Tekton Double Impacts

I've been sitting on a fence post recently contemplating selling my DeVore 0/96s, Tekton Lore, Tekton M-Lore, keep my Harbeth SHL5 and take the plunge on one of the DIs with upgrades. Or, take the plunge on one of the Ulfs. I already own a LTA Mz2. Plus, Aric's KT88 might also be a great sounding cost effective measure to make beautiful music with Tekton. I'm always on the hunt for "best bang for buck" audio and designers like Eric and Aric provide ample opportunity to accomplish that goal. I suppose I'll be standing on this fence post awhile longer. Looking forward to the further comments.  Best, mikirob

Jccarcopo,

You,I and possibly others may be a little crazy for loving our old technology SET and SEP amps but here is my take on this.


Eighty years later, vacuum tubes, and especially triodes, continue to be the lowest distortion amplifying elements ever made. No germanium or silicon transistor, JFET, Mosfet or Sit has ever approached the distortion performance of the direct-heated triodes, with indirect-heated triodes following closely behind. In addition to low distortion in the absolute sense, the distortion spectra of triodes is favorable, with a rapid fall-off of the upper harmonics. (This is less true for beam tetrodes, pentodes, or solid-state devices, which are intrinsically less linear and have higher-order distortion curves.)

This performance is with a Set amp running in their sweet spot of output which is 20 to 30% of that particular amps output pwr as a general rule for the very best sound.

This is were the best purity of sound "May" come from for folks that like these kind of Amps.

Even though I enjoy all kinds of different amps,including a Lyngdorf 2170 which I will get in about a week to try,my ears always have lead me back to certain kinds of Set amps.There is just a magical engaging sound that no other topology can quite match.

I have recently found that I like the JJ 2a3-40 new production single plate tube vs several brands of nos dual plate 2a3's,even more natural,organic,level of purity.

When it comes to solid state amps,my FW sit2 push pull and the F7 are the closet and best sounding SS amps that I have owned or ever heard yet.

So in about a week or so I will be able to directly compare my new Aric audio 2a3 set that makes 8 watts vs the 2170 in my system.

If I keep the 2170 for my main system I will use all tube gear in my man cave smaller system.

Again this is a highly personal and subjective subject and there is no right or wrong just different flavors of that coffee available to us Individually for our enjoyment of music,that we love,playback in our homes.

I greatly appreciate the maturity level on this thread and I personally learn and gain knowledge from all the different opinions even though I may not always agree either.


Kenny.

Terry, you may be correct regarding utter transpancy, at least in part. I found the instruments and voices all clear, clean, and so close I could reach out and touch them. Sometimes all of this impact was all on the same sound plane. All of this marvelous resolution and bass impact was just a tad too stark for me. The recodings were put out before me in a stark way compared to Harbeth, Crescendos, and other speakers I have owned. Hope you understand that. Again, a personal thing. Yes, I notice you Tekton and now I want some privacy is how I felt at times. Other times I was having a ball tapping my feet and rocking my head.

It is, in my estimation, part of the DI speaker’s sound and personality. Sure, different gear upfront will add, subtract, tame or heighten the inherent personality of a speaker. However, based on my experience, a speaker will not completely stop being what it fundamentally is with gear and wire changes

I don’t like my gear too fast. I know this flies in the face of what many like and shoot for. The Crescendo lingers longer on notes and rolls along in a more romantic way. This is not just a reflection of the gear I front of them. Is this accurate? Who knows. I like it. They have this personality relative to the DI speakers. The Crescendos are not slow at all, but relative to the DIs they may be. Too much speed and resolution makes me nervous at times. 😊

The very name of the speaker implies exactly what the builder was after and designed for. He succeeded in a big way. This speaker has impact from head to toe and it does not go unnoticed. More impact. More.

I still need to hear them in my room with my gear to really know how they play on home field.

@david_ten
The JRiver files were ripped as .wav files and they are sent over to the Mx151  on HDMI as PCM files. So the DAC in the MX151 is the one doing the Digital to Analog. I had jRiver upsampling everything to 64Bit 192KHZ. We actually turned it off and played regular .wav files and some mp3, with no upsampling, but there was no difference in sound .
The MX151 does not and will not play a pure unadulterated analog signal without doing an A to D conversion.
This is because of Roomperfect.
@teajay i feel that the MX151 is Musical and one reviewer said that it was lush sounding.I do not think it is overly warm or colored like some pres might be.
Also it may not be as musical as some dedicated 2 channel pres, obviously.,but i would not say that it is not musical.
What does Musical mean to you ?
I had the Mx121 and thought it was not nearly as good .
What other equipment and did you have with it .

Hey Grannyring,

I have a very strong assumption that your taste and mine are very similar in what we want our systems to sound like.  Of course I want micro-details and an accurate rendering of the leading edge of the note, but not so sharp it cuts my ears, and I want the full body of the harmonic with natural color/timbres. My Cello's provided that to a wonderful degree and I have found your Crescendo's to have the same overall signature that's why they are one of my favorite speakers.

However, both speakers compared to the DI's and the Ulf's do not have the same speed/aliveness/prat that the Tekton's offer.  When you shared how you were "tapping my feet & rocking my head" I found this harder and harder to do when I went back to my Cello's regardless with what I was driving them with.  Now, here's were personal taste and synergy come in, I find it hard to imagine what the DI's would sound like with just OK solid state dacs (Benchmark) or solid state amps (Bryston) driving them. It would be a very unpleasant experience for me.  The polar opposite would be driving either the Cello/Crescendo with overly warm, euphonic, old school tube gear, boy would that sound rotten because of their inherent warm/fullness would turn to slow and muddy.  

 I wish you could come to my home and hear the DI's/Ulf's with plenty of breathing room being driven with great NOS tubed SET amps, preamp, and DAC.  You would then hear all the body and the lingering decays of the notes with that easy liquidity/flow, you won't feel rushed at all, that you experience with the AZ's plus the "aliveness" and kick that is lacking in both the Cello/Crescendo presentation of the music.  As I stated above, I really wanted to keep my beloved Cello's of five years in the reference chair in my system, but the DI's matched all their beautiful tonality and warmth, with the right electronics, and the Cello's sounded kinda dead/wimpy regarding the dynamics/PRAT of the music, along with the DI's pulling a better disappearing act/sound-staging.