Review by Joel Wesseling, Courtice, Ontario, Canada - January 2009

[There are so many 'reviews' that could be posted here and needs updating]

Part 1:

Anyway, Got the Elsinores working late last night and spent 3 hours with them and they sound amazing. I love the their ability to go loud without ear fatigue or shouting etc - -not over-dynamic I guess is part reason [I think he means that dynamics are not overly exaggerated - edit]. Soundstage, treble, bass, driver integration is all very good. I'm in analytical mode right now and very excited about listening the rest of the week. Going to spend Friday evening with two friends who also have interest in this area and interested in their thoughts.

I have many things to say... but have time restraints and really just want to continue listening during the evenings, especially LP's.

Thank you for this design and your time. I'm very impressed.

Part 2:

I continue to be captivated by these speakers. The balance makes them sound complete. The midrange is wonderfully natural. Acoustic music is pure magic. I crank rock recordings for a couple of hours and feel the energy, presence and openness and leave the room with the same ears as when I entered.

I want to hear them for a long period with several amplifiers, the three I'm trying have each there own character I have one small issue and that is that the closed hi hat sounds funny, unnatural in some way? I started the first night with a 40c Chinese 2.7 ohm resistor on the tweeter. The next day I received a Mundorf 2.7 ohm resistor and swapped it out and the improvement on overall treble was huge but the hi hat thing is still noticeable?? Maybe tubes are the answer or better resister still... maybe it's a few recordings, need more time.

With this small issue with closed hi hat, the Elsinore is still the most satisfying speaker I have heard. I can remember the sound of every kilo-buck system I've heard and I found an anomaly with each that would keep me from buying and this includes the overly lively treble from Audio Note speakers (inner reflections from baffle) but purity (weight, harmonics and edge I guess) of the fundamental part of the notes on the jazz recording I heard is still in my memory... must be the AN tube amps.

My friends were very impressed. The first thing that was said by Jay when they walked into the room is "the sax on that recording normally sounds too strong" He got it right away. I heard 3D many times and both guys thought at least $10k at a retail shop. What happened fairly quickly though is they wanted to listen to the music and they forget about how it was being generated. We did question the amount of ambient information and that they were not open enough and moving them further apart was asked of me and I rejected it at that time because I new it didn't work with some other speakers and was thinking about some other things that it might be... so we left them for the evening.

Well, stupid me. I spread them out now (close to 10 feet now with inside panels visible) so my first paragraph stands.. Now when I pull out familiar recordings, they have all the air that I remember. Someone said "monitor with a heart" - I feel this way when I listen.

My friend are coming back soon with the new placement and they will be impressed.
I'll give you their comments and you can quote anything that has or will be said.

Part 3:

Just wanted to let you know that I've been listening all week and thinking about the treble. I'm going over everything that I can think of and believe what I'm hearing is simply the tweeter's ability to reveal how the treble was recorded. Since every recording is unique some don't have as much cymbal ring coming through from the recording process but when the recording has the treble content then it shows. It's not a case of one recordings having less or more treble it's the amount of treble complexity in the recording coming through. The scanspeak tweeters in my other speakers have their own personality so the treble differences within the recording are not displayed as widely I've always found the sound of treble to be the hardest to figure out but I thing I gradually discovering that the Peerless is an amazing tweeter...

Dissecting the Elsinore means nothing anyway because they simply sound Fabulous but I will post much more thoughts and experiences on diy audio. I have a personal vendetta against some commercial brands and mainstream magazines based on some bad experiences, so my retaliation is to try to get people to believe/realize that the Elsinore easily competes with Big name brands that are very expensive. It will better many of them. Last night my friend said these were better then the Wilsons we (myself and my friend were on a road trip) heard in Chicago - I thought the same thing earlier in the week an had not mentioned that to him... I much prefer them over Sophia as well for different reasons. The Wilson we heard were the Maxx series 2.

I going to experiment much more with many many recordings along with listening to them up stairs in a wide space without treatments. Hope to have 300b mono's running soon as well.... I'll post thoughts on Diyaudio.

Joel

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Additional Comments from diyaudio.com:

Consider leaving the cabinets the way there designed. Joe has went to great lengths to have amazing sound come out of simple to make cabinets..

When I arrived at the point where all the panels where dry fitted I thought they looked very, very nice and much better than any picture has show. The trick to a beautiful look then lies in how the finish is done using one or a few of the many materials available.

When your listening to the Elsinore cosmetics become unimportant.

Danger: If you assemble and listen before you put the finish on, like I did, it will be very hard to shut them down to complete the surfaces.

Joel