@yoder , You nailed some points here...There is a category of guys on this thread, who wouldn’t qualify as proper audiophiles, to begin with, i.e., they are set up in a living room and have to worry/conform to the spouse, spouse’s social club, the mother in law and anyone else who shows up at the house. It’s a disqualification from the start because anything these guys will ever hear/have is always a "lifestyle" & aesthetics compliant product, Could he ever treat his room, never.. i.e., it’s a dead end Jim.
Someone linked a Ojas audio/Devon Turnbull rig a few posts above...that guy would qualify as a proper audiophile, i.e., big and bold...he must have already heard all the lifestyle rigs and written them off, it seems.
I have a pair of well engineered, but big non-good looking PA, Pioneer XY-3B on casters in my cabin, easy to roll outside for an unapologetic concert.., no neighbors, only coyotes and a couple of dudes who show up there sometimes. Attempting to explain that kind of ’audiophile’ sound/experience would be impossible to do with the ls50, dynaudio crew. He’ll continue putting his microwave sized dac, washing machine sized amp (to "control" those ls50 woofers, of course!) and firehose sized cables on them and that’s it...Everything will be huge except for his speakers (bassackwards rig, in terms of sonics).
I have not heard Tektons, but I’m interested and like at least some of the philosophy. I do like quality and accuracy, but also want live, visceral sound. We all have our experiences that shape these preferences. Maybe for me it’s being, like the Tekton owner, a drummer, that creates the crave for the realistic reproduction of the impact and reverberation of a tom-tom.
While subwoofers are a nice and necessary addition to the WAF tiny driver super slim speaker problem, they don’t cover the dynamic range. Flagship speakers are always the biggest for a reason. I’m not downgrading the design or sound quality, but Tekton to me provides a DIY type budget entry point. For most folks if they bought these pro drivers or other similarly priced ones themselves and built the cabinets and crossovers, it would cost them more than Tekton retail. Probably sound worse using internet design or trying to design themselves, and look worse unless you are a skilled cabinet maker.
Grill-less they do stick out in a crowd, but with grills, Tektons look like the many thousands of other rectangular box speakers out there. Only, on average, bigger. And some owners like to order them in bold colors. Because they can and Tekton doesn’t just offer the boring colors every other manufacturer does. And they will customize color and custom design to suit customer needs unlike most manufacturers. How dare they!
I think all horns are ugly. I don’t care if Klipsch Jubilees are of the finest furniture grade. To me they are a big ugly triangle with a big vent on top, but so what? If they provided the sound that I wanted, I would consider them.