I received my Lores last Wednesday. The packaging, fit, finish... everything...was top notch, and the fact that Eric takes the time to give you updates on where your speakers are in the build and paint phases, and give you specific unpacking instructions is really darn nice; the man and the company are about as customer-oriented as I could expect.
Straight out of the box, my very first test track was a real driver abuser: The Detroit Escalator Co.'s "Manual Transmission" off their Black Buildings album. I figure this may be the best break-in track out there: With a range of [probably] 20-20, and a veritable fireworks show of drum sounds (along with many other tones), it really puts the full range through the gamut. Heck, I blew a picture off the wall with it (seriously).
Once I got them in the position I felt was the best, I proceeded to throw some live albums at them, just to see how imaging would come out. Jethro Tull's Aqualung Live (a show I saw in Jones Hall in Houston) sounded spacious and detailed. And that 30kHz top end really brings out the "air."
As an aside, the best imaging speaker I can think of, or at least the most holographic one I've ever heard, was the Totem Arro. I doubt the Lores will achieve that downright surreal imaging - which, quite frankly, I value highly - but the Arros will never ever be able to touch the Lores in sheer dynamics (and how would they with a 4.5" driver). I suppose there's always going to be trade-offs, but in this case I would rather have the flatter frequency response, air-throwing 10" FR and huge, detailed sound coming from the Lores.
Back to the musis: Another fun one was Kraftwerk's "Minimum-Maximum," the band's first official live album. When "Autobahn" comes on - for example - you feel like you really are amdist the crowd. "How fun is this?!" I thought. The track "Vitamin" begins, then the bass notes hit and the crowd goes nuts... I was again all smiles. Too cool. The sound coming from the Lores is just so, well, big; the sound is immersive.
With acoustic guitar, I was really amazed. I loved AG with the Moth Audio Cicada's I used to own, thinking that they rendered the truest acoustic guitar sound I had heard to date, however... There's an album by Pierre Bensusan, for example, called "Musiques." The recording level seems rather low and always sounded kind of puny, at least compared to his other albums, but with the Lores I sat on the couch and listened to the thing from start to finish. I'm not going to sat it suddenly sounded immense or anything (the recording is just not going to go there), but it was certainly not the same as the other 100 times I had listened to it. It was just one of those situations where I went, "So, this is how it sounds."
Solo piano through the Lores, as well, is equally wonderful: Glenn Gould is in the room. Adding that tweeter inline with the FR adds that last bit of information that unveils what may have been somewhat hidden before. And you pianists will know what I mean: It's the difference between playing with the lid closed and the mute depressed and playing it with the lid wide open and your foot off the mute. That may sound a bit dramatic, but that's how the sound changed for me. The large FR driver moving the air and the 30kHz tweeter make for a "complete picture." And obviously Eric's enclosure is porting everything to relative perfection.
I could go on and on about other music types I've listened to through them over the past five days, but I won't put you through that. I'm sure you can glean from my comments that I'm quite impressed.
I know I've not gone into any great detail with the above comments, but I will say that this is the most enjoyable speaker I've ever owned, and have been listening steadily since I received them. And to be able to say that with them coming right out of the box is pretty darn amazing. As a reference, the following is what I've used over the years (not the most stellar lineup, but then again I've never had much of a budget to work with):
- Bose 301
- Klipsch SB1
- Klipsch KSB 2.1
- Omega Loudspeakers TS3
- Epos ELS-3
- Totem Arro
- Moth Audio Cicada
- Morrow Audio monitors (10" Audio Nirvana FR driver)
- Magnepan Magnaplanar MMG
- Swan Diva 2.1se
My amp is an Audio Innovations Series 500 integrated, using Genalex Gold Lion KT77's, 6922's and 12AX7's. The source is a v3 Squeezebox going to a Musical Fidelity V-DAC over a DH Labs Silver Sonic D-75 coax; the interconnects are DH Labs Silver Sonic BL-1 Series 2; the speaker cabling is Audio Quest Type 2.
Cheers,
Mark
