When everyone in the world screams bloody murder about pricing... HERE is a perfect example of a value-minded company (that tons of non-audiophiles love and promote) that STILL has to charge 5 times the cost of their standard Moab offering to use beryllium midranges and tweeters.

Is $30k too much to ask for this uptick in performance? Probably from what I read, but you pay, you get. For once it is a clear cut example of a 'reasonable' manufacturer asking for exponentially more money for a speaker due to its part cost demanding it. Beryllium is expensive and all of the other speaker manufacturers also charge the 'same' exponentially more money for implementing in their designs.

Pause naysayers, pause and reflect the next time the urge to rant against technological advancement costs.

That being said, it will be very interesting to see where Tekton can go with their 'Magico/Wilson' killer future offering. (I personally think they will have some serious issues competing with an M9, but go for it dude!)

The question you can ask yourself: are (most) stereophile equipment reviewers so-called jazz musicians or pop musicians?

Good thing you enjoyed the speakers! Mr. Alexander is developing the reputation of being someone who can’t handle reviewer criticism professionally. Even innocuous comments about plugging the ports (a practice which has gained adherents in recent years because it can tame room interactions at varying low frequencies which manufacturers cannot reasonably predict) elicit a harrumph from Mr. Alexander. I’ve personally been interested in a few of the Tekton models, but frankly I have no interest in dealing with such a character.

They are a mechanical device, and I can't see for the life of me, even if they were Bugatti made tweeters, how they can all be so "mechanically perfectly matched" as not to smear in any way the frequencies they are all supposed to reproduce in absolute perfect unison.

(Bit like asking a one motor multi wheel "direct drive" car, to turn all the wheels with different size tires in perfect unison, not going to happen)

Cheers George

I guess this is true as long as the mid-freq unit(s) are used in far-field operation, right?

This speaker is not going to win any beauty contests...

I was thumbing through and old issue of the magazine last evening and thinking I had not seen a review of the Tektons.

I checked out Tekton’s website, and I find their approach to be unique, and refreshingly value minded.

But even their stand mounted speakers seem to be geared towards those with large rooms and a penchant for SPL. I guess it must be a function of the collective output of all those high frequency tweeters somehow meshing at the listening position.

Their big box designs remind me of vintage Cerwin-Vegas.

Jim Thiel would probably be horrified, and I can’t imagine the folks at Vandersteen, TAD, or KEF to be all that impressed either.

My room ain’t that big and I’m a bit of an imaging snob, so these aren’t my cup of tea. But I like that unique designs and ideas like this are out there.

You could have been ‘Bosed.’

Tekton threatening to sue a different reviewer?

Haven’t we all seen this before?

Could the manufacturer add anything here?

Weird that the mfg claims no comb filtering yet there it is in the measurements from about 3.5kHz to about 11 khz. It's minor and likely inaudible with music, but it is there. A steeper low pass on the midrange arrays would likely fix it, but there may be valid performance reasons that wasn't done. The comb filtering in the bass is... funny? Wish JA had done an in-room response measurement on these while he was there.

Anyway, I've never heard any of their speakers, and the look is not for me (and at this price point that is important). The litigious nature of the company is also quite worrisome to me. Threatening to sue reviewers over reviews you don't like is how you make sure nobody talks about your product, very shortsighted. Just a huge self own.

Take the criticism, and if *objectively* valid correct the problem if you can. If it isn't valid, tell them why with science. If it's purely subjective, welcome to civilization where different people can like different things - and send it to someone who likes the same things you do (knowing reviewer tastes/reference equipment is how you get good reviews - i.e. don't send a flea Watt SET amp to JVS or MF, it will NOT sound good with their current hungry speakers).

Mark Phillips

Surely not. One of the things our military learned after Vietnam was to order all POWs to say whatever their captors told them to say on video. They'll torture you anyway and eventually get their propaganda. If possible, hide a sign or certain code words in plain site to let people in the know what is really going on and what you are saying is under duress -- i.e., from marketing or legal, in this case.

In the opening paragraph, all caps is "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

It's literally the most obvious phrase of the article. The rest was damning with faint praise.

In my humble opinion, the author is either a vet, knows one well, or read the right books.

Very clever. Kudos.

Artie: "Your "perfect unison" idea suits electronic output devices better than transducers.'

Yes electronic devices (semiconductors) can mimic each other far more exactly than any electro mechanical devices (such as tweeters) can.
That's why I find it hard to believe that 15 x electro mechanical tweeters all vibrating at 10's of thousands of cycles per second can follow each other as perfectly as one unit is doing it.
Tweeters are all about being precise. This is another analogy, 1 person singing vs 15, which will have the better to understand diction
Cheers George

What unfortunate timing! Publishing this a couple of days after Tekton shows its true colours with legal aggression against a small-time YT reviewer for publishing his measurements and personal opinions of one of their speakers. Simple bullying with money, and almost certainly in the knowledge that a judge would throw out any such suit, but the legal costs of a defence will deter the defendant.

Horrible, corporation-standing-over-citizen behaviour.

Perhaps this is a cue for Editor Austin to publish a full editorial on the issue. Let's see where he plants his flag!

Erin's review of the speaker wasn't even negative. He just commented on the upper midrange having more presence than he prefers and something about a possible resonance that wasn't even audible. Whether or not you think Erin's reviews and measurements hold water is irrelevant. Eric Alexander's behavior towards a smalltime YT reviewer was unacceptable and childish. Why would someone want to buy speakers from someone like that? It definitely has put a bad taste in my mouth.

Erin is a genuinely nice guy, and is NOT full of himself like Amir is. Furthermore, his review was for the most part very positive, but for one small comment that Eric got his panties all in a bunch over and acted like a spoiled petulant child. Erin bent over backwards to be cool and rectify the situation, but Eric continued to act like a total DB, and would settle for nothing but having the review removed and replaced by a fluff piece written by him that was 100% complimentary with no objectivity at all. I suggest everyone watch Erin's follow-up video he just posted about the whole situation, which includes email exchanges between the two of them. I don't always agree with Erin on his subjective judgements, but his data is IMO unimpeachable.

The Tekton tweeter array is a unique design in the sense that it uses tweeters acting as midrange drivers to achieve lower crossover frequencies and therefore playing some part of the midrange with low mass tweeters. However, the achieved cross over frequencies (14+1 array: 772Hz, 6+1 array: ~1000Hz, 2+1 array: ~1200Hz) still leaves a substantial midrange part for the big 12" woofers. The design pattern is expensive. By using SB Acoustics Satori Berylium tweeters, it becomes even more expensive. It uses the tweeters below their optimal frequency range (closer to their resonance frequency with raised distortion). It is somewhat questionable if one cannot achieve better results with a more traditional and typically less expensive single midrange driver or in some cases array of smaller midrange drivers. Both achieving even lower crossover frequencies to avoid using the woofer above its optimal frequency range.

John Atkinson's accelerometer spectral decay plot of this speaker shows several cabinet resonances. Did Eric threaten to sue Stereophile, or does he only pick on little guys he thinks he can push around? He seems to be a real immature self centered jackass that I wouldn't support, no matter how much I liked his product.

When everyone in the world screams bloody murder about pricing... HERE is a perfect example of a value-minded company (that tons of non-audiophiles love and promote) that STILL has to charge 5 times the cost of their standard Moab offering to use beryllium midranges and tweeters.

Is $30k too much to ask for this uptick in performance? Probably from what I read, but you pay, you get. For once it is a clear cut example of a 'reasonable' manufacturer asking for exponentially more money for a speaker due to its part cost demanding it. Beryllium is expensive and all of the other speaker manufacturers also charge the 'same' exponentially more money for implementing in their designs.

Pause naysayers, pause and reflect the next time the urge to rant against technological advancement costs.

That being said, it will be very interesting to see where Tekton can go with their 'Magico/Wilson' killer future offering. (I personally think they will have some serious issues competing with an M9, but go for it dude!)

The question you can ask yourself: are (most) stereophile equipment reviewers so-called jazz musicians or pop musicians?

Good thing you enjoyed the speakers! Mr. Alexander is developing the reputation of being someone who can’t handle reviewer criticism professionally. Even innocuous comments about plugging the ports (a practice which has gained adherents in recent years because it can tame room interactions at varying low frequencies which manufacturers cannot reasonably predict) elicit a harrumph from Mr. Alexander. I’ve personally been interested in a few of the Tekton models, but frankly I have no interest in dealing with such a character.

They are a mechanical device, and I can't see for the life of me, even if they were Bugatti made tweeters, how they can all be so "mechanically perfectly matched" as not to smear in any way the frequencies they are all supposed to reproduce in absolute perfect unison.

(Bit like asking a one motor multi wheel "direct drive" car, to turn all the wheels with different size tires in perfect unison, not going to happen)

Cheers George

I guess this is true as long as the mid-freq unit(s) are used in far-field operation, right?

This speaker is not going to win any beauty contests...

I was thumbing through and old issue of the magazine last evening and thinking I had not seen a review of the Tektons.

I checked out Tekton’s website, and I find their approach to be unique, and refreshingly value minded.

But even their stand mounted speakers seem to be geared towards those with large rooms and a penchant for SPL. I guess it must be a function of the collective output of all those high frequency tweeters somehow meshing at the listening position.

Their big box designs remind me of vintage Cerwin-Vegas.

Jim Thiel would probably be horrified, and I can’t imagine the folks at Vandersteen, TAD, or KEF to be all that impressed either.

My room ain’t that big and I’m a bit of an imaging snob, so these aren’t my cup of tea. But I like that unique designs and ideas like this are out there.

You could have been ‘Bosed.’

Tekton threatening to sue a different reviewer?

Haven’t we all seen this before?

Could the manufacturer add anything here?

Weird that the mfg claims no comb filtering yet there it is in the measurements from about 3.5kHz to about 11 khz. It's minor and likely inaudible with music, but it is there. A steeper low pass on the midrange arrays would likely fix it, but there may be valid performance reasons that wasn't done. The comb filtering in the bass is... funny? Wish JA had done an in-room response measurement on these while he was there.

Anyway, I've never heard any of their speakers, and the look is not for me (and at this price point that is important). The litigious nature of the company is also quite worrisome to me. Threatening to sue reviewers over reviews you don't like is how you make sure nobody talks about your product, very shortsighted. Just a huge self own.

Take the criticism, and if *objectively* valid correct the problem if you can. If it isn't valid, tell them why with science. If it's purely subjective, welcome to civilization where different people can like different things - and send it to someone who likes the same things you do (knowing reviewer tastes/reference equipment is how you get good reviews - i.e. don't send a flea Watt SET amp to JVS or MF, it will NOT sound good with their current hungry speakers).

Mark Phillips

Surely not. One of the things our military learned after Vietnam was to order all POWs to say whatever their captors told them to say on video. They'll torture you anyway and eventually get their propaganda. If possible, hide a sign or certain code words in plain site to let people in the know what is really going on and what you are saying is under duress -- i.e., from marketing or legal, in this case.

In the opening paragraph, all caps is "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

It's literally the most obvious phrase of the article. The rest was damning with faint praise.

In my humble opinion, the author is either a vet, knows one well, or read the right books.

Very clever. Kudos.

Artie: "Your "perfect unison" idea suits electronic output devices better than transducers.'

Yes electronic devices (semiconductors) can mimic each other far more exactly than any electro mechanical devices (such as tweeters) can.
That's why I find it hard to believe that 15 x electro mechanical tweeters all vibrating at 10's of thousands of cycles per second can follow each other as perfectly as one unit is doing it.
Tweeters are all about being precise. This is another analogy, 1 person singing vs 15, which will have the better to understand diction
Cheers George

What unfortunate timing! Publishing this a couple of days after Tekton shows its true colours with legal aggression against a small-time YT reviewer for publishing his measurements and personal opinions of one of their speakers. Simple bullying with money, and almost certainly in the knowledge that a judge would throw out any such suit, but the legal costs of a defence will deter the defendant.

Horrible, corporation-standing-over-citizen behaviour.

Perhaps this is a cue for Editor Austin to publish a full editorial on the issue. Let's see where he plants his flag!

Erin's review of the speaker wasn't even negative. He just commented on the upper midrange having more presence than he prefers and something about a possible resonance that wasn't even audible. Whether or not you think Erin's reviews and measurements hold water is irrelevant. Eric Alexander's behavior towards a smalltime YT reviewer was unacceptable and childish. Why would someone want to buy speakers from someone like that? It definitely has put a bad taste in my mouth.

Erin is a genuinely nice guy, and is NOT full of himself like Amir is. Furthermore, his review was for the most part very positive, but for one small comment that Eric got his panties all in a bunch over and acted like a spoiled petulant child. Erin bent over backwards to be cool and rectify the situation, but Eric continued to act like a total DB, and would settle for nothing but having the review removed and replaced by a fluff piece written by him that was 100% complimentary with no objectivity at all. I suggest everyone watch Erin's follow-up video he just posted about the whole situation, which includes email exchanges between the two of them. I don't always agree with Erin on his subjective judgements, but his data is IMO unimpeachable.

The Tekton tweeter array is a unique design in the sense that it uses tweeters acting as midrange drivers to achieve lower crossover frequencies and therefore playing some part of the midrange with low mass tweeters. However, the achieved cross over frequencies (14+1 array: 772Hz, 6+1 array: ~1000Hz, 2+1 array: ~1200Hz) still leaves a substantial midrange part for the big 12" woofers. The design pattern is expensive. By using SB Acoustics Satori Berylium tweeters, it becomes even more expensive. It uses the tweeters below their optimal frequency range (closer to their resonance frequency with raised distortion). It is somewhat questionable if one cannot achieve better results with a more traditional and typically less expensive single midrange driver or in some cases array of smaller midrange drivers. Both achieving even lower crossover frequencies to avoid using the woofer above its optimal frequency range.

John Atkinson's accelerometer spectral decay plot of this speaker shows several cabinet resonances. Did Eric threaten to sue Stereophile, or does he only pick on little guys he thinks he can push around? He seems to be a real immature self centered jackass that I wouldn't support, no matter how much I liked his product.

When everyone in the world screams bloody murder about pricing... HERE is a perfect example of a value-minded company (that tons of non-audiophiles love and promote) that STILL has to charge 5 times the cost of their standard Moab offering to use beryllium midranges and tweeters.

Is $30k too much to ask for this uptick in performance? Probably from what I read, but you pay, you get. For once it is a clear cut example of a 'reasonable' manufacturer asking for exponentially more money for a speaker due to its part cost demanding it. Beryllium is expensive and all of the other speaker manufacturers also charge the 'same' exponentially more money for implementing in their designs.

Pause naysayers, pause and reflect the next time the urge to rant against technological advancement costs.

That being said, it will be very interesting to see where Tekton can go with their 'Magico/Wilson' killer future offering. (I personally think they will have some serious issues competing with an M9, but go for it dude!)

The question you can ask yourself: are (most) stereophile equipment reviewers so-called jazz musicians or pop musicians?

Good thing you enjoyed the speakers! Mr. Alexander is developing the reputation of being someone who can’t handle reviewer criticism professionally. Even innocuous comments about plugging the ports (a practice which has gained adherents in recent years because it can tame room interactions at varying low frequencies which manufacturers cannot reasonably predict) elicit a harrumph from Mr. Alexander. I’ve personally been interested in a few of the Tekton models, but frankly I have no interest in dealing with such a character.

They are a mechanical device, and I can't see for the life of me, even if they were Bugatti made tweeters, how they can all be so "mechanically perfectly matched" as not to smear in any way the frequencies they are all supposed to reproduce in absolute perfect unison.

(Bit like asking a one motor multi wheel "direct drive" car, to turn all the wheels with different size tires in perfect unison, not going to happen)

Cheers George

I guess this is true as long as the mid-freq unit(s) are used in far-field operation, right?

This speaker is not going to win any beauty contests...

I was thumbing through and old issue of the magazine last evening and thinking I had not seen a review of the Tektons.

I checked out Tekton’s website, and I find their approach to be unique, and refreshingly value minded.

But even their stand mounted speakers seem to be geared towards those with large rooms and a penchant for SPL. I guess it must be a function of the collective output of all those high frequency tweeters somehow meshing at the listening position.

Their big box designs remind me of vintage Cerwin-Vegas.

Jim Thiel would probably be horrified, and I can’t imagine the folks at Vandersteen, TAD, or KEF to be all that impressed either.

My room ain’t that big and I’m a bit of an imaging snob, so these aren’t my cup of tea. But I like that unique designs and ideas like this are out there.

You could have been ‘Bosed.’

Tekton threatening to sue a different reviewer?

Haven’t we all seen this before?

Could the manufacturer add anything here?

Weird that the mfg claims no comb filtering yet there it is in the measurements from about 3.5kHz to about 11 khz. It's minor and likely inaudible with music, but it is there. A steeper low pass on the midrange arrays would likely fix it, but there may be valid performance reasons that wasn't done. The comb filtering in the bass is... funny? Wish JA had done an in-room response measurement on these while he was there.

Anyway, I've never heard any of their speakers, and the look is not for me (and at this price point that is important). The litigious nature of the company is also quite worrisome to me. Threatening to sue reviewers over reviews you don't like is how you make sure nobody talks about your product, very shortsighted. Just a huge self own.

Take the criticism, and if *objectively* valid correct the problem if you can. If it isn't valid, tell them why with science. If it's purely subjective, welcome to civilization where different people can like different things - and send it to someone who likes the same things you do (knowing reviewer tastes/reference equipment is how you get good reviews - i.e. don't send a flea Watt SET amp to JVS or MF, it will NOT sound good with their current hungry speakers).

Mark Phillips

Surely not. One of the things our military learned after Vietnam was to order all POWs to say whatever their captors told them to say on video. They'll torture you anyway and eventually get their propaganda. If possible, hide a sign or certain code words in plain site to let people in the know what is really going on and what you are saying is under duress -- i.e., from marketing or legal, in this case.

In the opening paragraph, all caps is "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

It's literally the most obvious phrase of the article. The rest was damning with faint praise.

In my humble opinion, the author is either a vet, knows one well, or read the right books.

Very clever. Kudos.

Artie: "Your "perfect unison" idea suits electronic output devices better than transducers.'

Yes electronic devices (semiconductors) can mimic each other far more exactly than any electro mechanical devices (such as tweeters) can.
That's why I find it hard to believe that 15 x electro mechanical tweeters all vibrating at 10's of thousands of cycles per second can follow each other as perfectly as one unit is doing it.
Tweeters are all about being precise. This is another analogy, 1 person singing vs 15, which will have the better to understand diction
Cheers George

What unfortunate timing! Publishing this a couple of days after Tekton shows its true colours with legal aggression against a small-time YT reviewer for publishing his measurements and personal opinions of one of their speakers. Simple bullying with money, and almost certainly in the knowledge that a judge would throw out any such suit, but the legal costs of a defence will deter the defendant.

Horrible, corporation-standing-over-citizen behaviour.

Perhaps this is a cue for Editor Austin to publish a full editorial on the issue. Let's see where he plants his flag!

Erin's review of the speaker wasn't even negative. He just commented on the upper midrange having more presence than he prefers and something about a possible resonance that wasn't even audible. Whether or not you think Erin's reviews and measurements hold water is irrelevant. Eric Alexander's behavior towards a smalltime YT reviewer was unacceptable and childish. Why would someone want to buy speakers from someone like that? It definitely has put a bad taste in my mouth.

Erin is a genuinely nice guy, and is NOT full of himself like Amir is. Furthermore, his review was for the most part very positive, but for one small comment that Eric got his panties all in a bunch over and acted like a spoiled petulant child. Erin bent over backwards to be cool and rectify the situation, but Eric continued to act like a total DB, and would settle for nothing but having the review removed and replaced by a fluff piece written by him that was 100% complimentary with no objectivity at all. I suggest everyone watch Erin's follow-up video he just posted about the whole situation, which includes email exchanges between the two of them. I don't always agree with Erin on his subjective judgements, but his data is IMO unimpeachable.

The Tekton tweeter array is a unique design in the sense that it uses tweeters acting as midrange drivers to achieve lower crossover frequencies and therefore playing some part of the midrange with low mass tweeters. However, the achieved cross over frequencies (14+1 array: 772Hz, 6+1 array: ~1000Hz, 2+1 array: ~1200Hz) still leaves a substantial midrange part for the big 12" woofers. The design pattern is expensive. By using SB Acoustics Satori Berylium tweeters, it becomes even more expensive. It uses the tweeters below their optimal frequency range (closer to their resonance frequency with raised distortion). It is somewhat questionable if one cannot achieve better results with a more traditional and typically less expensive single midrange driver or in some cases array of smaller midrange drivers. Both achieving even lower crossover frequencies to avoid using the woofer above its optimal frequency range.

John Atkinson's accelerometer spectral decay plot of this speaker shows several cabinet resonances. Did Eric threaten to sue Stereophile, or does he only pick on little guys he thinks he can push around? He seems to be a real immature self centered jackass that I wouldn't support, no matter how much I liked his product.