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My Experience With Tekton

I know this is a polarizing discussion point and was thus hesitant to share unless I could keep it objective, helpful, and concise

I have no intention to be inflammatory, sway anyone’s current opinion or beliefs

I merely want to share information in two specific areas, my results of product performance and my experience with the manufacturer

 

Background and reference point

I replaced a pair of Revel F36. The F36 is the upper end of Revel’s lowest tier floorstanding speakers and retails for $2,000 MSRP per pair

Took approx. 45 mins to unbox, level and connect

Like for like drop-in replacement, same location on the floor as the F36s, the listening position did not change, identical electronics and cables

We’ve all got our preferences, biases, different levels of experience, etc; but share the common limitation that we just don’t know what we don’t know

I’ve not heard a pair of 30K speakers but expect to someday and envy those that own them

In my VERY limited understanding, it’s near impossible to pinpoint how any specific system change will behave and perform across the board, contingent on the variances in electronics, set up and room. These three items alone (electronics, setup and room) make me think that while similar in nature, but at a critical listening level, each combination is unique and a different snowflake or fingerprint

 

Listening results

Product delivers as advertised

Meets or exceeds every performance expectation I had hoped for

After approx. 5 hours of listening over 3 days I tried to characterize the sound. The first thought was neutral, but that was understating what I was hearing. I eventually landed on natural or real. The voices and the instruments sound VERY real to me. This is as close as I have come with my electronics, setup and room to sensing that someone is singing to me or that someone or an entire band is playing for me

To date, each song that I’ve played, is the best version of that song that I have heard in a playback, and I’ve listened to all of them 100s and 100s of times

Some of the improvement was by a small margin, but most songs, 65% conservatively speaking, by a vast margin – night and day, game changing stuff

Chet Baker didn’t sound like a presentation from 1958, it sounded as fresh and real as a new recording with the benefits of 60 years of technology advancements. Exile on Main Street didn’t sound like a home recording from 1972 it sounded like 2022 with many layers of percussion, keyboards, horns and background vocals

Is the sound of this $5,000 pair of speakers comparable to the sound of a $30,000 pair of speakers? I don’t know, as mentioned I’ve not heard a pair of $30,000 speakers.

What I do know is the $5,000 pair of speakers, simply put is the best my system has sounded by a wide margin

Again in summary, it sounds real, like someone is singing to me

 

Experience with the manufacturer

I had hemmed and hawed for 2 or 3 months before placing my order. One day the website mentioned a future price increase but until mmdd you could still order at the current price

I called and spoke with Tammy and told her I wanted to lock in on the current price point but wasn’t sure what product or configuration I wanted

She built an open-ended order with current pricing and told me to contact her when I knew what I wanted

With work travel and other commitments it took me 4 months to finalize which speaker, Moab, which upgrades, beryllium tweeters and Cardas connectors, and what color, white

I was never pressured to make up my mind or that my window for the lower costs was going to expire

Since I was the one dragging my feet, I offered multiple times to pay for the product

Not once did they hint or take me up on my offer to pay in advance

They did not bill me until the product shipped

Once I had made all the config decisions, the build and delivery were again, as advertised

Tammy mentioned a 4–6-week supply chain delay with beryllium, that arrived within her estimated timeframe

Once the beryllium arrived, she said she was waiting on cabinets, eta 5-7 days, followed by build and paint, and shipping approx. 10 days after she received the cabinets

Within 2 weeks Tammy emailed my owner’s manual, unpacking instructions and told me to expect a call from the freight company within the next week

Freight company contacted me on that Fri and scheduled delivery for the very next Mon, Aug 30

The boxes arrived scuffed and with multiple impact points that dented the packing material

There are no blemishes or damage to either speaker cabinet, the packing and packaging worked as designed

Upon unpacking, I didn’t experience a heavy smell of paint or wood, if I put my nose to the cabinet, I could smell fresh paint

The cabinet finish or construction does not appear inferior to anything else in my inventory, KEF, Revel, Klipsch, Paradigm, Polk, and Elac – permission in advance to laugh

Enjoy the journey and happy listening

Respectfully


stevewharton
peter_s
1,335 posts
 
@missioncoonery Surely you are joking!  If not, shame on you for sticking to preconceived notions about outcome rather than acknowledging impressions from an actual, thoughtful comparison (performed over multiple days).  I still preferred the avalons, but it was notable the sound quality achieved by this much less expensive speaker and the fact that the assessment largely focused on trade offs (with a final win for the Avalon’s).  Made me wonder about the higher up models of Tektons. 
missioncoonery
1,221 posts
 
Ive owned many Avolon speakers over the years and have heard Tekton more than once...for you to use those two makers in the same sentence is silly at best.....its like saying Mexico paid for the wall...come on, stop the bullsheet
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
2,097 posts
 
@peter_s Is one of the very rare posters with more 30 posts (other than a notable exception of the poster with more than 10,500 posts - freaking epic!) to endorse Tektons as punching very much above their price, so I respect his views quite a bit. In fact his reflections are substantially more compelling in favor of Tekton than pretty much anyone else I’ve read so far, including the OP of this thread.

I really would like to read more accounts such as his but sadly they are few and far between, especially amongst posters with more than 30 posts. I’ve read quite a number of reflections from those with around 1,000 posts who indicate that Tektons are worth what they cost or even slightly more - which makes reasonable "market sense" to me. Claims of technology being "freaking epic" (words my 11-yr old son formerly used before he matured into a 14-yr old) and performance at a $250K level for only $12K are simply off-putting. Tekton is the only brand I’ve ever read in hifi audio to resort to such an obnoxious ad campaign which essentially treats as consumers as idiots.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Imagine the BH. Epic. Epic. Epic.

Got it? It is the BH that is freaking epic. Only thing more freaking epic than the BH is, rent free.

waltersalas's avatar
waltersalas
952 posts
 

I have owned three pairs of Tekton speakers--the Double Impacts, the Double Impact SEs, and the Encores--and even though I have since moved on from the Encores, I found the Tekton speakers to sound incredibly good at their price point and the Encores in particular to sound outstanding. I did an extensive comparison of the Double Impacts and Daedalus Ulysses speakers a few years ago, and found that each speaker had characteristics that I preferred over the other, which is pretty impressive considering the difference in price and pedigree.

While I, too, find the hype surrounding Tektons to be offputting and the occasional interjection of the designer in these forum discussions to be ill-advised at best, it must also be said that attack on the speakers and their owners--as we see in missioncoonery's attack on peter_s just above--is equally obnoxious The facts are that missioncoonery was trolling Tekton long before he actually heard the speakers if, in fact, he has ever heard them. The evidence is in his own posting history, if anyone wants to verify these claims. I have no idea what bone he may have to pick with Tekton and do not really care, but I do know his disparaging of peter_s is pretty typical and typically strange.

I am well aware that a certain member here has pushed the Tekton hype into the stratosphere and that same member also happens to be, um, pretty polarizing in his posts, but that does not change the fact that the speakers I have actually heard, bought, and spent time optimizing in my system, have all been very good to excellent.


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