on the dynamics vs. fullness issue. The Lore is definitely more dynamic than the Lore-S, and it fills a room better. I also think the Lore has a more tactile sound to it, probably part of the greater dynamics, both micro and macro.
The Lore-S has a warmer tone, and fuller sounding instruments on the whole. It seems to give greater dimension to the instruments, while also separating them better than the Lore does, and with greater sound field depth. The high frequencies were certainly there, and with greater nuance and detail, but they were more recessed than with the Lore.
Now that I have the Lore back at home, the sound field does not seem as deep. I hadn't expected this, as I guess it didn't strike me upfront about the Lore-S, but I guess I got used to it while they were here.
Still, the dynamics and room-filling sound of the Lore gives music through it a greater presence in my room, and even though the instruments don't have as much weight or dimension, I love the articulation of the Lore. I guess it's what we all call that "live" sound that they have. The Lore-S had all the details, but they didn't seem to carry the same energy and emotion as with the Lore. The Lore isn't as revealing, probably, but still very revealing, enough for me, but with greater emotion and musical energy.
Keep in mind with all of the above that I'm not a big small band, singer-songwriter, jazz, or classical buff. I listen to a lot of modern alternative, rock, etc stuff. I do listen to some smaller group and acoustic music too. Some of this is actually really well recorded, others of it definitely not. I also listen in a 16X24 room, with some good sized openings to other parts of the house, fairly well treated.
Bands and songs I'm very familiar with and used in my lineup for comparison:
Ani Difranco - What How When Where Why Who
Paul Simon - You're the One, and Hurricane Eye
Ray Lamontagne - You Can Bring Me Flowers
Fiona Apple - Carrion
Bonnie Prince Billy - Wai
Fleet Foxes - Sim Sala Bim
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Bats in the Attic
Soul Coughing - City of Motors, and Down To This
Stevie Ray Vaughan greatest hits - Little Wing
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
Ween (live in Chicago) - Mutilated Lips
Micky Hart (Global Drum Project)
Florence & the Machine
Keller Williams
American Beauty soundtrack
I'm happy to be back with the Lore. I have a tube amp coming to take the place of my Dayens Ampino solid state amp. I wonder if that will help close the gap in dimensionality without sacrificing the presence and emotionality due to dynamics and micro-dynamic articulation I currently have. If not that, I'm interested in trying the new Red Wine Signature 15. I'm also quite interested in what Goramon has shared regarding crossover tweaks and what he and others have noted about dampening. That could also help close the gap while retaining the overall character I like better about the original Lore.
Onward ho! |
I forgot one last set of thoughts. I find the placement of the Lore pretty sensitive to very small changes and kind of hard to get the right balance of center fill and soundstage width/depth. When you get it right, it's really good, but it takes work.
I did not find the Lore-S to be nearly as placement sensitive. It sounded mostly the same whether flat or slightly tipped up, and not that different between a couple different positions I had used with the Lore. The differences were not nearly as large as with the Lore in those different spots. Probably relevant for those who don't have as much placement flexibility. |
Thanks for chiming in, Wind. Good to see another person's thoughts on the Lore-S. Eric has developed a pretty interesting range of speakers here, and it's good to know how they might compare to each other. We're still missing some Lore and M-Lore comparisons, and then there's the Oriel as well. Maybe someone can fill us in eventually on those. |
+1 on Floosh's comment about tweaks, Goramon. I do want to move forward with those tweaks, but am not very confident with my soldering skills and also would want some details on component ordering. Great summary and suggestions though. I'm left wondering if I couldn't just get someone (maybe Eric) to make me some drop in replacement crossovers to swap out myself... |
I would say the Lore-S has effortless detail, soundstage depth to spare, and a good warmth. Lore has the dynamics and can fill a room more, though. I was persuaded by the idea of pursuing greater detail from the Lore via Goraman's upgrade approach rather than keep the Lore-S and sacrifice the dynamics I had become used to.
I am not familiar with planar speakers, so can't comment on how Lore-S would compare beyond some very brief run-ins at RMAF the one year I went in 2010. |
Floosh, yeah I've had an initial foray into amp experimentation. I have an Onix SP3 playing for the past two weeks. It has the recommended upgraded tubes - Groove Tubes 12AX7, Electro Harmonix 6922, SED Flying C 6L6GC.
My other amp I had been using is the Dayens Ampino 25WPC integrated. So now I'm using a dynamic ~40WPC push pull tube amp. I find the SP3 to have more soundstage depth, better fleshiness of instruments, isn't less detailed than the Ampino, but takes a little of the edge off. Overall, I think an improvement, but I haven't yet swapped back to the Ampino again. I want to do that again sometime soon after my ears have really settled into the SP3, as I've found sometimes when I swap back I find things I didn't realize I was missing after the newness of the new amp wears off.
I'm quite interested in trying the new Red Wine Audio Signature 15 - it might be the best of both worlds and would save me from focusing next on cleaning up power to amp/preamp, allowing me to focus on cleaning up the power on my source. |
Thanks for sharing, Rocky! I've been interested in playing with the crossover based on Goraman's experiments, so it's great to hear Eric has some recommendations along those lines. I need to call him. Can you share the details of the caps and resistors recommended?
Goraman, could you compare this approach to yours? It sounds like this adds a zobel network, while it sounded like you mainly just substituted different caps in the existing crossover design. Did you try a zobel approach as well? |
I don't disagree with Goraman's comments about amps and other switching around not making more than minor differences, compared to what changing speakers offers in the equation. However, I would say that sometimes for me that 1% difference is all the difference in the world. That's really what I'm playing around with in my amplifier switching. I had a Decware Torii II over last summer for a weeklong trial, and I didn't get near the magic from that tube amp with my Lores than I'm getting with the SP3 right now. Slightly different flavors of the same base sound for me. The Ampino was my preference in the Decware shoot-out, but so far this SP3 is giving almost all of the strengths of the Ampino with some additional soundstage and tonal body to instruments.
Are they completely different animals? No. Do they give slightly different, but definitely distinctive lenses on the basic qualities of the Lores? Yes.
Granted, neither of these amps are what you would consider true high performance amps. They're both awesome for the money, and that's the level of money I can play with. I assume stepping up the ladder would lead to greater refinement, and right now I'm trying to decide which ladder to step up.
So, I guess I'd say that while I'm still experimenting, I have found in some of my trials that 1% is sometimes all you need to make the difference between good/interesting and truly involving. |
I ordered mine in early March of last year, and didn't receive them until the first week of April. Granted, I had a special veneer that took some extra time. Eric was pretty up-front about being patient, but it did take a little more time than he originally quoted. I wouldn't be worried, but sympathize with your anxiousness to have them. |
All very important to keep in mind, Goraman. I'm glad you made those points. The trouble for me, as I've been down that road of tweaking things when I needed to make a significant change, is that you don't know what you don't know. This is probably the biggest issue for novices or those without the technical engineering background to know crap marketing when they see it. Unfortunately, these online forums merely fan the flames of desire most of the time. If you call people out on their crap marketing, it becomes a pissing match, and the novice/amateur is left wondering who to trust. Ultimately, it ends up being a lot of trial and error and building up of experience. At least that's what my experience has been.
I'm disadvantaged in living two hours outside of Kansas City, the nearest major metropolitan area. I think there's only one or two dealers in the whole area, and I just don't have the chance to check out stuff in-person. In my case, the internets giveth in terms of access to a profound diversity and wealth of equipment options, but they taketh in the difficulty of discerning truth from fiction, as well as in figuring out whether my tastes/ears have anything in common with the reviewer or forum post author. |
Wow, those Mundorfs are quite quite pricey! Any thoughts about mixing caps? I could probably afford the smaller Mundorf caps, but what if I went for a cheaper option on the larger caps? I don't have experience with different sounds of different capacitors and would like the best I can get, but not sure I can spring for the large Mundorfs. Any idea what combinations might work best, or what I would be sacrificing by not going all-Mundorf? |
I made a number of comments comparing the Lore-S to the Lore. Look page a few pages and you'll find those posts.
Short version: I ended up keeping the Lore instead of upgrading to Lore-S. I liked the better dynamics of the Lore, although the Lore-S had better depth of soundstage and microdynamic details, and was also a bit warmer and smoother sound. I could see people preferring it over the Lore, but I really think realistic dynamics are more important than those other areas, so kept the Lore and am working on other areas of my system to close the gap in other areas.
I'm close to finishing some DIY Hypex Ncore monoblocks - probably will have those running by this weekend. I'm also interested in experimenting as others have with upgraded capacitors in the Lore crossovers. |
Well, I had a graduation party last weekend at my house for a friend, and his 3 year old saw some shiny gold bits on my speakers. Guess what happened next... ;)
So, one of the audax tweeters has some pretty sizeable dimples in it now. Luckily I don't think the voicecoil was damaged. It still works, and I've consulted Eric about how to proceed. I guess I can partially disassembled it without too much trouble and try to push the dome back into shape from the reverse side, then reassemble and reinstall. I'm gonna give it a go. If that doesn't work well, replacement diaphragm and voice coil should only cost $30-40 instead of $110 for replacing the entire driver.
In the meantime, it's been interesting listening to it this way. It's clear the dispersion pattern is messed up, and the two speakers have a little different frequency response. However, it doesn't sound as bad as I would have thought. Having the eminence driver go up as high as it does, it really does carry the majority of the information, and the midrange is still fully intact. |
I was able to take apart the driver according to Eric's instructions and push out the dents in the dome. It's not perfect, but pretty close. Driver's back in place and working well at this point. I will probably want to replace the diaphragm and voice coil at some point, but not vital at this point. |
There's a user who did his own replacement with Mundorf SIO caps, I believe with Pendragons, and said it was immediately evident and great improvement. I haven't seen anything about doing so with Lores, but I would expect similar. It's hard to say whether it's worth it - I don't have experience swapping capacitors and thus don't know how much change to expect. I have explored the cost of swapping to Mundorf SIO on my own, and the capacitors involved cost about $600 for the pair of speakers. Eric isn't making money on the crossover upgrades - it's just that the Mundorf SIO's in the values involved cost that much. |
