Tekton Moab Be loudspeaker

All photos by Rogier van Bakel. Compositing by David Evett.

For Christmas in 2020, a friend sent me a gift: a coffee mug decorated with a one-out-of-five-stars rating for the annus horribilis the world had just been through. The caption on the ceramic read, "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

True, the pandemic year and the lockdowns had been no fun, to put it mildly, but that doesn't mean there were no positives. Every day, rain or shine, my 10-year-old daughter and I played soccer on the field behind our house. We—pointlessly, I concede—trained our shepherd to walk backward on command. I savored having more time to read, watch movies, and take naps when the urge struck. Finally, I used the long stretch of weeks, then months, to rekindle my lifelong infatuation with music. Thousands of old and new recordings kept me balanced and tethered me to the rest of humanity during the dark days of social distancing. Rarely had music soothed and comforted me more than during the 10 months before the vaccines arrived.

My musical appreciation—reverence at times—was due in part to the new Tekton Moab floorstanders that, over the summer, had arrived for review (footnote 1). For under five grand, factory-direct from the ever-scrappy Utah company, the man-sized towers lit up my living room. Practically from day one, they sounded exciting and true to life. Edging out the MartinLogan Odysseys that had been my conduit to musical joy for years, the Tektons became my new reference speakers.

All things must pass, and I semiretired them a couple of years later when I bought Focal Scala Utopia Evos, which retail for more than 10 times the cost of the Moabs. But I never lost my fondness for them.

Then, in spring 2023, came a call from Eric Alexander, Tekton's founder, owner, and chief engineer. Would I like to audition a pair of different Moabs? What he had in mind wasn't an incremental upgrade, and Alexander wasn't discontinuing the original model. He was offering to send a product in which all the fabric-dome tweeters had been replaced by beryllium ones. For Moabs, that's an ambitious, shoot-for-the-stars upgrade, because beryllium drivers are expensive and there are 15 tweeters in each Moab—30 for the pair. I didn't need much arm-twisting.

For purposes of this review, I'll refer to the original Moabs as "OG" and refer to the new, beryllium-tweeter iteration as "Be."

Eye-popping and ear-pleasing
If you're thinking that building speakers with 30 tweeters is a sign of incipient madness, I'm happy to predict that once you listen to the Moabs, you'll change your mind. You see, years earlier, one of Alexander's most eye-popping and ear-pleasing ideas had been to cluster seven small high-frequency drivers in a tight circle and set the crossover to feed them midrange and low-treble only (in the case of the Moabs, between 772Hz and 3.41kHz). The cluster acts as a midrange driver with unusually low mass and thus exceptionally quick response. This helps especially with delicate overtones and harmonics, whose formation can be smothered by slower, traditional midrange cones.

Tekton's patented circle array remains a defining characteristic of many of the company's models, from the $2780/pair Pendragons to the $9830/pair Ulfberhts (footnote 2). I didn't know this approach would be brilliant until I heard it with my own ears, after the original Moabs arrived. They sounded solid and engrossing. They pulsed and sashayed like live music does, with great midrange immediacy and terrific top-end sparkle but no tizziness.

According to Alexander, the upgraded Moab has more going on that's new than those 15 beryllium "tweeters": This version has thicker baffles, better cabinet bracing, higher-quality crossover parts, and, optionally, an extra-high-quality gloss paint job. The price reflects these upgrades: Tekton charges $30,000 for a pair of the tricked-out Moabs, about six times the OG's cost.

My new review pair arrived with the upgraded finish, in classy-looking Donington Gray, a BMW automotive color whose multiple coats shone like a mirror. They'd exited the spray booth just a week or so earlier and smelled like it—enough so that I guiltily banished them to my gear closet, where they stood next to a running air purifier. The paint odor dissipated slowly, and after a few weeks all was well.

At that point, I gave the Moabs Be a once-over in my listening room. Experience with visitors and online detractors has taught me that the appearance of these speakers is polarizing, much in the way that Wilson's Chronosonic speakers or Dan D'Agostino's amplifiers are. Not that the lumbering Moabs are blingy—far from it. The MDF boxes sport no swoops or curves to break up their straight lines, and they don't impersonate fine furniture, with delicate woodworking and fancy veneers. An online critic recently remarked of Tekton towers that he'd never turn his living room into "hifi Stonehenge," and I get his point, but I quite like the Moabs' look. They're not pretty, per se, but they have a brash, form-follows-function aesthetic, hold the frou-frou. My Moabs OG came with optional grilles that let users avoid trypophobia and hide the busyness of the front-baffle design. The new speakers arrived grille-less, and that's fine with me.

Lost in Port-land
Placing them side by side with the OGs, I found the Be speakers about an inch shorter. That's because the beryllium drivers are slightly smaller in diameter than their fabric-dome predecessors, Alexander explained, allowing Tekton to take a little off the top, as my barber would say. Just as before, the dual 12" woofers, made by Eminence USA, are mounted near the baffles' top and bottom. They're 3.5' apart from center to center—an unusual arrangement that I reckon helps subdue room nulls.

Around back are nicely constructed copper Cardas binding posts, albeit a variety I don't love because of how hard it is to tell the positive terminals from the negative. (A plastic plate behind the posts has a tiny raised plus sign as an indicator, black on black. You may need a flashlight and glasses to discern it.)

Two bass ports, each 5" in diameter, round out the rear. I own but rarely use a dual-ported Hsu subwoofer whose advantage is that you can leave the ports open or plug one or both. That way, you can tune the sub's response to the room and your preferences. This is possible with the Moabs too. In my previous listening room, the OG towers stood about 3' from my front wall, where they sounded excellent overall but suffered from a room resonance somewhere between 30–50Hz. To fix that, I'd fashioned bass-port plugs from a pool noodle by whittling the foam down just enough for a tight fit. Those plugs worked a treat on the older Moabs. On the beryllium version, their effect was less pronounced, perhaps because the speakers, in my new room, sounded best some 6' from the front walls. As expected, the extra distance meant that bass room resonances were not energized as much. I often preferred to have both ports plugged when listening to bassy genres like electronica and dub, and open when listening to chamber ensembles and classic rock. Some recordings sounded best with just one port obstructed. During my two months with the Moabs Be, I listened with both ports plugged about two-thirds of the time.


Footnote 1: I wrote for a different publication then.

Footnote 2: This polycell array, as the company calls it, also shows up in two recently introduced Tekton models: the $17,960/pair Signature Series Matrix LS, and a not-yet-in-production speaker that Alexander labels "Bespoke." He claims that Bespokes, which are expected to be much more expensive than current Tektons, will go toe to toe sonically with the likes of Wilson and Magico.

COMPANY INFO
Tekton Design
Orem, UT
tektondesign@gmail.com
(801) 836-0764
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
Glotz's picture

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!)

prerich45's picture

I agree with you 100%! It would be cool if Eric could build a speaker, under a six-digit figure, that competes with an M9 or a Chronosonic.

Glotz's picture

In-person comparisons to other speakers in that price segment, in your system ideally, will always be insightful to the real value.

I also think the percentages ratio to each other in the line would be closer to 70 or 75%, vs. higher. That material is rare and expensive.

But I would have to hear each speaker myself to make that determination, not a panel of others. And Stereophile did do panel reviews decades ago, of what was then mid-priced floorstanders.

Oops- this applies to below, not above post.

cognoscente's picture

You may ask yourself how close does an outstanding 5k speaker come to this one? 90%? 95%? A direct comparison of at least 3 panel members could determine this. But we don't do that here.

amplifierx's picture

How do you gauge %age improvement? What is important to you (me its entertainment), low end grunt, image, dynamics, PRaT, performance on vocals? If you can get all your boxes ticked for less, well done. I have old Linn Isobariks and I have had them for decades. Are there better speakers out there? Probably but I like my 'briks

tnargs's picture

When buyers come into a product market at every price point, as per the hifi hobby, then companies like to offer something especially at the higher price points, where the bigger margins lie. Premium price buyers are less often bargain hunters and less often interested in seeing the product as the sum of the price of its parts.

cognoscente's picture

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

Utopianemo's picture

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.

hifiluver's picture

I'd never buy a product from any company which responds to criticism with litigation. It just means their products have no room to improve.

windansea's picture

I read about one of his litigation threats against a reviewer. So even though I think his tweeter array idea is damn cool, I'm passing on Tekton unless the founder apologizes for the threat letters and promises to stop doing that.

prerich45's picture

Yeah, I've noticed post my previous comment. Eric is tripping right now. I was shocked, and appalled. I was actually interested in his products at one time....after what happened with a reviewer that I respect greatly (that hails from Alabama), I no longer have a desire to consider his wares.

georgehifi's picture

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

call me Artie's picture

Hi George. Your "perfect unison" idea suits electronic output devices better than transducers. Transducers (speakers in this case) have inbuilt imperfections as do electronic devices. However, speaker drivers benefit from a perfect additive averaging mechanism which is the air they radiate into. Air supports megahertz frequencies. In such a case, adding more drivers each with its own unique deviations from perfection and blending the output delivers a closer-to-specification result than using a single driver, except for the rare case where one particular single driver happens to come off the production line perfect in every parameter. In all cases where drivers are produced with production tolerances, combining multiple drivers will produce an output closer to the designed spec. It's statistics. Artie
NOTE: This comment has been edited to make it clearer (I hope)

Anton's picture

Thank you.

hb72's picture

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

Indydan's picture

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

otaku's picture

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

RvB's picture

We've reviewed Tektons before: the Enzo XL in 2015 and the Impact Monitors in 2018. So many worthwhile speakers, so little time!

DaveinSM's picture

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.

Anton's picture

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?

georgehifi's picture
DaveinSM's picture

Thanks for the link. Yikes! I actually visit ASR when cross referencing reviews, specs, and measurements. I don’t always agree with their metrics or approach, but in whole appreciate their striving for data and transparency.

This Eric Alexander seems very aggressive and hypersensitive towards any criticism, including the constructive variety. He’s going to have a tough go in the long run unless he mellows out.

Indydan's picture

Yes, I think maybe Tekton is correct in pursuing legal action.
The Internet is littered with "weekend" reviewers and hacks. Just because someone can afford a fancy Klippel analyser, it does not mean they know how to use it, or know what they are doing. These hacks destroy manufacturer reputations! I think it is good a manufacturer strikes back.
Not everyone is John Atkinson.

MatthewT's picture

And if I post on the internet that in my personal opinion Tekton's are terrible is that worthy of getting sued?

Indydan's picture

No, but that is very different than posting bogus measurements.

John Atkinson's picture
MatthewT wrote:
And if I post on the internet that in my personal opinion Tekton's are terrible is that worthy of getting sued?

As a regular US citizen, your publicly expressed opinions have First Amendment protection. That won't necessarily prevent someone from suing you for libel or defamation, but it is an effective defense if there was no malice underlying the expression of your opinion

However, a 1990s Supreme Court opinion held that an opinion expressed by a recognized authority on a subject might not necessarily have First Amendment protection, the authority of the opinion-expresser causing that opinion to be taken as fact.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

tnargs's picture

So, JA, his first amendment rights will protect him unless he is a recognised authority....but many Stereophile readers commenting here say Erin is an ignorant hack....yet those same commenters are saying it is good that he is being litigated and he should be targeted with litigation....??????

Can't have your cake and eat it too, guys. If JA is right about the law, and you are right about him being a hack, then you should be arguing in his defence.

supamark's picture

or MQA might just come for you! They need cash, as you know... :)

Also, the Tekton guy can sue but at least here in the USA (which is the jurisdiction where said act occurred), they will lose pre-trial on 1st Amendment grounds - it would have to be malicious, and I haven't seen that from Erin. If Erin lives in a state with an anti-SLAPP law and Tekton brings suit they'll double lose - money due to the nature of anti-SLAPP laws, and they'll be "dead" to the hi-fi press so he'll lose publicity, then distribution, and eventually the company will go under. The second happens regardless - he is literally on the verge of comitting career suicide.

This litigiousness may also be why JA only mentioned the comb filtering in the bass but not the treble - AVTech Media's lawyers don't want to deal with it. I doubt you'll see another Tekton product reviewed by an AVTech Media publication - lawyers are expensive, who needs the headache? There are plenty of other speaker makers doing interesting stuff that are professional and easy to get along with.

Unless your product is crap, a review is free press, and very important press for smaller companies like Tekton. It's also important for the publication - it's the content pipeline and borrowing is fiscally better than purchasing. Both are better than ASR's "hey guys send me whatever crap you have laying around to measure" gear aquisition method.

I do really like that they let the guy from Tekton make the no comb filter claim and on the very next page there's a graph that says, "uh, yeah, about that... not so much." Saying he's wrong without words, JA knows how the business works.

Tekton is in serious need of a very good PR firm, stat. I mean, most comments here are about the lawsuit stuff, not their product; and there's other, more concerning stuff out there but I don't know if anyone brought receipts so I won't repeat any of it.

An amusing aside, my cousin Dan lives in a suburb of Indy.

Mark Phillips

RH's picture

What ridiculous, petty comment!

You have shown ZERO reason to conclude Erin or Amir are "hacks" and don't know how to measure, and neither has anyone else produced objective data to substantiate such a claim.

Do you always just throw around insults, assuming the worst, without any work or evidence to back up your assumptions?

supamark's picture

but Amir is very much a hack, assuming hack means guy who doesn't know what he's doing but pretends he does. Amir's incompetence and inability to take constructive criticism are well documented. Even on his forums, where both users and mfg's will explain to Amir, with *science*, why he's wrong he gets all pissy and digs his heels in. Erin seems both more affable and competent, but I don't know his bona fides in/re EE and acoustics so... shrug?

Lucky for Amir being ignorant is not illegal or actionable in civil court without malice, and as far as I can tell he's not malicious in his actions. He just simply lacks competence (with a bit of Dunning-Kruger and narcissism going on too).

Mark Phillips

RH's picture

So can you point out the flaw in Amir's measurements re the Tekton speaker he reviewed?

Oh, and this:

Erin seems both more affable and competent, but I don't know his bona fides in/re EE and acoustics so... shrug?

Ah, but this didn't stop you from slagging him off as a "hack" too, right?

Classy. I'm afraid I'll take your view with a grain of salt given the context.

supamark's picture

I'm referring specifically to Amir's incompetent measurements of the Magnapan LRS - a LOT of people had to point out that a dipole planar cannot be measured like a cones and dome in a box speaker, and he's all like nuh uh, I'm right you're wrong. His bio is also funny (in a sad way).

There've been other examples, but I ain't going to go looking for them. Hegel does come to mind though. Amir is basically an influencer, but with his own website instead of instagram/youtube/etc. He reviewed a Tekton speaker? Good for him I guess. I didn't read it, and won't unless he gets sued. Why? Because he's *bad* at his job.

I said Amir is a hack (he is), and that I don't know about Erin so made no comment on hackery. In fact, in the quote you highlighted, I said he *seemed* more competent and affable (I've not seen him go after people who disagree with him like Amir and his cult do) but I don't *know* if that's truth or facade because I don't know his background (and have only seen a couple of his reviews). Hence, shrug. How does that translate to calling him a hack? It doesn't, except in your imagination.

Words, their meaning and the order in which they are placed, are important. Learn to read AND understand before commenting on something someone has written. It will keep embarrassing incidents like this from happening to you in the future.

Now, good day to you.
I said, "Good day."

RH's picture

First, I'm sorry but indeed mix you up with the original person I responded to, with regard to including Erin in the "hack" category. (I thought it was the original gentleman responding to my criticism).

Second, I find your assessment of Amir quite exaggerated. Someone measuring a great many loudspeakers in public is likely to get some things wrong at various points, and as an ASR member I'm quite aware of the pushback Amir gets. But finding a few errors in Amir's reviews, picking and choosing from among the hundreds and hundreds and ignoring all the good information and measurements he has provided, does not entail he is "bad at his job." Unless one is prone to black and white thinking.

Anyway, to cite another film: Stay classy!

supamark's picture

but Amir is not competent and the website isn't very useful. Most of what he tests is literally crap people have in their closets or got off eBay. A lot of it is discontinued as well. The rest of it is disposable stuff like Topping and SMSL. The members don't help, it's a big time echo chamber. They slag equipment based purely on measurements, which is pretty ignorant.

There are measurements that correlate to good/bad sound *for me* but I don't tell people they're wrong for liking linear phase reconstruction filters on DACs or class D amps. I've seen many places where people will tell me I'm wrong for preferring minimum phase filters (not just ASR). Also, can't eat steak unless it's well done - otherwise it tastes like metal. No ketchup though, just salt 'n pepper. Tons of people will tell me I'm wrong about steak, but they're apparently incapable of empathy.

No recording of acoustic instruments exists with better than about 80dB S/N ratio (it's the mic's, then everything else if it ain't classical/jazz), so the site's obsession with SINAD makes me chuckle. Also, every method of driving down distortion to below ~110 dB S/N that I've heard did not sound good - TANSTAAFL. Simple internal balancing and good design/parts/tolerances is the least harmful that I've personally heard but it won't get you a super low S/N. The only feed-forward system I've heard also removed distortion from the recording and sounded awful; unless you count the servo circuit in a Velodyne subwoofer, which was fine.

"That's it man, game over man - game over!"

RH's picture

Ok...so you have some opinions. That's fine. But you have nothing like Amir's objective evidence that I can see for your opinions.

Also this: "The members don't help, it's a big time echo chamber. "

Is far from accurate. Anyone who has actually paid attention would know that Amir gets TONS of pushback from forum members, on reviews, on some of his views about audio or speakers in general, there are TONS of vigorous debates. In fact I myself have a huge number of posts that run counter to what Amir and some folks there believe. But the debate is feisty and healthy there...with more leeway allowed than many other audio forums I'm familiar with.

MatthewT's picture

Is different than mine. Got a link to one of these "debates" that's not full of ridicule for the poster who listens to music, not measurements?

RH's picture

No doubt your idea of a debate is different. It would be pointless then to point you to debates on a forum that is dedicated to objective data as a centre for discussion.

You do realize that audio gear is not "Music?" Audio gear is in the realm of engineering/science, of which there is a long history of knowledge.

MatthewT's picture

Just another measurement-masturbator? I love this welcoming post at ASR:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/message-to-golden-eared-audiophiles-posting-at-asr-for-the-first-time.17598/

RH's picture

Charming.

I don't think conversation will go anywhere. So long.

tnargs's picture

Amir is right and you are wrong about his Magnepan LRS review: every dipole fan from here to the Himalayas howled in outrage that it can't be judged from the Klippel NFS measurements, and it's simply not a valid objection. It's just fanboy outrage. Klippel are clear that the NFS can be used to measure any speaker dispersion: monopole, dipole, quadrapole, pretzelapole... and Dr Sean Olive has proven with listening tests, and stated out loud, that every speaker type of every dispersion is more preferred when its direct sound field is smooth, level, and extended.

BTW JA is a regular contributor on Amir's website, and does not seem to be an arch critic of his approach. In fact his first post there was to congratulate Amir on his measurements. So much for "hack": I sense a case of pot-kettle-black. Good day to you.

hifiluver's picture

Amir a hack? If his Bio is what he says, he is far from being a hack. He used to work in a technical capacity in a major electronics conglomerate which churned out credible above average products. We the readers and consumers ae the hacks, swayed by glossy centerfolds' and colorful prose from magazines who accept money from organizations whose products they are making an assessment of. Who are the real hacks?

supamark's picture

He worked at Microsoft, a software company, and says fiddling with electronics gave him the magical ability to "know" everything about them or some such pablum. He was primarily a programmer and manager.

Also, There's very much a huckster quality to both his bio and his website. He's making a lot of money off the donations on his BBS, because his costs are just hosting a website (I'm sure the test equipment was amortized and deducted off his taxes). The donations to an already wealthy guy to do poor quality testing of whatever crap people sends him (for free!) smells like first rate P.T. Barnum to me.

RH's picture

The donations to an already wealthy guy to do poor quality testing of whatever crap people sends him (for free!) smells like first rate P.T. Barnum to me.

LOL. "Poor quality testing." Amir has the finest equipment for testing electronic gear as well as loudspeakers. Pointing out a few things you disagree with is hardly evidence all the other results he's given are "poor quality."

As you say: he is well off. He hardly needs the money. Instead he has been willing to measure whatever anyone wants to send him (including audio companies). He has put a tremendous amount of work...FOR FREE...in creating a large database of measurements.

A lot of us are grateful for the work Amir has put in to this. Doesn't mean that it's all just received uncritically. But he has made some fantastic contributions, especially his videos unravelling various dubious audio products and claims, putting them to tests that go beyond common audiophile anecdotes.

I'll take Amir's work over cynical sniping in a Stereophile comment section.

laxr5rs's picture

I don't know what's wrong with people and Amir standing up for objective measurement. Apparently all these attackers have going for there is their own feelings. Because I see no evidence.

laxr5rs's picture

See KLIPPEL

Indydan's picture

I fully agree Amir is a hack! He also loves the sound of his own voice, and is a legend in his own mind.
I know some are impressed with his "computer guy" credentials. I am not. I have met plenty of people with so called credentials who were bad at their job. Ever had a bad doctor? Yup, they exist.

RH's picture

I fully agree that you are a terrible and dangerous driver.

Do you think someone should actually give good reasons for such an assessment, or should we all lazily toss around character attacks?

What is your actual evidence Amir doesn't know what he is doing? Other than "I don't like him."

Indydan's picture

RH, you need to stop being an Amir groupie. It is pathetic...

RH's picture

You have no idea what you are talking about. I have probably clashed with Amir more than anyone on the ASR forum. However I can also recognize he has contributed plenty of excellent information for audiophiles.

Try for a moment to stop...think...respond with actual evidence backing up your claim that Amir doesn't know what he is doing, rather than mindlessly uttering "hack" and "groupie."

laxr5rs's picture

I have no idea where people are getting these horrible opinions of him.

Indydan's picture

Ask Hegel if they think Amir is a hack. Go on, ask Hegel...

SteveR1's picture

I think he was being subtle...

himey's picture

Hopefully ASR sues you for the diss.

Glotz's picture

And ironic. Go after the reviewers of an 'objective' measurements website.

He will win, but he also will need an attorney. Shame.

Not sure what the rationale is but Tekton's tack here is tactless. lol.

windansea's picture

We cannot possibly know the impact of a litigious firm on the subconscious of a reviewer. But it cannot be good! It has to be at the back of the mind. Come on Tekton, apologize and quit the legal threats! They are POISON.

supamark's picture

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

Archimago's picture

If the measurements are true then accept them for what they are and maybe explain why the speakers still sound good.

If the results are untrue, then put out a rebuttal and publish their own official measurements to show that the device performs better than what was found and the measurements could have been in error. Erin seems to be a very reasonable fellow and I'm sure he would amend or update his findings.

I imagine consumers at this point appreciate that many audiophile products simply do not measure well; so be it.

The design of the Tekton Troubadour Eric Alexander is being litigious about is clearly unusual and to find less-than-ideal measurements would be expected even if someone like Guttenberg likes them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq_LaiSXB4g

So it goes with the subjective vs. objective debate and human preferences...

Homer Theater's picture

Get a rotating platform big enough to hold the speakers you want to evaluate for comb filtering. It would be massively convenient if it was motorized with remote control, otherwise, you will need an assistant. Setup the speakers in question so their toe and distances are correct, mark those positions on the rotating platform for reference. Then, while listening to music, rotate one of the loudspeakers roughly 20-degrees to both sides of the alignment mark. If comb filtering is present, you will hear/feel a nearly physical sensation of "pages of sound" flipping past you. If comb filtering is insignificant, the sound over the 40 degrees of rotation won't change much (excellent dispersion and off axis linearity). Of course, speakers with single or multiple tweeters aimed forward will lose some high frequencies as you move off the ideal axis, but that's understandable and "normal" and feels/sounds nothing like comb filtering. Rotating the speaker while listening to some full-range and complex music is HIGHLY instructive. You can move yourself as an alternative to rotating the speaker if you have a way to setup a seat with easy/smooth horizontal left-right mobility that's easier to manage than rotating the speaker. I can attest to being able to hear comb filtering with a helper rotating the speaker on the floor while music plays. And don't to the rotation or left-right repositioning of the listener too slowly. You want to do it quickly enough the "pages of sound" effect is quite obvious. When you move the speaker through that approximate 40 degree arc, do the rotating in about 1 second and experiment with slightly quicker and slightly slower rotations to find the speed that makes the comb filtering most obvious. You can do other things to/with the speakrs while listening that will blow your mind == create a clamping force on the speaker cabinet (use a block of soft wood with felt between your clamping device and the cabinet to prevent marks on the cabinet. Then vary the clamping force while listening to music. It is freaky how easy is is to hear the sound change by making this change while music is playing. It is much more difficult to have to get up, change the clamping force, sit back down and not hear the change while it was happening... this is another case when having a helper adjust the clamping while you listen is a requirement. You can do the same for your helper if your helper happens to be interested. This also works for mass loading (you can hear the sound change as you load more and more mass onto the speaker).

The "pages of sound" description I used is intended to convey sort of what it's like to hear comb-filtered sound as the source of the sound is rotated. If you've ever flipped pages in a book vigorously enough to feel "wind" coming off the book... that is sort of the effect you hear/feel when a comb-filtering speaker is rotated while you listen to music. A speaker without comb filtering may have the high frequencies drop off a little at the extremes of the rotation, but there will be no "pages of sound" effect as you get with a comb filtering speaker. Any speaker with a tweeter in the middle that is flanked by midrange drivers is going to have comb filtering... when the speaker is VERTICAL. If you lay the speaker on it's side and rotate it, the dispersion will be pretty solid. But if you raise and lower the speaker while listening, you will hear the comb filtering again as though the speaker was standing up again. The "pages of music" sound is not something you hear during normal listening because, obviously, the speaker is normally stationary. But some observant listeners can move their heads a foot to the left and a foot to the right to hear slightly different tonal versions of the music. Panel speakers are fairly notorious for comb filtering also.

Jewbacca's picture

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.

teched58's picture

Now that you let the cat out of the bag, we will never, ever ever see that phrase in a Stereophile article again!

windansea's picture

Very insightful. LOL. Blink twice if you need help!

RvB's picture

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. ... the author is either a vet, knows one well, or read the right books.

I think I can speak to what the author intended, as I am he.

Kindly note that I chose the original (non-beryllium) Moabs as my reference speakers in 2020, and that they served in that capacity for two and a half years, until I bought a pair of Focal Utopia Scala Evos.

By the way, the Moabs replaced speakers that cost more than twice as much. When I picked them, they edged out dozens of other possible choices in the $5-25K category.

Which do you think is more likely: that I truly loved them, or that I deceived everyone, including myself, by deliberately choosing reference gear I could barely stand?

Jewbacca's picture

I also do not doubt your fondness for the Tekton "OG" at their price point.

This review, however, was for the Tekton BE at $30K.

georgehifi's picture

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

tnargs's picture

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!

Shahram's picture

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.

DougM's picture

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.

laxr5rs's picture

I've never seen Amir be "full of himself." He has a highly accurate measurement device in the Klippel. Amir stands up for objective measurement and I agree with him. If you doubt the accuracy of the Klippel to "real" measurements, then see the back and forth with the Neumann KH80, and Neumann's own measurments on audiosciencereview. .5 DB off.... These speakers measure horribly, and... there's no doubt. I've never seen Amir be abusive to anyone.

Randolf's picture

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.

DougM's picture

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.

laxr5rs's picture

You don't go after people if they have accurate measurements of your product, and say so. Deplorable.

laxr5rs's picture

Yes.

MikeSTL's picture

$15,000 is too much for these monoliths.

Brent Busch's picture

The impedance and phase look like poop, and the step response isn't any better. Hopefully he won't sue for thinking negatively of his speakers.

laxr5rs's picture

Deplorable. My shadow will never be cast around any area of Earth where these speakers might be purchased.

MikeSTL's picture

Suing a reviewer over a measurement dispute? WOW! I admit I’ve never been a Tekton fan. I’ve always thought of them as “red neck” speakers. Just make them bigger, add as many drivers as you can squeeze in, and make them play with the max SPL possible. Like the big box speakers of the 70s. Not my style and now DEFINITELY not my style. Wouldn’t waste a minute of my life listening to them after such adolescent behavior for the owner. Good riddance!

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