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
Wilsons SUCK!
I heard a pair once in a shop in Portland stuffed on a wall with a whole bunch of other speakers on unfamiliar equipment demoed on unfamiliar material.

Rated at 87db efficient we all know that's a lie
They only have a single tweeter
They came with grill covers maybe that's why they cost more than a sports hatchback.
Everyone knows they cost that much because they have five times the engineering and testing expertise than automobiles.

But I've heard (insert your speaker brand here) in a dedicated speaker room with equipment and material I'm familiar with and they sounded a lot better.

Sound familiar?  I least I know they suck because I've heard them.
Wilsons SUCK!
I heard a pair once in a shop in Portland stuffed on a wall with a whole bunch of other speakers on unfamiliar equipment demoed on unfamiliar material.

Rated at 87db efficient we all know that's a lie
They only have a single tweeter
They came with grill covers maybe that's why they cost more than a sports hatchback.
Everyone knows they cost that much because they have five times the engineering and testing expertise than automobiles.

But I've heard (insert your speaker brand here) in a dedicated speaker room with equipment and material I'm familiar with and they sounded a lot better.

Sound familiar? I least I know they suck because I've heard them.

wilson's from some 20 years ago were among the most hard to listen to uber high end speaker i recall, utterly piercing and robotic in sound

more recently i understand the company went to a soft dome tweeter that has significantly changed the way the speakers present music played through them
Definitive Audio here in Seattle and Bellevue has been selling Wilson since like forever. From 1990 on I have heard them, and if ever I hear one sound good will let you know. My dealer friend Stewart, when he moved here one month did something like $1M volume just in people selling all their Wilson Mark Levinson dreck to buy his stuff.   

The kicker for me was the day I first heard a Linn turntable on a wall system at Definitive and then after being impressed with how good that little $30k system sounded the Definitive guy wanted to show off and played me his premier Wilson flagship system. Which within seconds I was like why'd you do that this is $300k worth of crap! 

But a lot of audiophiles are closet masochists. The harder and more painful you make it the more they like it. Why would they want to mess with Tekton? They sound great right out of the box and driven by anything. Where's the pain and suffering? Where's the need to blather about impedance and watts and burn-in? Where's the piano finish? Where's the insufferably elitist sales force?

Face it guys, with Wilson suck is not a bug. It's a feature.
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@mozartfan  

Here is the link to the Stereophile measurements which caused me to raise the question. The review was not a bad review however the measurements were a sidebar so many missed.  Very detailed but it puzzles me why they are off by 7Db? Especially if tested nearfield. The tester also points out exaggeration in the low end so if "faithful" representation of the source material is a requirement then Tekton may not be the choice. For me, I am all about an accurate reproduction of the source.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/tekton-design-impact-monitor-loudspeaker-measurements
Trying to put together another system that will run on either low watt Class A or tubes and I hoped to find a real sensitivity in the mid 90s.