To be honest I had never heard the Endeavor E5 until last week when I got an invitation to visit Leif's new house and to hear his system in his new digs. Wow, was I in for a surprise as, IMO this speaker is truly a diamond in the rough. At an MSRP of $35K for the pair I was hard pressed to think of any speaker in this price range that could even come close to compete with the E5
It was a sweltering southern California day of 105 degrees when I visited Leif but it was worth it. Leif has just moved to a house on Canyon Lake and he was quite excited about his new listening room. Even though he had just moved in , it was Leif's feeling that this was a special room even though he had yet to add any room amendments other than a large bass trap in the front corners of the room.He looks forward to treating the room accordingly but in the interim what I heard was terrific
The room is a generous 16' x 30' x 10'and the speakers were sitting about 5 feet forward of the front wall with a very slight toe in. The speaker is a 3 way that can be driven by a single amplifier and my initial impression that the room looked somewhat bare and underrated in the absence of any sound treatment. Boy was I ever wrong. This is a room in progress and I was hearing the first iteration which I must admit sounded damn good
Some specs first off
The speaker weighs 135 lbs per channel and is 91 Db efficient. The speaker is made from a cellulose composite. It has four 7" black anodized aluminum cone woofers made by Scan Design IIRC as well as a pair of 6.5" mid range Kevlar drivers with a Faraday Ring voice collar also by Scan Design and a Scanspeak Beryllium tweeter. The finish was a very smart looking silver gloss
as I said was not prepared for what I heard. Leif's front end gear that I heard that day was an entry level $7K Audio Alchemy Class D mono amps, a server and an integrated preamp with a built in DAC. The preamp had t'sown separate power supply. All I can say is that this little front end gear played through the E5 speakers sounded absolutely wonderful.
Timber and tone were right on and the air between the strings of the guitar created an openness and ease to the speaker allowing for a giant sized and well dialed in sound stage. As Ron Resnick pointed out in his recent thread on a visit to KeithR's sound room that there is an enormous amount of enjoyment to be gained form an inexpensive and well dialed in system
The digital side of things was entirely via hirez files played through his server and analogue was via reel to reel tape on a J-Corder
The room does have some issues that need taming such as reflection off the glass windows on the front of the room as well as a large sliding windowed door along the left side wall. The reflections off the front windows were easily controlled by closing the window blinds. The left side wall did have some bounce echoes but as Leif correctly points out, the house is new and this is a work in progress.
Whatever Leif played, be it digital via his Audio Alchemy server or analog via his J-Corder I was stunned as to how involved I was listening to this speaker. I loved the sound and the sound stage was wide and deep. As stated my biggest comment bout the E5 was just how relaxed it was and the ease of presentation. The air around the stings and voices made for an open and well defined sound stage. I was very impressed with this speaker's performance
Other essentials used by Leif were Master Built Reference interconnects and Reference power cords.
In my short time there I could see that this Endeavor E5 was a very special speaker and at $35K MSRP for a 3 way speaker gave me pause to think of any comparably built speaker in this price range that was even competitive. I could think of none
In the future Leif is planning to move his simple front end gear off to the side in favor of his heavy weight VAC components and amps.
I am hoping for an invite back to hear the next iteration of his room. I have heard the new VSA Ultra 11 on at least 6 separate occasions both in the VSA showroom as well as at recent shows. Suffice it to say I have been enamored by this new VSA ULTRA line of speakers. I mention this because I understand that Leif and Damon realize the Endeavor E5 is a special speaker, so much so that they are planning on an Ultra E5 speaker to add to their product line in the near future
It was a sweltering southern California day of 105 degrees when I visited Leif but it was worth it. Leif has just moved to a house on Canyon Lake and he was quite excited about his new listening room. Even though he had just moved in , it was Leif's feeling that this was a special room even though he had yet to add any room amendments other than a large bass trap in the front corners of the room.He looks forward to treating the room accordingly but in the interim what I heard was terrific
The room is a generous 16' x 30' x 10'and the speakers were sitting about 5 feet forward of the front wall with a very slight toe in. The speaker is a 3 way that can be driven by a single amplifier and my initial impression that the room looked somewhat bare and underrated in the absence of any sound treatment. Boy was I ever wrong. This is a room in progress and I was hearing the first iteration which I must admit sounded damn good
Some specs first off
The speaker weighs 135 lbs per channel and is 91 Db efficient. The speaker is made from a cellulose composite. It has four 7" black anodized aluminum cone woofers made by Scan Design IIRC as well as a pair of 6.5" mid range Kevlar drivers with a Faraday Ring voice collar also by Scan Design and a Scanspeak Beryllium tweeter. The finish was a very smart looking silver gloss
as I said was not prepared for what I heard. Leif's front end gear that I heard that day was an entry level $7K Audio Alchemy Class D mono amps, a server and an integrated preamp with a built in DAC. The preamp had t'sown separate power supply. All I can say is that this little front end gear played through the E5 speakers sounded absolutely wonderful.
Timber and tone were right on and the air between the strings of the guitar created an openness and ease to the speaker allowing for a giant sized and well dialed in sound stage. As Ron Resnick pointed out in his recent thread on a visit to KeithR's sound room that there is an enormous amount of enjoyment to be gained form an inexpensive and well dialed in system
The digital side of things was entirely via hirez files played through his server and analogue was via reel to reel tape on a J-Corder
The room does have some issues that need taming such as reflection off the glass windows on the front of the room as well as a large sliding windowed door along the left side wall. The reflections off the front windows were easily controlled by closing the window blinds. The left side wall did have some bounce echoes but as Leif correctly points out, the house is new and this is a work in progress.
Whatever Leif played, be it digital via his Audio Alchemy server or analog via his J-Corder I was stunned as to how involved I was listening to this speaker. I loved the sound and the sound stage was wide and deep. As stated my biggest comment bout the E5 was just how relaxed it was and the ease of presentation. The air around the stings and voices made for an open and well defined sound stage. I was very impressed with this speaker's performance
Other essentials used by Leif were Master Built Reference interconnects and Reference power cords.
In my short time there I could see that this Endeavor E5 was a very special speaker and at $35K MSRP for a 3 way speaker gave me pause to think of any comparably built speaker in this price range that was even competitive. I could think of none
In the future Leif is planning to move his simple front end gear off to the side in favor of his heavy weight VAC components and amps.
I am hoping for an invite back to hear the next iteration of his room. I have heard the new VSA Ultra 11 on at least 6 separate occasions both in the VSA showroom as well as at recent shows. Suffice it to say I have been enamored by this new VSA ULTRA line of speakers. I mention this because I understand that Leif and Damon realize the Endeavor E5 is a special speaker, so much so that they are planning on an Ultra E5 speaker to add to their product line in the near future
