Stereophile review of the $30,000 tekton speakers

If you value drivers they are a bargain. A Rockport with 60 drivers would cost $6,000,000.

I have found if you have a larger room the Tekton DIs can highlight improvements in source and amplification components to a striking degree and envelope you in a sound that my more hifi standmount Dynaudio C1s could not do in my other smaller listening space. The other system is perfect for my smaller space and between the 2 systems I have a wide range of musical venues. Tekton gives you a club feeling with a good band sound system. Again, the fact that significant electronic upgrades are clear as day shows the honesty of these speakers. Cannot speak for other Tektons or Stereophile these days.

@dayglow

Speakers are the most flawed of all components. When building a system the electronics will mostly determine the potential of the speaker. An example is a Polk L600 at $3k with Burmester electronics will likely out perform a Magico A3 $15k with a budget integrated amp. My point is to many Audiophiles spend to much on speakers and skimp on electronics.

If the loudspeakers have no serious flaws and are optimally set up in the room I not only agree with this but have been saying this for years on this Board. Why can a Voxativ speaker design with a 5" driver like the AF-1n (granted each driver costs $2,500 and they go up to $70,000 per driver for the field coil 7.5" driver) move someone to tears with texture, touch, tone, and midrange truthfulness? Because virtually always those who go this route have the knowledge and sophistication to choose top-flight electronics and the design of the speaker makes it easy to place in any given room.
The reason that AN UK time and time again allows show-goers to relax and feel a sense of calm and happiness is that Audio Note loudspeakers are simple, room-friendly, and always supported by top-flight electronics and sources.

Time and time again the majority on this Board espouse devoting the majority of financial resources to the loudspeaker and they are simply wrong. The annoying thing to me is that they conflate the component that has the most effect on the character of the sound with the components that have the most effect on the quality of the sound.

We could make this really simple. Imagine a pair of $6,000 Susvara headphones plugged into a big-box store home theater receiver compared to a humble pair of $200 Massdrop Sennheiser phones plugged into a Manley Neo Classic 300b preamp (it doubles as a headphone amp) with an Aurender W20SE as the source. Which is going to sound better to any critical listener?

What does any of this have to do with $30,000 Tektons? Well, it is relevant as to sticking with what you do best (inexpensive simple designs) and hoping that the consumer then spend the available funds where they are most warranted-on source and electronics. And then there is the tired but utterly true cliche’, garbage in, garbage out.

I want speakers resembling that 😊:

My friends and I have through decades, chosen mostly used pre-amps, amps and speakers to attain a "system" sound. I have have the advantage now of upgrading to higher resolution/still highly musical sounding speakers and eventually pre-amps and amps. I spent $150,000 in 2019 building my custom listening room which permitted the setup of my 14 knob adjustable Von Schweikert VR9 SE Mk2 speakers in record time (1.5 hours) by the installer who quoted 5 hours minimum to 8 hours for set-up. Since this is my final home, I blew the budget when I moved in on a great acoustical listening room only. It has activated carbon pellet bass traps built into the walls (see my profile). Yes, the Legacy Signature IIIs are great speakers but the VS VR9s are better and even more enjoyable (they are able to open the subtleties of performances where they exist, especially in classical music). Don’t discount buying great speakers even if used and older. Just mate them to the best power amps, new or used.

P.S. I could have purchased virtually new B&W 801 D4s for a song/$16K but I don't like the speaker sound and they are power hungry.  So I paid 3.5 times more for the VS VR9s with warranty, upgrades, etc.