Tekton Double Impact & Comb Filtering

This idea that measurements don’t matter is nonsense from people who don’t understand them. The best kits out there always measure well. Look at the measurements done by Soundstage network at the NRC. The THD measurements alone say a lot about how clean your speakers will sound trying to reproduce massed strings and such. But nobody wants to talk about that.
Then again if all you listen to is badly recorded rock, death metal and electronica, you don’t need to worry about measurements, Cerwin Vega type stuff will do nicely.

As far as I am concerned I believe that measurements do matter...to a point.
If measurements were all that mattered then tube amps and preamps could not compete with the SS versions as they do not measure as well. Also LPs would not compete with CDs or digital files. But I would never tell someone that prefers tube equipment or LPs that they are wrong and the measurements prove it. They like what they hear and that matters. It would be nice if all we had to do is look at how something measures to know how it sounds but audio is not an exact science as some believe it is. It is complex and we think we know all that can be known. Yet we continue to find that we do not.
Just a few years ago jitter did not matter...then jitter below a certain level did not matter...both proved wrong. There are plenty more depending how far back you want to go.
Of course if something measures very poorly then it most likely will sound poorly. But NO one here knows exactly how the DI or the Ulf, etc measure, yet. And the one speaker that the nay sayers mention, the Enzo, did not measure poorly and JA said so in his overview of the measurements that he did of the speaker. Yes, it had an issue here and there but nothing that would be considered bad. And other areas were very good. So you have to look at it overall. 

213runnin, don't you own Totem Rainmaker? Check the Stereophile measurements on them. The same 12 db swing in frequency response you are blasting Tekton for (-5/+7 db). Totem's specs state +/- 3 db, which are off by 100 percent. What good are those specs? Lots of really bad cabinet resonances too. I thought that kind of coloration wasn't your cup of tea. I have never heard Rainmaker so I can't comment on how it sounds, but the measurements do not look very good. But I have heard Arro, and liked them well enough for what they do. 
I am not a Tekton fanboy. I don't own any and have only heard the Pendragon when it was being hyped. They did some things I liked, but I would not buy them based on what I heard. Does that rule out the DI or Electron for me? Absolutely not. I would have to hear them first and decide from there. Too many people have said they are really, really good for me to dismiss them out of hand. I would certainly never disregard them based on a single audition of another model of the same brand. In the same vein, I would never dismiss them based on measurements of a different speaker. That would be foolish.

mr_m -- The problem with taking one report, and extrapolating it into an overall performance evaluation of a product - is that setup for speakers is important.  At times, it can require the entire room to be rearranged or treated acoustically as can be attested to by countless people who have had to put baffles, sonic treatment, etc. into a listening room for specific speaker / room interactions.

I had the experience of listening to Watt Puppy model 7's in a less than optimal setting.  If you sat in a single chair located at a specific point between the speakers the effect was three dimensional.  If you moved less than two-inches in any direction the sound went flat.  Should I extrapolate that to mean that the Watt Puppy speaker is no good and I should be wary of every buying a Wilson speaker?

Or, more rationally, should I acknowledge that the room and speaker placement were simply not optimally setup for Watt Puppy?

I think a more logical assumption about the Tekton speakers in ONE ROOM at a show is that the speaker placement in the room and room itself may be affecting the speaker's performance.

Well, well, well. It looks like comb filtering might not be a problem...it may just be the secret sauce!!!

If you are familiar with panels then you will know the sound of comb filtering. If you use a flanger or reverb on a guitar you will be familiar with the effect too.

It is hard to describe but comb filtering makes the sound seem to come from a wall of sound rather than a defined point and of course this would only happen in the upper treble with the Teckton DI design. It gives a bigger Soundstage. Large ribbons do this too.

Here is a demo - notice how the sound shrinks as comb filtering is removed (microphones close) and how it feels expansive (microphones apart). These effects are on recordings already but a speaker that naturally does this will add a bit of this characteristic to all music played through them.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6JK721OpLko

It is hard to judge but the distance of about 9 inches separation on the video is the sort of enhancement you might expect with the DI. It is a very pleasant enhancement and no surprises it is used a lot in music production!

Here is another example of how comb filtering effects drum sounds (in this case the sound is bouncing off the ceiling and combining with the direct sound to produce a comb filter) In fact any two devices recording the same sound or producing the same sound will produce these effects if they are physically separated a greater distance than the audio wavelengths concerned)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4qgmY8jIGi0


 Report thisshadorne5,855 posts08-27-2017 6:42pmMore examples of comb filtering - hopefully you now know what to listen for - it is certainly not always a bad sound - quite often it is desirable in pop/rock and electronic music. The faux stereo effect is perhaps the most impressive demo on the link below

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zic2eNbxNmY