New Tekton Pendragons On The Way

Almarg,

When I say no difference, yes the sound was diffused and vague, but since the bass was weak, the difference if any was slight. I brought the speakers downstairs and inserted them into my main system. The room is 16 by 18. The bass was excellent in that room with a solid state amp and all tube preamp. The physical size of the speakers made it impractical for the room which means TV has to go as well as one of the chairs. Not doable, and as good as the Pendragons were in the main system, they still weren't close to my Golden Ear Triton Ones that is in my main system.

The Pendragons were bought only for my secondary system and just didn't work with the room. There is nothing wrong with them as they sounded like night and day in my main system. I put my Odyssey Kismet Reference floorstanding speakers back into the secondary system minus the granite plinths they were on previously and they sound much better. I had the speakers on sharp cones sitting in a holder on top of the granite plinth. Now, coupled directly to the floor with the sharp cones had solidified the bass on the Kismets. I will keep what I already have.

Not every speaker works for everybody, that's why we have choices. I am just baffled why your room is so problematic with this particular speaker.

I once bought a pair of Coincident Super Eclipse IIIs that were highly thought of, and on another occasion some Aerial 7Bs. I couldn't get rid of those speakers fast enough, much to the amazement of some. Just didn't work for me.

At least you will come out in pretty good shape amd not lose too much. Lesson learned.

Shakey

FWIW I've read the guy behind Tekton prefers SS amps with his speakers despite their reputation as high efficiency speakers that are an easy load for a tube amp.

I don't pretend to have any technical acoustic knowledge, but my speakers, Klipsch Epic CF-4s have (2) 12" woofers in a similar high-low arrangement like the Pendragons, with a horn in the center, and they are also not nearly as powerful in the bass as you'd expect by looking at them.
After using them happily for a few years, I was reading somewhere (can't recall where) that with one woofer higher and one lower, there is some sort of cancellation effect that lessens room modes, which I guess is good in some cases, like mine, since my room is 13'x11', but that may be the reason why they are not working well in your room.
Feel free to jump in here Al, and others who know a lot more than I do.

Thanks, John (Roxy54). The technical aspects of speaker and driver design are not a forte of mine. But I believe you are correct that a spaced dual woofer configuration will tend to help with respect to room modes. However I suspect that in the case of your speakers the main reason for the less than expected deep bass extension is that the woofers, which apparently were designed and manufactured by Klipsch, together with the overall design of the speaker, were such that deep bass extension was sacrificed to some degree in order to make possible enough sensitivity at low frequencies to support the very high sensitivity of the horn-loaded high frequency driver. As you may be aware, deep bass extension, sensitivity, and also compactness of cabinet size, trade off against one another in the design of a speaker. And I note that your speakers have a specified sensitivity of 102 db, compared with the already high 95 db of the Pendragon.

Regarding Stereo5's experience with the Pendragon, like Shakey I'm somewhat baffled, but my guess is that a key factor is that the speaker was presumably designed with the expectation that its bass would be reinforced by the acoustical effects of typical placement in typical rooms, and of course his 40 x 50 foot room is decidedly atypical.

Best regards,
-- Al