Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Shamrock Audio Eire Speakers by imrer General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Model:	Eire
Category:	Speakers
Suggested Retail Price:	$2,995
Description:	2 way bookshelf monitor, 1
Manufacturer URL:	Shamrock Audio
Model Picture:	View

Review by imrer ( A ) on February 02, 2004 at 11:37:20 IP Address: 66.235.39.214

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I’ve been looking for a placement friendly speaker in the under $4k range; something that would work in a variety of settings without dominating the room. During my research, I discovered discussion of Shamrock Audio that piqued my curiosity.

Shamrock Audio is a direct-sale only company based out of Oregon. Mike McCall is the designer and head of the company. Let me get the concerns about the direct-sale issue dealt with first. Other than some cables, I purchased all of my gear from local brick and mortar stores. Therefore, I was apprehensive about purchasing $3k speakers from a company that I could deal with only over the internet and phone. I needn’t have worried. Mike made all my dealings with him very comfortable. There was excellent communication, usually initiated by him, and I never had reason to feel nervous. Don’t let concerns about the direct-sale business model keep you from contacting this company.

Anyway, Shamrock Audio currently produces two kits and only one finished speaker called the Eire (though Mike says more finished models are on the way). The Eire is a 2-way, front ported “bookshelf” speaker. The cabinet is 19.5” high, 13” deep, and 8.5” wide and weighs a sturdy 35 pounds. The company offers a 30-day auditioning policy and Mike tells me that in all the years that he has been selling the Eire only one pair has come back. I actually ended up with about 60 days to try them due to the occurrence of some events that were beyond the control of either party. My return date was the end of 2003 and the speakers are staying put.

The Eire’s are hand built and really show the care and attention that Mike lavishes on them. The speakers have a ¾ - 1” real wood front baffle, and the ¾” veneered mdf cabinets are quite solidly braced. Believe me, the knuckle-rap test produces more pain than sound. My pair has the cherry veneer and Peruvian walnut front pictured on the Shamrock website. The picture gives them more of a reddish appearance than they have in person. They are a beautiful walnut brown and have very high WAF, if my girlfriend’s reaction to them is any measure.

I live in an apartment and my listening room is my living room/dining room. The room is 20’ x 13’ x 8’ high. Walls are plaster over concrete and the floor has padded carpet. Facing the speakers, my back is to the exterior short wall with a few drape-covered windows. My listening chair is about 5’ from this back wall. Speaker placement was ultimately a compromise between where the speakers sounded best and where they sat best in the room.

The entrance to the living room is in the front left corner so that the left speaker does not have a side wall supporting it, though if there were one, the speaker would be about 33” from it. The right speaker is 32” from its side wall and I have a bookcase occupying the corner behind that speaker. Gear is on a rack between the speakers. Back of the speakers are 23” from the rear wall, interior sides are 5’ apart, and fronts are 8 ½’ from the listening position. Speakers are on 24” Sound Design speaker stands. I preferred toe-in that pointed the tweeters over my shoulders, crossed slightly behind me.

Sensitivity is listed as 85db. Mike is adamant about his numbers being honest measurements in contrast to the puffery that frequently goes on with these sorts of figures. Impedance is a nominal 8 ohms, with 6.5 ohm minimum, and benign phase angles make a tube friendly speaker. I use a 50-watt Stingray and have no problems either achieving volume or with bass control. No flabby, one-note bass here.

The drivers that Mike uses are both from Scan-Speak. The 1” textile dome 9300 tweeter and the 7” carbon fiber 8545 mid/woofer are offset and mirrored (tweeters go to the inside). The crossover point is about 2.1k. Apparently, Mike did everything necessary with the crossover to ensure that the drivers remained in phase at the crossover point. The result of his efforts is a smooth blend between the drivers, a cohesive system with no noticeable driver changeover from the listening position. The stated anechoic frequency response is 38-20k. Be aware that the speakers are not magnetically shielded, and do not come with grills. They are covered by a 10-year warranty.

Ok, as to the sound. Here I don’t have to be so wordy. Balanced; cohesive; detailed; musical. There you have it.

Seriously, the first thing that hit me as I listened to the speakers was that nothing hit me as I listened. No “gee-whiz” or “wow” effects. No “boom and sizzle” as Mike calls it on his website. There have been so many speakers that I auditioned that did one or two things really well, but at the expense of other things. Like, “wow, listen to that top end …. Oh, yeah, all I’m really listening to is the top end, which is way out ahead of the middle and lower frequencies.” Or, “wow, check out that imaging. Man, there is so much air around the instruments …. Oh, yeah, I’m not really listening to music, just paying attention to imaging and air.”

No, with the Eire’s, all I noticed was in what great balance the music was presented. There was no in your face top end, no “romantic” midrange, no inflated bass. Nor was there any fatigue after many multi-hour listening sessions. No type of music seemed better served than another. Whether playing Vivaldi, Coltrane, or the Talking Heads, all were handled appropriately. If it was goose-bump inducing music, goose bumps appeared; toe-tapping music had toes bopping along. Instrument tonality seemed spot on and human voice was splendidly reproduced: from Teri Thornton to Ingrid Kertesi, Leonard Cohen to Luciano Pavarotti.

Moreover, the Eire’s maintain this balance even at low listening levels. I usually average in the low 70 to upper 60-db range. The Eire does an admirable job in maintaining its integrity into my low-level listening. At these levels, with certain recordings I notice some bass energy dropout, but not so much as to make the speakers sound anemic. Giving them a bit more juice, into the mid to upper 70-db range eliminated the noticed dropout.

A few words about my use of the term “detailed.” I prefer detailed sound to a more smoothed over sound. I like hearing everything that is on the recording. BUT, I don’t want the detail accentuated so as to become analytical and thus unmusical to me. This brings me back to the Eire’s balanced presentation. There is detail, but it is not intensified. It is just part of the musical landscape. The speaker is articulate but not divisive. You hear the individual instruments, the individual voices on massed choral, but you don’t lose the entirety of the piece. The best way I can describe it is to say that the detail is there as it should be, but you notice it more because so much “dirt” has been removed. Things are just that much sharper and clearer. Inner detail and microdynamics are particularly well-served by this clean, articulate presentation.

Now, a few grounding comments so this review isn’t perceived as just another fan-boy gush fest.

While the Eire has very good bass extension for a 2-way bookshelf, it is not full-range. In-room bass extension was impressive, but I missed my subwoofer on some of the deep organ notes of Albinoni’s adagios. In comparison with some of the other speakers I tried, I preferred the texture of the Gradient Revolution’s dipole bass; the Harbeth RADIAL mid/bass cone was less colored; the Green Mountain Audio 1.5 was more holographic and offered more concrete imaging; etc., etc.

However, each of these, as well as the other speakers that I tried over the past year or so had some reason for me not to buy them. Some other part of their performance bothered me too much to keep them.

Meanwhile, the Eire is in the top echelon of the speakers I auditioned in each of these categories. It does more things right, and more importantly, fewer things wrong than any speaker I have heard in the under $4k range. Moreover, with its front port it is placement friendly, and the real wood baffle adds significant WAF appeal.

All told, it is the first speaker I heard that did so little wrong that I couldn’t find reason to send it back. That may seem like a weak endorsement, but it really isn’t. Finding a speaker that does something so well that it excites us to own it is easy. Finding one whose weaknesses over time don’t make us sorry to have purchased it, isn’t. Obviously, very highly recommended.

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Product Weakness:	see review
Product Strengths:	See review

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Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Manley Stingray Integrated (50 watt EL 84)
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Belles 20A phono stage
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Arcam Alpha 9 cdp, Nott' Horizon TT (dynavector 17D2 mk II)
Speakers:	Shamrock Audio Eire
Cables/Interconnects:	Luminous Audio Synchestra cables, Homegrown Audio Super Silver II interconnects
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	jazz, classical, opera
Room Size (LxWxH):	20 x 13 x 8
Time Period/Length of Audition:	3 months
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

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