Floorstanding loudspeakers — Tekton Design LORE

The Lore is a two-way front-ported tower from Tekton Design, listed with the Full Towers at USD 1,050 per pair, down from USD 1,200. Designed by founder Eric Alexander, it draws on Tekton's pro-audio background and uses a 10-inch woofer with one conventional tweeter instead of the multi-dome arrays found on many other Tekton models.

Key specs that matter

A 10-inch Lore woofer with a whizzer cone, made by Eminence in Kentucky, is paired with an Audax 1.1-inch titanium Gold dome tweeter, and a beryllium tweeter is offered as an option. Frequency response is 30 Hz to 30 kHz, sensitivity is 94 dB at 1 W and 1 m, nominal impedance is 8 ohms and power handling is 200 W. The cabinet measures about 991 x 305 x 330 mm and weighs about 27.2 kg.

Engineering and use context

The whizzer is a small secondary cone fixed to the voice coil of the woofer, which radiates higher frequencies than the main cone, so the 10-inch driver covers the bass and a large part of the midrange, and the tweeter covers the rest. Compared with the 8-inch two-way Alta, the Lore steps up to a 10-inch woofer and raises sensitivity by 1 dB. Tekton describes the driver placement as impulse time-aligned and stresses that both drivers radiate directly, without horns. A front-mounted port vents the cabinet through the baffle. Options include an upgrade package, several footer styles including castor wheels, and grilles, and the cabinet can be painted in a range of colours.

Pairing

Being efficient and easy to drive, the Lore works with low-power tube amplifiers, including single-ended designs of a few watts, and with small solid-state integrated amplifiers. The wattage figure is a ceiling, not a requirement. In a room of about 20 m2, the woofer and front port give deep bass without a subwoofer. The front port means the cabinet does not depend on clearance behind it for its port output, and the castor-wheel footers make the speakers easy to move for cleaning or rearranging a room. Tekton builds the Lore in the USA, and delivery within the continental United States is free. Grilles, when chosen, are sent separately from the speakers.

Alternatives

The Tekton Design Lore Excite uses the same 10-inch Lore woofer with a 30 mm waveguided fabric dome tweeter, rated at 95 dB, at USD 950 per pair.