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Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews

I’ve briefly taken a look at some online reviews for budget Tekton speakers from ASR and Youtube. Both are based on Klippel quasi-anechoic measurements to achieve "in-room" simulations.

As an amateur speaker designer, and lover of graphs and data I have some thoughts. I mostly hope this helps the entire A’gon community get a little more perspective into how a speaker builder would think about the data.

Of course, I’ve only skimmed the data I’ve seen, I’m no expert, and have no eyes or ears on actual Tekton speakers. Please take this as purely an academic exercise based on limited and incomplete knowledge.

1. Speaker pricing.

One ASR review spends an amazing amount of time and effort analyzing the ~$800 US Tekton M-Lore. That price compares very favorably with a full Seas A26 kit from Madisound, around $1,700. I mean, not sure these inexpensive speakers deserve quite the nit-picking done here.

2. Measuring mid-woofers is hard.

The standard practice for analyzing speakers is called "quasi-anechoic." That is, we pretend to do so in a room free of reflections or boundaries. You do this with very close measurements (within 1/2") of the components, blended together. There are a couple of ways this can be incomplete though.

a - Midwoofers measure much worse this way than in a truly anechoic room. The 7" Scanspeak Revelators are good examples of this. The close mic response is deceptively bad but the 1m in-room measurements smooth out a lot of problems. If you took the close-mic measurements (as seen in the spec sheet) as correct you’d make the wrong crossover.

b - Baffle step - As popularized and researched by the late, great Jeff Bagby, the effects of the baffle on the output need to be included in any whole speaker/room simulation, which of course also means the speaker should have this built in when it is not a near-wall speaker. I don’t know enough about the Klippel simulation, but if this is not included you’ll get a bass-lite expereinced compared to real life. The effects of baffle compensation is to have more bass, but an overall lower sensitivity rating.

For both of those reasons, an actual in-room measurement is critical to assessing actual speaker behavior. We may not all have the same room, but this is a great way to see the actual mid-woofer response as well as the effects of any baffle step compensation.

Looking at the quasi anechoic measurements done by ASR and Erin it _seems_ that these speakers are not compensated, which may be OK if close-wall placement is expected.

In either event, you really want to see the actual in-room response, not just the simulated response before passing judgement. If I had to critique based strictly on the measurements and simulations, I’d 100% wonder if a better design wouldn’t be to trade sensitivity for more bass, and the in-room response would tell me that.

3. Crossover point and dispersion

One of the most important choices a speaker designer has is picking the -3 or -6 dB point for the high and low pass filters. A lot of things have to be balanced and traded off, including cost of crossover parts.

Both of the reviews, above, seem to imply a crossover point that is too high for a smooth transition from the woofer to the tweeters. No speaker can avoid rolling off the treble as you go off-axis, but the best at this do so very evenly. This gives the best off-axis performance and offers up great imaging and wide sweet spots. You’d think this was a budget speaker problem, but it is not. Look at reviews for B&W’s D series speakers, and many Focal models as examples of expensive, well received speakers that don’t excel at this.

Speakers which DO typically excel here include Revel and Magico. This is by no means a story that you should buy Revel because B&W sucks, at all. Buy what you like. I’m just pointing out that this limited dispersion problem is not at all unique to Tekton. And in fact many other Tekton speakers don’t suffer this particular set of challenges.

In the case of the M-Lore, the tweeter has really amazingly good dynamic range. If I was the designer I’d definitely want to ask if I could lower the crossover 1 kHz, which would give up a little power handling but improve the off-axis response.  One big reason not to is crossover costs.  I may have to add more parts to flatten the tweeter response well enough to extend it's useful range.  In other words, a higher crossover point may hide tweeter deficiencies.  Again, Tekton is NOT alone if they did this calculus.

I’ve probably made a lot of omissions here, but I hope this helps readers think about speaker performance and costs in a more complete manner. The listening tests always matter more than the measurements, so finding reviewers with trustworthy ears is really more important than taste-makers who let the tools, which may not be properly used, judge the experience.

erik_squires
amir_asr
777 posts
 

I'm happy to call out Apos, an authorized seller for those DACs.  Nowhere on their sales pages nor listings do they mention their refurbs are "final sale items." 

Refurbished?  Why are we talking about refurbished products?

Here is their FAQ on returns of new products:

"We recognize the importance of a customer-friendly return policy for audio products. We want to make sure you have plenty of time to test the equipment in a comfortable environment with music that you love before making the commitment.

If you are not satisfied with your purchase, feel free to request RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) within 45 days of the delivery of the order."

That is darn good return policy, better than Amazon.

Compare that to a power cable I bought from GR Research:

"Company advertising says that you can try the cable out and if you don't like it, you can return it and "get your money back." Close look shows that you are responsible for shipping it back, the cost of shipping it to you and unknown credit card charges. I paid $40 for shipping for 2-day service ($25 for standard ground). So if I ship it back the same way, I will likely incur some $80. For this much money, could have bought a dozen ordinary AC cables. So much for money back guarantee. "

Indeed I got hit with those fees.  Worse yet, company no longer accepts returns on these products:

"

Custom Orders (Finished cables, cabinets, and speakers)

(Applies to all orders placed on or after August 11)

All fully completed cables, finished cabinets, and speakers are all custom built to order.

  • Full-refunds are only possible if cancelled within 24- hours.  (standard 3% cancellation fee still applies)
  • Partial Refund: Once assembly has begun on your order, only a partial refund is possible up, to the remaining cost of labor and materials at time of cancellation.
  • No refunds OR cancellations at, or after, the time of completion/delivery."

 

What happens if the unit dies after the return window?

A few choices. Post on ASR Forum as reps from all of these companies are active there.  And members may have experiences of the same.  Due to large volume of products shipped from these companies, you will get far more relevant answers than some boutique company that sells 100 DACs a year.

Second choice is to buy a replacement for $200 or even less if you just need unbalanced.

Third option is to send it back to the reseller for repair.  Yes, in some cases this will take a long time as the product would have to go to China.  But again, note that there is essentially no repair of any high-end audio product outside of the country that it is sold.  :(

amir_asr
777 posts
 

Basically Amir is the world's greatest cynic.....He believes that we cannot believe what we hear. 

I don't "believe."  I know.  In my last corporate job, we blind tested large community of our audiophile employees to see if they could tell lossy audio from the source.  They performed miserably, missing flaws that were instantly audible to me and our trained listing panel.  I was hoping we could use our audiophile community to expand our testing this way.  But it did not work out and served as an embarrassment to me.

You simply are not critical listeners.  You perceive a difference where none should be and instead of thinking hard why that could be, go around brag that you heard the difference.  Not once do you allow anyone to grade you.  You take the test.  Give yourself A+ and keep going.

Just because you have ears and like music, doesn't make you able to hear better than average person on the street when it comes to non-obvious differences.  You need to learn this. 

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,823 posts
 

You on the other hand, make a super lousy fidelity meter.  Your mood changes.  You take into account your life experiences to evaluate something.  You don't know your biases.  You let your eyes override your ears, etc.

Sounds like you chant this every morning upon waking over and over as you make your coffee. 

All the best,
Nonoise

pynkfloydd
44 posts
 

If you are not satisfied with your purchase, feel free to request RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) within 45 days of the delivery of the order."

@amir_asr - Please read personal experiences of people trying to actually return anything to Apos and a number of other authorized Topping / SMSL retailers.

Here’s a whole thread on Head-Fi, which is actually sponsored by Apos:

Head-Fi Apos Return Experiences

 

Another thing to point out is that when I was in my 20s, I had no problem buying as-is broken electronics on eBay and fixing them up as I didn’t have much money and all the time in the world. These days, I average ~60-80hr work weeks so while I now have the money to buy nice things, I don’t have the luxury of time.

All these blind listening tests, nightmare sellers and unreliable products cost me more than if I were to spend $10k+ on a working DAC that I can forget about for the next 5 years or so.

ricevs
1,543 posts
 

The bottom line is that you cannot prove that you "know" anything. I have stated several times that you have no proof that your beliefs are true. I have asked you several times to show us the proof....you have not even mentioned what I have said or asked.......you simply ignore it. Ignore it again why don’t you. You ignore it....because you are wrong and cannot prove you are right. No one will ever prove it because our ears tell us what is real....not a distortion meter.

I again ask you to show proof that a certain SINAD measurement means that a component is totally transparent in sound. Please show us the hundreds of double blind tests done over a long time with hundreds of subjects that prove this....please...please....please. YOU CANNOT....there will never be such tests because why would we need to prove that we hear what we hear......only someone like you would even try to prove such nonsense. And if you sponsored it......it would have no clout as you are biased. Only someone who is completely unbiased could even run the tests. Even the Boston Audio Society or whatever is biased towards numbers......so it would have to be done by someone not even in audio for it to be considered valid. So, go on and show us the tests results that prove all DACs, preamps, and amps that measure a certain SINAD or better are transparent. If you cannot prove your "theory"......then it is just a theory....made up by you.....which is what it is....plain and simple....you are playing "make believe"....like a child.

Where’s the BEEF?!!!!!!!!  Where is your PROOF?!!!!!

 

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