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What have other owners of Tekton Design Ulfberht Speakers discovered?

Now that I have lived with the Ulfberht's for close to a year I would like to share some assumptions about them with GON members, and see what conclusions that other Ulfberht's owners have come to based on their listening experiences. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the Ulfberht's are the most lifelike and musical speaker I have ever had in my reference system.  To think that a seven foot 21 driver speaker completely disappears in a totally accurate sound-stage,  (how large or small is based on the recording) like a small two way monitor is still a remarkable feat, indeed.  Many listeners to my home find it hard to believe how cohesive they are top to bottom and speak with "one voice".  Many large speakers can do "big" power music, but sound "big" on all music.  They can also blow out of proportion the size of individual players.  Not the Ulfberht's, they present any music in a natural manner, never exaggerating anything out of proportion.  Other special qualities of this speaker is it's overall "ease/effortlessness" regardless of volume levels, thunderous dynamics, its ability to pressurize the room with deep accurate bass frequencies and a sense of "aliveness" that you find in live music.

Some guidelines to optimism the Ulfberht's performance:

1) Get them at least four feet off the front wall and two/three feet off the side walls. My dear friend Ezra has his pair in a relatively small space, yet they sound beautiful.  Still, his pair is about five feet off the front wall and two feet off the side walls. 

2) I believe in most rooms a very slight toe-in gets you the the best center image, without narrowing the width of the sound-stage at all. The center tweeter should aim just on the outside of your head at your listening position.

3) Just like all Tekton Design speakers the Ulfberht's are a conduit, anything you put into them you will hear it.  Be prepared to use the finest source and amplification to tailor the sound of your system to your personal taste.

4) Even though the Ulfberht's are an easy speaker to drive, they love high current amplifiers to get the best out of them.  Right now, I have in for review a brand new model from Coda Technologies called the Number#8, beautiful looking with blue lighted meters, which has the current capability of 150 Amperes on a peak!  Without a doubt the Coda Number#8 is a superlative amplifier, you will get all the details when I write the review for hometheaterreview.com, and might be the best amplifier that has ever driven my pair of Ulberht's.  I have have tried six highly regarded amplifiers, they are all excellent in their own right and sounded great on the Ulberht's.  However, the synergy with the Ulf's is very special in many ways.   

   
teajay

Showing 3 responses by teajay

teajay OP
1,715 posts
 
First, to ,douglas_schroeder, my fellow professional reviewer, your statements in your first two paragraphs are very truthful about reference level large speaker designs.

However, if you are implying that Tekton Design Ulf speakers are either a line source or arrays is not valid.  Because of Eric's breakthrough you have none of the sonic shortcomings of either of those designs.

Secondly, smodtactical, the build quality is excellent and I have compared my pair of Ulfs to scores of other speakers and still have not heard one that I would replace the Tekton speakers with solely based on performance.
teajay OP
1,715 posts
 
I will not bad rap the electronics that were used in the room at Axpona were the Double Impact monitors were, but they were far from reference level, indeed.  Also, were the speakers were placed in the room lead, along with the upstream gear, to them sounding dreadful.  When I had them in-house for review they sounded  at least  at the same level as the excellent Ryan Audio monitors if not better for less then half the price of the Ryan Audio speakers.

You don't live to far away, you are welcome over to hear the Ulf or Moab speakers setup for optimum performance.  
teajay OP
1,715 posts
 
The Stereo Times website list of the "MOST WANTED COMPONENTS OF THE DECADE" just went up this morning.  Along with three other Tekton Design models, the ULF's appear on the list.

Congrats to the owners of these great speakers!
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