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Tekton Double Impact & Comb Filtering

Like many of you, I have been pondering purchasing these speakers but am very curious about the unusual tweeter array. I asked the smartest speaker person that I know (he is a student of Sean Olive) about the design and below is what he had to say.   

"In theory it could work, but the driver spacing means that the crossover point would need to be very low.
He is using the SB acoustics tweeter which is 72mm in diameter, center to center on the outside opposing drivers is around 5.7 inches, which is about 2400Hz. This means that combing would stop between 1/4 to 1/2 of the wavelength (between 1200-600Hz) is where the outside tweeters should start playing nice with each other.
Since he is not using low enough crossover points he has created a comb filtering monster. Now while it's not the great point source that was promised, it's no worse than most line arrays and the combing will average itself out given enough listening distance.

The MTM spacing on the other hand is ridiculous. Hopefully he is cutting the top end off on one of those midrange drivers to avoid combing."

seanheis1
twoch
429 posts
 
I would stay away.   This is the 2nd time the speakers  had a write up stay back
Let your friend buy them first 
craigl59
307 posts
 

Speaking of math and the oft-stated "cheap speakers" in the DIs...

Have been using the DIs for three months and after two, decided to purchase some backup speakers for those unfortunate blowups that might occur.

So, I checked carefully on the Internet and purchased the exact same speakers Eric uses at the best available price -- but just a few, of course. The SB Acoustics ring tweeters are the most expensive at $57 apiece, the midrange at about $50 and the woofer at about $40.

So, you add them all up and the best price for the 22 drivers in two speakers is right at $1158 -- this is 39% of the speaker cost.

Now those of you who keep touting the "cheap speakers" line, tell me another premium speaker that spends 39% of its retail cost on the speakers. Does Wilson's Sasha (say, $28k) contain speakers in it that cost $11,000?

BTW, if you actually examine the DI speakers as I have, they are well made.

But, then, so many of the posts deal with theory, speculation, manipulation, and dogma. When I purchased the DIs I made the decision on the basis of the large number of owners who uniformly expressed delight with the sound.

Guess what? We're all still doing that.

seanheis1 OP
623 posts
 
You can get away with cheaper speakers in a design like this because they aren't being pushed like they would be in a 2 way design and individual drivers aren't being asked to produce a really wide frequency range. This is not to say that there aren't better sounding off the shelf drivers available. Eventually I expect a DI reference line with top shelf drivers and a DSP option. 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
There is as  I understand a Double Impact "SE" version that uses all Scanspeak drivers in place of the standard drivers. This model is 6000.00 dollars so presumably the Scanspeak drivers are much more expensive. 
Charles 
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 
I seriously doubt if any of the high end Italian speaker manufacturers with ultra exotic furniture grade cabinets allocate 40% of the cost in the drivers. If I remember correctly the norm is more like 10-20% depending on the specific model and its price point within the model line.
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