8 inch driver arrived Wednesday and was up and running that afternoon. As for the damaged driver, who knows how it happened, there is no visible damage to it. I suspect the driver is a factory defective product. When i depress the top of the cone or inner cone gently you can physically hear what i think are the voice coils being scraped...physical contact. When i depress the bottom part of the woofer, thereby pushing slightly up, there is no scraping. In any event, the bad driver is out of there and i am up and running.
I am still breaking them in now. I have about 25 hours or so i believe. The electrons are replacing a pair of b&w cdm7nts. I am using a rotel integrated 1062 and playing music from an oppo bdp95 and project debut carbon (ortofon 2m red cartridge). I am using kimber 8vs speaker wire, a pbj kimber interconnect for the oppo and blue jean interconnect for the turntable. My rig is very much entry level by audiophile standards. However, that is what drew me to the Tektons....getting a speaker that punches way above its weight.
I am sitting about 7 feet from the speakers which are each about 7 feet apart.
After 25 hours of break in, and several hours of listening, my initial thought is that this is a very good speaker. The upper end detail is remarkable. I am hearing much more music than with the b&ws. I have done a few a/b with the electrons/b&ws. As has been said before about the DI, you really can hear the edges of the notes. The electron is articulating much more of the music. The sweet spot is also much bigger and the imaging bigger than with the b&w. The Electrons did require a toe in of several inches, however, to achieve this. When they were firing straight ahead the imaging really decreased.
I do have to echo some of what hifiaddict said on the main DI thread about the bass. On some tracks its perfect. I listened to both vinyl and cd of bob marley’s Survival and it was incredible. So much fun to listen to. Sacd of dylan’s oh mercy song "man in the long black coat" is stunning. The recent vinyl of Gillian Welch’s Harvest and Harrow was also amazing. Again, the edges of the notes of the guitar sound, you can almost feel david rawling’s fingers on the strings. really amazing.
However, on other tracks its almost as if there is too much high frequency sound. Lower bass is there, but lower frequency mid range is perhaps overwhelmed by higher frequency sound. An example is Ella and Louise sacd. Some of the trumpet notes are piercing and uncomfortable. However, Armstrong’s baritone voice is perfect. But when he is not singing the lower end of the music feels a bit overwhelmed by the upper register. Is this merely a reflection of the source? Could be.
All this said i am really enjoying them and i am still early in the break in. I ran downstairs at 7am yesterday morning like a kid at Christmas to listen! my wife is loving this, she has a new babysitter (the electrons)!!
