Eros MKII completed and initial impression

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After two long months (and after finishing Troels TJL) I finally completed building the Eros MKII this afternoon. These speakers are hugh but they did not seem so big when I was working on them on the backyard. When inside my bedroom and when side-by-side with the TJL, the TJL seems like undernourished in comparision.
Here are the a few pictures without veneer (which I will learn how to do next. Can someone give some pointers? :) )
http://www.geocities.com/hai_vu1/Eros/Eros1.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/hai_vu1/Eros/Eros3.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/hai_vu1/Eros/Eros_brace.JPG

Anyway, I build the series xover version. I use Clarity cap SA range and all foil inductors.

The sound is very good so far although the treble is just a touch harsh on some recording but maybe it will go away once the speakers are properly broken-in. Image is very life like although may lack some placement specificity but that could be due to my room which is pretty small and on some recording which has hard right or left sound, the speakers fail to disappear since you can tell the sound comes straight from either the left or right channel. With the TJL, the sound comes slightly from the inside-rear of the speakers.
The sound has a lot of details (even compared to the TJL which uses Exel driver) which may be due to a few things such as the Scan Speak 95000 tweeter, top of the line Clarity caps, and simple xover. On some speaker, sometimes you feel like the speakers hide something from you but with these, I don't feel I am being cheated.
The dynamic level is also very good on the loud passage of classical music. I have a rather budget NAD 320BBE amp but it has no problem playing these even at very demanding levels.
Someone comments that the series xover is more suited to tube amps which I may agree since I feel there is a slight emphasis on the treble and the mid could be a little bit lifted. I could feel a slight level of sibilance more than what I am used to.

Compared to the TJL, the Eros sounds bigger, more complete (having more recording details), more dynamic but the TJL has its own charm though. Being smaller they do a better job at disappearing and the TJL does this better than any speakers that I've known of maybe with the exception of the Thiel 2.4. I sense some image wandering on the Eros although just a touch but it could be my hearing. Wanye did mention that the tweeter and woofer separation is more than the norm so I guess the image wandering could be attributed to this but I want to emphasize that the amount of wandering is very slight. But the trade-off is that the sound does have more freedom and more open. The TJL will probably give you a more comfortable listening session since the Eros being a more detail sounding speaker, do force your brain to do more works. With the TJL, you just sit back and relax. The Eros MKII are probably more neutral where as the TJL is slight mid-recessed which I already brought im my previous post.

I am listening to Tom Brosseau new CD What I mean to say is goodbye ( you guys ought to check it out since it is very good) so I stop writing for now and go back to do more listening.

Good night everyone.
 
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