Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

It's good to see this company (this man?) get serious attention. Tekton owners--tubophiles, mainly--rave about their speakers and wouldn't be parted from them. Their $1k floorstanders seem to set a standard in the category, as the Enzo is now implied to do with its enviable Class B recommendation. I've never heard Tektons but am eager to do so.

This speaker may be a fun listen, but it has fundamental issues: The cumulative spectral decay plot hints that the woofers output extend into breakup region. Sacrificing two of the tweeters for a dedicated midrange would have resulted in a conventional (boring?) 3-way performing better at the same parts cost.

Excellent review, as always, HR. What happened to your friend Ryochi?
I will add these speakers to my must-demo list. Reading over your review, you mentioned about hearing deep Bass- this is accomplished by drivers at least 10" in diameter. It is wonderful to see/read about a manufacturer placing double 10" drivers per cabinate. This practice makes all of the difference.

Says a lot. That's an odd choice to mate a 10" driver right to a 1" one.

Putting three 1" drivers vertically like that is also odd, but it's less unusual to find a speaker which demands listening on a limited vertical axis.

They're affordable and offer high efficiency relative to other non mass market floorstanders, but I'm skeptical they'd really compete with the Vandie 1C or the similarly priced JBL or Polk floorstanders.

Having heard the Enzo's big brother the Pendragon, I can honestly say that I have never heard a speaker more dynamic. Shame it was at a show, so I really couldn't give them the audition they deserved. But I was amazed at their musicality and power.

By the way, I find it interesting that you chose Mahavishnu for auditioning material. One of my go to discs for speaker testing is 'Visions Of An Inner Mounting Apocalypse'...an excellent Mahavishnu tribute CD featuring some of modern fusion's greatest guitar talent. Smokin' disc and the dynamics really give speakers a working over.

Nice review.

I have some insight on these speakers. I went to a high-end A/V company and auditioned two sets of speakers. First the Vaunted Golden Ear Triton 1. Sterile, mechanical sounding and when I asked the salesman to put on "Brain Damage" from "Dark Side of The Moon" it was a disaster. The ribbon tweeter could not handle the music, it was nothing but a horrible failure, it turned to spaghetti. The salesman rushed into the listening room to turn the the amp down. He the admitted "well his music IS very dynamic."$5000 for that? The low end Martin Logans were not much better.

So on to Tekton. Yes I rolled the dice on not hearing the speakers, and I am glad I did. The first cd I put on was "Dark Side of The Moon". The same friend that was with me(no clue about hi-end audio) at the hi/end demo busted out laughing at how great the speakers sounded. She could not believe it, even SHE knew these were much, much, better than what we heard AND it was with a cheap Yamaha receiver. Not the $50 thousand dollar amp set-up at the a/v store.

This is a "Real world" experience from a audiophile and a lay person.

Listen to them BEFORE you give your "theory" opinion.

And "Brain Damage" was handled by these speakers absolutely perfect. These speakers handle everything, wait until you hear classical music on them. WOW.

let me just say this.every single person,without fail,who has entered my music room states the following:"best speaker,andy..i have ever heard in my life".....no over analytical approach,no measurements,no words..the PROOF IS IN THE LISTENING. i owned altec lansings as a kid playing thru mcintosh..than i owned dalquists dq20's thru college and beyond...i have listened to many home audio systems with 25k and up speakers. the enzo xl is BETTER than any i have heard. i might add i have erics lore reference in my living room. there sooooooo amazing as well. forget best value.best speaker maker in US period. andy rothman sharethemusic@aol.com

Regrettably, this is my first post, so it will be longer than it need have been. Much of the speaker commentary is not very helpful, since they seem to reflects biases that are ungrounded for the most part or are so esoteric, they beg for irrelevance. These speakers seem to get some very positive reviews with only minor negative commentary, the latter having mostly very little to do with how they sound, but more like a nit picking engineering feud that might mean something, but to those who are trying to make a purchase, it means little or nothing, mostly nothing. The last post by "1st Person" seems like a very relevant post, since he has heard and lived with the speakers. There are other very relevant posts, as well. I guess the only real question that I would have is the conflict between the stated SPL and the tested, which seems to present quite a variance. Either the speakers are easy to drive with a tube amp like the Cronus Magnum II or they are borderline or worse. It makes a difference to get the facts straight. Why there is such a big difference seems very confusing, but, like I said, this is my first post, so what do I know. I've been listening to great music for a very long time and have never really wondered about the speaker's ability to deliver the goods, but now that I have a few bucks to throw around, why not try to get the best. These sound like they would sound very good in a small to medium sized room for a wide variety of music with the emphasis on musicality rather than loudness. No?

Herb,

Thank you for the review. Prior to your review I had never heard of Tekton Designs. I had been looking for a new set of speakers for a couple of years as my ancient and much loved primary speakers could no longer be repaired as I had already bought the last mid-driver in existence. I had listened to a LOT of potential replacements in the $10k and under range and was in general disappointed. So I called Tekton, spoke to Eric, and based on that conversation ordered the larger Pendragons.

Once received, I tossed the packing material the next day, they were NOT going back. Like my old Fender Tweed and Washburn T-Bird Deluxe, they are keepers. Yeah, the driver layout is different, they don't weigh a ton, they aren't made of exotic unobtanium. They just work on everything from Hillary Hahn to Led Zeppelin. You'd have to spend a lot more money to find a speaker that had better overall performance. After a year my opinion is unchanged.

Once again, thank you Herb

You know, it amazes me how self-declared “audiophiles” and “engineers” have opinions on the sound or veracity of a loudspeaker’s design without having heard it. I mean here they are, facing a positive review from someone who does that sort of thing for a living and without having heard the product themselves, panning it. This is how audiophilia gets a bad name.

I am currently auditioning the Lore a Reference and, to be honest, still trying to get a handle on it 4 days on it. When I try to listen “to the speaker” I get frustrated, probably because each musical piece sounds different from the other, unlike any speaker I’ve ever owned before. By that definition, these are the most neutral speaker I’ve ever heard. They are not kind to poor recordings, but sing out on excellent ones - not unlike the Snells I heard many years ago. Thing is, I did not like the Snells then because they were really unforgiving toward bad sources and the first thing I heard on them was just that. I never gave them another chance because the Klipschorns in the next room were so amazing and flattering to everything played through them. I have since recognized that that was because the Khorns had a sound of their own; a good sound, but theirs nonetheless.

I wrote Eric a short note about the Lores and mentioned that I was still “breaking in my ears”. And that that’s just it. These speakers have truly full range with absolutely no glaring faults. The question is, is this what I want? I don’t know, but I’m not passing judgement until I’m done listening to them and asking myself if they are right for me. Every commenter here should do the same, IMHO.

I will say one thing - there is absolutely nothing “wrong” with this design. Eric should be proud of what he’s done with them. If I do return them, it will be because I am not ready for “the truth” - not because they are bad speakers. I won’t be updating this post because my opinion should not matter to you. I suggest that you take a chance and try them yourself. Yeah, it’s a risk because you will be out return shipping AND a restocking fee, but the audition is worth that cost at least and you may learn something - about yourself - in the process.