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
@mozartfan 

No worries mate. Its a bit like reading James Joyce. Takes some getting used to but it works just fine.  Maybe you can pen your own versioin of "Portrait of an Audiophile..."
Cheers, take it all with a few grains of salt. 
Yeah, well I know my idea on speakers really belong on a  DIY type  forum. 
Just thought I'd share whats been going on in my 2 year  laboratory experiements.
Again, had I not taken a  closer look at the Tekton designs, I might never have come up with adding a  W3 on top of the 8 and 4.
Might work, might not,, 
In fact,  that reminds me, I have a  Dayton #3  stashed somewhere.
Think I'll go grab it  and hook it up.
If success, then I know the TB3 will/might   mesh with the W8+W4.
I googled multipile wide band designs and came up with nothing. Except one YT vid where this guy bought some TB3's cheap like $8 each and has a  array for his HT.
Sounds OK for HT  but not for my system. 
That W3 TB model is not what I;'m looking for. 
My speaker may be the 1st of its kind. 



I guess thats one way to design a speaker: buy some drivers and connect them and see how it works. Some might call it experimentation. Others might start with a clean sheet of paper, do the math and then spec the parts. Construct it, listen, maybe measure and see how close to the mathmatical model it comes. Determine if the model is right and where it might have gone awry. Who knows which is right, I guess it depends on who is doing it and what their goals might be. As long as you are achieving your goals mozart, it doesnt really matter.

Tekton may or may not float someones boat. Awesome if it does, no biggie of it doesnt. Im pretty sure those who detest Tekton the most do so because of the personalities behind the company or its ardent fans. Hey, there is absolutely zero chance I would own Tekton due to the owners quick fuse, commentary over the years, and the design ethos. On the other hand I may be missing something. It doesnt really matter though right? There are alot of speakers out there and I have no doubt the rabid fans enjoy their speakers…we all do. What possible motive would someone have to commit to the long term ownership of a speaker they dont like or enjoy?


@ghasley
“Im pretty sure those who detest Tekton the most do so because of the personalities behind the company or its ardent fans. Hey, there is absolutely zero chance I would own Tekton due to the owners quick fuse, commentary over the years,”

In no small part you may be correct in your observation.
Morphing onto a forum and throwing threats of litigation around rarely goes down well.

Likewise reining in his ‘Familiar’ from spamming every speaker thread going may well work out better for him around here in the long run!
@ghasley

well said, agree completely

@three_easy_payments

you’ve been around long enough to know that there is value in this forum, if not in this thread

like going through the daily mail delivery... lotsa junk, some treasures in there too, worth checking, though with a mindset that much of it is garbage