Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Tekton Design Impact Monitor loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, stand-mounted, ported loudspeaker. Drive-units: seven 1" (25mm) soft-dome tweeters, two 6.5"-cone (165mm) bass/midrange units. Frequency range: 40Hz–30kHz. Sensitivity: 94dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Power handling: 120W. Recommended amplification: >25W.
Dimensions: 24.5" (620mm) H by 10.125" (255mm) W by 13" (330mm) D. Weight 40 lb (18.1kg).
Finishes: Black standard; Red or White, add $100/pair; all finishes listed are Soft Gloss; High-Gloss Black (as reviewed), add $250/pair.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 0063, 0064.
Price: $2000/pair; optional grilles, $50/pair. 1 plus sold factory direct. Warranty: 5 years, parts; 30-day home trial.
Manufacturer: Tekton Design LLC, Orem, UT 84058. Tel: (801) 836-0764. Web: www.tektondesign.com.

COMPANY INFO
Tekton Design LLC
Orem, UT 84058
(801) 836-0764
www.tektondesign.com
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 19, 2018 - 10:16am

"Will It Go Round in Circles"? ............. Billy Preston :-) ..........

tonykaz's picture
Submitted by tonykaz on July 20, 2018 - 9:19am

What phraseology, it takes my mind and imagination to Schonbek Silver Chandeliers in Clear Swarovski.

Mr. HR always seems to toss the readership a GODIVA Truffle in his various writings.

I'll have to return to this review after the prose dissolves.

I took a further glance at this loudspeaker and it's siblings wide range of paint offerings. Phew

Stonehenge tweeters & Orange seem at odds. My Eyes are demanding a Grill ( or at least requesting less impact ). I could cover these things with a Silky Cloth and a Statue of Vlad. Putin on one with Mr.Orange on top the other.

Tony in Michigan

ps. Keven Deal just did a YouTube Review of the Tannoy Cheviot ( which wants $6,500 up front and Funeral Home setting back home )

FredisDead's picture
Submitted by FredisDead on July 19, 2018 - 7:48pm

to cancel my subscription.

Catch22's picture
Submitted by Catch22 on July 19, 2018 - 7:48pm

I don't think I've ever seen a disparity that great in sensitivity measurements vs manufacturer's specification. What gives?

Bry_E's picture
Submitted by Bry_E on September 25, 2018 - 5:40pm

That gives me more pause than anything else about Eric's speakers. I don't think any of them have ever matched his sensitivity claims which are as high as 99dB on some models.

es347's picture
Submitted by es347 on July 20, 2018 - 7:41am

..hasn’t McIntosh been doing this for decades?

Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on July 20, 2018 - 12:25pm

Very very similar in appearance!

Ortofan's picture
Submitted by Ortofan on July 20, 2018 - 10:06am

... get a Frost King F1524 window air conditioner filter and use the open-cell foam to plug the port.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 20, 2018 - 5:09pm

Kinda looks like "Cyclops" :-) .............

tonykaz's picture
Submitted by tonykaz on July 20, 2018 - 10:53pm

there ain't no dam chinesium in any of this outfit's products. ( I can easily forgive 'em for bee-n mormons if that's what they are ). Romney is a good guy and trump a jerk for dissing him.

Tony in Michigan

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on July 21, 2018 - 8:49am

Trump is a forward-looking progressive and Romney a luddite.

Edit: This might be a good time for a quick historical overview of hardware quality and work ethic. I started with HP proprietary computers several years before IBM entered the PC business. An HP computer could run in a tent in 110 degree F temps when the IBM PC would shut down before temps reached 90. Then in 1985, HP introduced IBM compatibles, and their quality dropped like a stone. I have many specific examples, FYI.

Articles concerning HP's mil-spec industrial-grade quality in the years before they produced PCs raised awareness about their production plants and quality control. In Corvallis OR and Fort Collins CO, the workforce was described as consisting of "Mormons and born-again Christians". I have no reason to believe that their work ethic was dependent on any given cult, but I do believe that the monocultural aspect of their societies in those locations was a huge factor, as it was in the rapid industrialization of Japan and Germany after the war, when they became legendary for high quality. A man named Deming held the key to some of that.

By and large, you pays your money and you takes your choices, but it's good to know which companies make high-quality products, the era in which those are produced, and the backgrounds that lead to such things. In Apple's case for example, large-scale Chinese manufacturing and the legendary iron-fisted dominance of Steve Jobs turned what could have been tons and tons of schlock into a wealth of useful and durable products.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 7:18am

May be it is a good idea to stay "in the zone"? :-) ..............

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on July 21, 2018 - 7:34am

Who is not in the zone? Who violated the zone first? Don't some people always violate the zone? What zone are you in? The twilight zone? Speak plainly.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 7:54am

High-end (high performance) audiophile zone :-) ............

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on July 21, 2018 - 8:53am

There is much controversy about the high end zone. With all of the pressures to remaster the world's catalog in MQA, to end downloads in favor of streaming, and to install listening ("music") devices in every home, you might want to think about what exactly is your high-end zone preference. The world is changing, and where is hi-fi going?

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 8:58am

Yeah ...... That is the fun part of the whole thing .......... That is what keeps us all interested :-) ..........

Indydan's picture
Submitted by Indydan on July 22, 2018 - 10:30am

By "the zone", do you mean a polite way of staying on topic? If so, I agree.

Long-time listener's picture
Submitted by Long-time listener on July 12, 2019 - 4:12am

Yes, that was an extremely polite response to the kind of post typical from Dale thorn-in-our-sides -- interminably long, off-topic, self-involved, and with logic that only he understands. Trump? Progressive? Sheesh. A Timothy McVeigh-in-waiting, as nearly as I can tell.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 9:07am

"Deming Circle" :-) ............

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 5:15am

Stuffing socks or air conditioner filter is some thing similar to "heuristic" solution to the problem of over blown bass :-) .............

Ortofan's picture
Submitted by Ortofan on July 21, 2018 - 6:16am

... foam bungs that some manufacturers ship with their speakers to allow the user to tune the bass response by either partially or fully blocking the port?

This is an example from B&W:
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/images/stories/Loudspeakers/Knowledge/bw686.gif

Maybe Tekton should consider employing the same method.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 7:06am

Agreed ....... I am familiar with that option ......... I also, mentioned another option like acoustic suspension (closed box) design .......... Another possible solution could be using a separate subwoofer and take away the bass duties from these (book shelf type of) speakers. Of course separate subwoofer costs extra money. The advantage with separate subwoofer is flexibility of room placement for best possible bass response :-) ...........

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 5:26am

May be acoustic suspension design is a better solution :-) ..........

Indydan's picture
Submitted by Indydan on July 21, 2018 - 9:38am

Interesting speaker design. Though, probably not for people who suffer from trypophobia.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 21, 2018 - 10:03am

Or, neophobia :-) ......... Some of the audiophiles have that problem :-) ...........

Indydan's picture
Submitted by Indydan on July 22, 2018 - 10:28am

True. And some audiophiles have the opposite problem: they always need something new or different in their system!

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 22, 2018 - 10:44am

"Something New" ........... Album by The Beatles :-) .............

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 22, 2018 - 11:00am

Also, "Dora the Explorer" :-) .........

JBLMVBC's picture
Submitted by JBLMVBC on July 22, 2018 - 1:22pm

"The classic two- or three-way woofer/midrange/tweeter design contains shortcomings, because the mass relationship is wrong when compared to the recorded source [eg, a violin string]."

One wonders how they explain not multiplying woofers in order to keep up their mass mojo for kettle and bass drums, piano etc...
LOL

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on July 22, 2018 - 4:42pm

Great idea ......... How about 7 woofers surrounding 7 tweeters? :-) ............

scottsol's picture
Submitted by scottsol on August 7, 2018 - 10:02pm

I’m not sure it makes sense to call these three way speakers. At the least, this would only make sense if the center tweeter was fed by a separate high pass filter so it did not share lower frequencies with the six outer tweeters. Otherwise this could at best be called a two and a half way.

TennesseeTuxedo's picture
Submitted by TennesseeTuxedo on September 8, 2019 - 7:32pm

Last year and this year (2019) I actively sought out the Tektons in the various rooms of RMAF, based on the gushing reviews by certain people at this publication and CNET. On both occasions I was surprised at how colored and down right unpleasant the music sounded. I was completely unable to enjoy the music because the sound was so bad - harsh, screechy and thin. They weren't even taking requests in the Tekton rooms, just playing a canned set so they should have sounded impressive. Well the impression I got was ineptitude all around. (Hey, maybe they'll merge with Zu and between the tw of them they can put out a decent sounding speaker?!?) Anyway, glad I didn't fall for the hype and buy a pair without demoing them first. Caveat emptor.

navr's picture
Submitted by navr on November 18, 2019 - 3:39pm

Hear for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihk36Xarbo

I'll take these over any stupid orangutan any time of the day

fidobite's picture
Submitted by fidobite on April 20, 2020 - 2:57pm

I find myself frequently shaking my head at comments from people who smugly make fun of a speaker they haven't even sampled themselves. Some Stereophile visitors are simply laughable in this respect (you know who you are). Is there anything more embarrassing than some old fool with hearing response measurements that look like a carnival roller coaster commenting that, by golly, I know that speaker sucks because, well, I just want it to be bad. After all my $30k TinEar XX6095's are so superior in every way blah, blah, blah.
Nothing is more tedious than old, half deaf "audiophiles" passing judgement on others' fine work because they simply don't understand its technology and/or they've never even sampled it themselves.

Randolf's picture
Submitted by Randolf on April 20, 2024 - 5:41am

A low mass diaphragm (like the onces of tweeters) can be an advantage. But does the A440 (440Hz) tone of a string instrument like the violin just comes from the string with it's low mass itself? Doesn't it also/mostly come from the vibrating instrument body (much higher mass) and the enclosed air? Does the moving mass of a loudspeaker diaphragm really need to closely match the vibrating mass of the instrument in order to work properly?

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