Tekton Double Impacts

@david_ten, thank you for your quick response and honest opinion! For me, the speakers will be in a home theater setup doing 50/50 music/movies duties. But the speakers’ ability to produce accurate and emotionally engaging music would be much more important to me as I’m a music lover at core. I want to watch movies for fun, but I want to “feel” my music, if that makes sense. I’m honestly a little surprised to hear that you believe the two contenders are not even playing the same game as you say, given all the glowing reviews I’ve read about the T-Refs. I’m glad I posted my questions here, reading professional reviews is one thing, hearing end users’ experiences is sometimes more valuable. I understand when you auditioned the T-Refs, they weren’t in the most optimum setup/break-in condition, but if you had the chance to audition them at home, do you think you would still come to the same conclusion?

If anyone else has experiences with these two speakers, please kindly share your opinion as well.

Thanks again!

@pro-audio

I rarely get good to great demos / auditions at the dealers I have visited. There have been some exceptions and some exceptional dealer setups. Anyways, I’ve learned to extrapolate from a not well set up or paired speaker demo.

It was VERY CLEAR that the Refs were much, much better than the Ones. After hearing both head to head, I would only choose the Refs.

I wasn’t overly impressed in my original demos of the Ones (this was when the dealer offered an attractive trade up deal if I went with the Ones while I waited on the Refs) and I was very happy I chose the Double Impacts at that time. For me, the DIs were and are superior to the Ones. Even after I heard the Refs (this is when I had the DIs and was still working on improving my system) I did not feel I wish I had gone with the Refs.

You are correct in pointing out that a home audition would be ideal. As I said in my previous post, I would be happy having the Refs in my system and I would make choices to tune them to my preferences. I would love to hear the Refs in a system that makes them sing, as I am sure there are rooms out there where they are doing so.

It’s just that I would do the same for the SEs (as I am in the process of doing) and I believe after optimizing both speakers, and listening to them head to head, the SEs would be the more natural, engaging, musical, emotionally connective and the more enjoyable speaker. I also believe these differences are not minor nor small.

The Refs present life like images, a wide and deep soundstage, have very good frequency extension (I find the bass overdone per my preferences though I realize it is tuneable), very good detail, and sound ’big.’ I am also partial to ribbon tweeters. They were enjoyable and are a very good speaker.

I find the SE more refined, more transparent, and more resolving. The significantly important differences for me exist around the SEs superiority in texture, palpability, richness, correctness of tone, timbre, color, trueness of voice, etc.

If this is a major choice for you, I encourage you to reach out to Mike Kay @audioarchon to demo them or to do so in an owner's home where the SEs are in place. It’s far easier to audition the Refs and I encourage you to do so as well, if you haven’t already. If you are close to New Orleans, you are welcome to take a listen.

Ultimately, it is your ’ideal’ of music reproduction that matters.

Thank you @david_ten for your detailed explanation of your findings.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences as well, much appreciated!