Post by Owen Y on Jul 23, 2018 13:16:46 GMT 12
There's more than one way to skin a cat, ie. design a good loudspeaker. This Tekton Design unusual & relatively inexpensive (US$2000) loudspeaker achieves good sound, but with different thinking - according to Stereophile contributors Steve Guttenderg & Herb Reichert. (Available in several standard colours + custom colours.) Herb Reichert: www.stereophile.com/content/tekton-design-impact-monitor-loudspeaker" When I first saw the Impact Monitor's array of seven 1" dome tweeters, I wondered how it could possibly work. But its measured performance shows that this unusual design is not compromised—I keep coming back to that superbly even on-axis response—and that the array works well to control the speaker's treble dispersion. " (John Atkinson, Editor)  (Steve Guttenberg:)
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Member
Post by colin on Apr 10, 2019 16:55:32 GMT 12
I am on a journey to purchase a pair of the Encore speakers once I offload my Matterhorns on TM! They also have a new speaker that will sit between the DI and more expensive models like the Encore. There was a competition on FB to come up with the new name which is Moag, apparently to do with Utah where the speakers are made.
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Post by Owen Y on Apr 11, 2019 9:22:26 GMT 12
The Tekton loudspeakers concept is VERY interesting IMO, with the multiple tweeter circular array/s handling the mid/upper freqs - VERY light moving mass with VERY high combined magnet flux/strength. Which probably explains why they reportedly sound so dynamic, fast & lifelike. Also, I expect the concentric array makes for great imaging, focus. Apparently, in the larger models, more 'tweeters' just means that the mid/bass xover freq just gets lower - meaning that more of the bandwidth sounds more dynamic & 'real'. Keep us posted. PS. We have mentioned professional drummer Billy Drummond talking about his Tektons to Steve Guttenberg: darklantern.proboards.com/thread/220/musicians-audiophiles
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Post by Owen Y on Apr 11, 2019 10:30:55 GMT 12
And they are not expensive (relatively). I like Zero Fidelity's straight-talking, honest, no-technobabble reviews... "... despite being accurate, they're not clinical... these speakers invite me to listen to music! " " ... ability to sound composed at high volumes & on complex music. Most speakers can't do that. "
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Post by Owen Y on Nov 7, 2019 11:21:50 GMT 12
" New technology we have under development makes it possible for recorded sounds to not only rival that of live music (the original source), but also theoretically makes recorded audio nearly indistinguishable from the live musical event. Let me put it this way: imagine an audio experience that is so realistic that it sounds identical to a live performance.
...our low-mass loudspeaker algorithm (U.S. Patent 9247339). This patented technology corrects and aligns the loudspeaker’s moving mass and its damping (frictional forces) to that of real musical instruments and the human voice, resulting in an easily discernible jump in accuracy and realism. " Eric Alexander, President and CEO of TEKTON DESIGN, explains...
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Post by Owen Y on Nov 21, 2019 21:22:43 GMT 12
Essentially, Eric Alexander is saying that most loudspeaker drivers are too high mass to properly reproduce the live sound produced by many musical instruments, their very light, resonating strings, reeds, etc. As a musician, he is acutely aware of the disparity between real live sound & reproduced sound.
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Pundit
Post by garym on Nov 22, 2019 13:01:27 GMT 12
The Mark Audio full range drivers are specifically designed to have extremely low moving mass. With the Tekton the tweeters used in the array must be chosen to have a very low fundamental resonance. There is also the question of how pistonic they manage to remain over the range they operate. Interesting idea though.
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Pundit
Post by garym on Nov 22, 2019 13:20:05 GMT 12
I just read the Stereophile review and measurement of the monitor. It looks well designed and measures well. I don't buy the designers argument about the need to match moving mass to that of the source instrument's strings though. All that is necessary to reproduce a wave shape is sufficient bandwidth. So if the stringed instrument has harmonics to, say, 5khz, you need to be able to faithfully reproduce that bandwidth. I suspect the claimed special character of this design is the freedom of cone breakup in at least the upper midrange. A pity it couldn't dig further down with those tweeters... Cover the voice range for example instead of putting the crossover at 1khz.
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Post by colinf on Nov 22, 2019 20:32:08 GMT 12
One tweeter would be perfectly fast enough to reproduce the bandwidth needed. I’m just thinking of the dispersion of such an array of tweeters. It would go a little way to imitating the treble from a panel. The ear would be less able to hone in on the point source principle.
AMR-iFi R&D
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Post by Owen Y on Nov 23, 2019 9:48:58 GMT 12
Zero Fidelity revisits the Tekton Double Impact after 2 years & reports that the current model's HF performancehas been tweaked a little - (i) HF level lifted & (ii) improved dispersion (off axis response, less beaming)... Some thoughts... - I like the concept of multiple small, lightweight drivers, instead of one larger, heavier, slower driver diaphragm. - You could think of the multiple small drivers as analogous to the now-common practice of using multiple small caps in an amp, instead of one big capacitor. - Conventional loudspeakers commonly do not reproduce the speed, impact, effortless energy & presence of live music. Lightweight diaphragm drivers, high sensitivity designs (some vintage) IME get closest in this regard. There is no perfect loudspeaker (far from it, as loudspeakers are the audio system component with highest inherent distortion), but this is just another way to 'skin the cat'.
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Post by Owen Y on Jul 2, 2020 21:16:35 GMT 12
TEKTON 2-10 Perfect SET loudspeakers: This is a just-released new version of TEKTON's 3-way design, still using their " patented 2 gram total moving mass 7 tweeter poly-cell midrange array" - which crosses over down at 600-700Hz in this design. Sensitivity is 95dB @ 1W/1m. Price is US$2,000 (incl free shipping in USA).  Steve Guttenberg AUDIOPHILIAC seems to be enamoured of them.... " This speaker does transients in such a clean way. " " They're so tonally 'right'.... the midrange is wonderful on this speaker. " " The tone, the harmonics... just sound so natural, so at ease. It's the sound you can fall in love with. " " Soundstaging ...is wonderful. "
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Post by Owen Y on Jul 3, 2020 13:39:05 GMT 12
I like the philosophy of midrange using the same (multiple) drivers as the HF - which promises similar sonic 'personality' between mid & HF bands (a big 5 octaves). (I see the idea as being not dissimilar to using similar topology amplifiers for HF & midrange when horiz. bi-amping loudspeakers.) Secondly, what designer (Eric Alexander) says about using a lighter weight (fast) driver in the predominant midrange band, instead of the usual heavy cone piston that must cover lower mid/upper bass right through to upper mid/lower HFs - 2 full octaves typically.
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Pundit
Post by peter0c on Jul 5, 2020 13:22:19 GMT 12
The fs of a good tweeter having a drilled centre pole and rear chamber is usually about 800hz. Without this it is more like 1.2k hz as exemplified by the Royd Minstrel which used a drilled Vifa tweeter. Having multiple tweeters doesn't change this or suggest that you can have a lower crossover point. It might mean that the tweeter can handle more power in the lower mid range however, give more headroom and have less distortion. When one looks at the power distribution of typical music, the point at which 1/2 the power is lower than and half the power is higher than a given value, is 330hz. What it is a full octave above this crossover point - e.g. the Tekton 10-2 - could be estimated from this. The Tekton Pendragon and ENZO XL designs have three tweeters in a vertical array (quasi line source) which would give a better horizontal distribution. I'd suggest if Tekton wanted to use multiple tweeters and thus arguably handle more power without distortion, it would be better to place say four around the circumference of the midrange / woofer and thus achieve a quasi point source distribution. Sam Lei has successfully done this using 3 tweeters around Goodmans 301s, crossing over at about 8khz. Tekton do this in a more conventional way (tweeter in the middle of an upper-mid array using the same ScanSpeak Revelator(?) tweeters) in four of their flagship models (Ulfberft, Encore, Moab and Polycell15) but two are line source (Studio Monitor, 1812). So Tektron are playing around with line and point source distribution (both good for different applications) and extreme dynamic range / low distortion. Did I say big boxes for undistorted bass. Dunno how they do it for the price e.g. ScanSpeak Revelator tweeters are US$192 each from Madisound.
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