Upgrade rainmakers to hawks,clues,tekton or fritz?


I have a pair of totem rainmakers and a NAD 747 AV receiver. At the time that I bought the receiver I thought I would go surround sound. Now I have decided to just focus on 2 channel and be content with stereo for movies. I will probably sell both the receiver and the rainmakers to finance this. Right now I have heard and like totem Hawks, Sjofn Clue(heard this at the audio show this weekend pretty impressive for $999), I am also interested, but have not heard, Tekton Lore-s and Fritz Grove. The amp will probably depend on the speaker. For the Tektons I am thinking red wine audio for the others maybe Naim 5i. My budget is around $3000. I am fine with used equipment. I listen to mostly rock but have recently been listening to Hawaiian slack key guitar. Has anyone heard the tektons or Groves and rainmakers so that they can make a comparison? Any Opinions?
128x128jkontuly

Showing 1 response by plato

Hello Jon,

I seriously doubt that the Totem Hawks, although decent, will be on the same page with the Tekton Lore-S when it comes to overall balance and purity of tone.

I have not heard the Sjofn Clue speakers, but took a look at their specs which threw up a couple of flags for me. One thing is that they are claiming that a woofer with a 4-inch diaphragm size and a tiny enclosure can play down to 28Hz (-3dB) with 87dB/watt efficiency. I find this spec highly doubtful even if room gain is factored into it. Also, it has a crossover to the tweeter at 2300Hz, which is in a very sensitive band of human hearing...

So considering these things and considering that the Lore-S has an 8-inch woofer, more cabinet volume, a much higher crossover point (at least 5kHz) and the Lore-S is 7dB more efficient (meaning it will work MUCH better with great sounding lower power amps), I'd still put my money on the Lore-S.

I have also had the Fritz Rev 5 speakers in my room for a few months and although I liked them quite a bit, they are not quite as transparent as the Lore-S or as extended in the high frequencies. Also their midbass was a tad overly ripe... at least in my room, which was not always a good thing if you know what I mean.