Stereophile review of the $30,000 tekton speakers

Of course you are correct. The problem, at least from my perspective, is singing accolades ad nauseum regarding the latest and greatest giant killer components. This never ends up being the actual case. Reviewers are among the worst in this regard. 

I would love to demo a pair of Tekton speakers. I don’t know anything about the science of speakers, xover slopes, time alignment or any of that stuff manufacturers load their marketing pitch with, but I do know markup on speakers can be insanely high for some very popular brands. Lets suggest the manufacturer needs to double his manufacture cost to turn a buck. lets say the Salon 2, very popular, costs Revel $5k to make{speculation) they sell to retailer for $10k then have to put an msrp of $20k to entice a retailer to invest in inventory and floor space, not to mention top dollar items don’t really fly out the doors, It’s reasonable to think it’s standard practice. Tekton eliminates the middleman and tbh looks to pass some of the savings on to the consumer. Remember when PS audio went mail order? I kept waiting for the savings to get passed on to the rest of us, but they never did! not a slam on PS audio, just an observation,

I remember raising a family doing carpentry in right to work states and Tekton would have been the only brand [vmps too, back then) I could even dare dream about owning. Polarizing brand for sure.

  The more things change the more they stay the same,lol,If I recall the last big debate on this brand( for those not here) we had member MillerCarbon and a select other few  shilling the heck out of Tekton for unknown resaons.Day after day never ending.The owner of the company dove right in the discussion at one point and threatened some individuals if I recall correctly,was big fun watching the hoopla.Anyway I see Tekton is displaying at Axpona 2024 in room 328,for those going see ya there.Cant wait to hear the new offerings this company has........

You go out of the country for a while without internet and people ask where is the OP.

What else is there to say? You have a magazine that would probably still give the Bose 901’s an A rating because they never say anything negative about a component. I only use the trade magazines to see what’s new. 

I’ve been attending audio shows for over 25 years (CES/THE SHOW, RMAF, Tampa Expo, and others. I heard the tekton speakers at rmaf before covid hit. It happened to be in a room where we left after a couple minutes because we didn’t like the sound. I can’t remember what source equipment was used but the speakers had a dozen tweeters and a couple of woofers.
Then later on, you had a guy on agon claiming that any tekton speaker would fit in perfectly into anybody’s audio setup, recommending tekton without even hearing them 1st.  This same person was claiming that his cheaper tekton speakers were better than the $1M Wilson’s which he never heard. So when I read the review of the $30k tekton’s and saw the rating group the magazine put it in, not only did the $30k tekton speakers fall short at competing against some of the best speakers made, it has a lot of competition from speakers costing 1/4 their price.

Even without hearing these $30k speakers, I would disagree that they sound exceptionally good for the price, and the magazine rating confirms this too. That was the saying for most tekton speakers, tekton sounded good for their price. I have listed in the past many speakers I thought sounded better than the tekton’s I heard at rmaf, and most of the speakers I like better are cheaper.

As for using beryllium, that’s not new technology. Ushers had beryllium tweeters over 15 years ago and I didn’t buy them back then because of the tweeter. As soon as usher started using the DMD diamond tweeter, I bought a couple pairs. Usher now uses a diamond midrange which is a game changer in their newer models. 

I don’t agree with the poster that states audiophiles buy expensive speakers mainly for their looks. I would disagree for a number of reasons:

1) if you can afford a pair of $30k speakers, you probably have a dedicated audio room. I buy audio components for their sound quality 1st, looks come in around 4th or 5th reason. You have system synergy, speaker to amp compatibility, speaker to room size, etc.. before looks comes into the picture

2) most of my listening is done in the dark. 
3) there are some speaker designs that would never get spousal approval and they are some of the best sounding speakers in the world, for example the top tier Wilson’s, Magico, and others.

On the other hand, there are speakers that are very very good sonically and gorgeous to look at: Usher speakers for example.