Tekton Double Impact & Comb Filtering

Mapman,
In general terms I agree with much of what you have written. I have had the opportunity to hear many expensive (25 K and upwards) speakers. Some were quite impressive and clearly some were better than others

I do however firmly believe that one can very successfully build an excellent sounding audio system utilizing speakers that are quite reasonably priced. As you note this will require some experience, time and good quality ancillary electronics but is definitely achievable. Matching and synergy is the vital key.
Charles

" the Double impact fell on its face at the LA show according to most"

I’d like to address this since it has been brought up twice, in this thread.

1. This was not a manufacturer room, and in this case, NOT a Tekton Design room.

2. This was NOT a dealer room highlighting Tekton Design

3. This was NOT a room set up solely to display and highlight the Double Impacts.


THIS WAS a Positive Feedback room set up to showcase and educate show attendees on lower cost systems.

I’ve copied the post from @slefty1 from 7:27 6/10/2017 from the "Tekton room at the Los Angeles Audio Show." thread.

@slefty1 is: Steve Lefkowicz, Senior Associate Editor, Positive Feedback

Readers can make up their own minds as to the validity of how the Tektons did and whether this room warrants the necessary weight to make a decision to disregard a speaker.

Here is the copied post:

slefty1 posts06-10-2017 7:27pm

Thanks to everyone who attended the show and visited the Positive Feedback - Getting Started room (Suite 533). Glad most of you enjoyed your time there. As someone already mentioned, our choice of equipment to setup and music to play was almost 100% by request. We swapped speakers over 30 times per day, and electronics almost as often.

We tried to be as clear as possible that we were not representing any of the manufacturers. Our display was more of an educational room, or at least an opportunity to experience lower cost systems in a show environment. We had nine sets of speakers, five integrated amps, one preamp/power amp combination. four turntables, two music servers (PC based) three record washers, and a bunch of DACs and accessories.

One person commented on the center seat second row sounding better, and that was the seat we positioned everything and tuned the speaker positioning for. The Double Impacts were a difficult fit in that room, and we positioned them for the best compromise between overall tonality, bass response and imaging. We played a Flaming Lips LP during setup, and the bass resonated with the furniture on the opposite wall so badly that some things shook off onto the floor. If you looked, you would have seen several bed pillows jammed between the dresser and the wall to damp that out.

Maybe some people were too shy to ask, but we tried to make it clear we would swap gear out as requested, and even set appointment times to have certain combination ready when people returned.

Someone also mentioned they were told the speakers weren’t broken in. Not sure who said that. I did virtually all the demos all three days, and except for mentioning once that an amplifier had been turned off and needed a few minutes to warm up, never mentioned break-in or warm-up about any piece in the room.

I have those Double Impacts at home now, and will be reviewing them for Positive Feedback down the road a little.

The Schiit Freya / Vidar combo may be low priced, but we also used them with the Maggie .7 speakers, and the folks from Magnepan checked our setup out and felt we had superb sound with their speakers and the Schiit electronics.

We had a blast the whole show. We were standing room only the entire time. I really enjoyed not having a set playlist, instead playing music from Tidal HiFi or my Server based on whatever people wanted to hear. Probably the only room at the show that played Diana Krall, Black Sabbath, Sublime and Enya on the same day!

I appreciate the comments from everyone. We’ll do this again, though a little differently, next year.

Steve Lefkowicz
Senior Associate Editor
Positive Feedback

After reading all these remarks about the Tekton speakers, I spent a good few minutes and browsed through their product line. On thing that stood out (for me) consistently across the board was the incredibly high efficiency/sensitivity rating of their speakers. Even accounting for the 4 ohm impedance rating  - less 3 dB as compared to 8 ohm, they are still rated in mid to high 90's dB/1w/1m - their largest tower model 1812 is 104dB. Someone used the word magic in crossover design and these values are pretty magical and might explain in part why these speakers sound the way they do. People might argue about how good they sound but there's no denying that a lot of thought and know how must have been put into the design of such crossovers. Many kudos to Eric.
I'm particularly intrigued by his OB open baffle model which doesn't seem to get much publicity. 

david_ten,

If you were referring to me as one of the two who said the DI's fell on their face. Well David, I didn't say that. I said they MAY have performed poorly. I also said I couldn't be sure as I didn't know all the details (facts) of that event. I'm failing to see your point here. So what if it is NOT a room set up by the manufacturer Tekton. So what If it is NOT a dealer set up for Tekton. (I don't believe Tekton has dealers as they are mail order, correct?) So what if the room was NOT set up solely for the display of the DI's. If I were going into that room as an educational tool for low cost systems I think I would have been highly disappointed to hear what they heard also. Considering the fact their was another system there that sounded very good. If it takes the manufacturer to be there to make sure the DI's sounded their best then why was Eric of Tekton not present??? At a trade show of that magnitude, SOMEBODY from Tekton should have been there. From what I read it sounded like there were plenty of speaker systems in the price range of the DI's that were proving their worth. Don't get me wrong, I will definitely sing the praises of the DI's or any other Tekton speaker for that matter, if it sounds truly musical to my ears. This is what I am talking about with some of you in defense of the "new baby."

Tim

Sean, if your intent was to post it as a question, then we all see the usefulness of it. Your post does not come across that way when you read it the whole thing. This is exactly what @charles1dad said earlier. I guess there is room for confusion in regards to intent.

I had wrongly assumed you were taking a cheap shot on the design as many others have here on the Gon and elsewhere. Sorry for that.  

I better understand you now and it is ceratinly a fair question to gain better clarity on. My other comments as to wether or not the individual actually tested and listened to the speakers holds. All speculation and sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous without all the facts:)

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