WOW... sounds like a similar story of mine.
I have personally owned 5 pairs of Tekton speakers... (in order):
- Pendragon
- Lore Impulse (no longer sold)
- M Lore
- Double Impact
- Impact Monitor
All decent sounding speakers, nothing crazy special, but for the money... a pretty darn nice sounding speaker. The cabinet quality and parts quality is pretty low and all the cabinets sound very hollow. Don't waste any extra money on a fancy finish - it will NOT look good and it WILL take even longer to receive the speakers than it already does.
What I generally liked about the Tekton speakers that I have owned over the years is that they did not really seem to need to best/greatest front end to sound really decent. You didn't need a $10k front end to get some decent sound out of them, whereas many others (Focal, B&W, Dynaudio and the likes) almost require a much more sophisticated front end.
What I do not like (and the reason that I will NEVER buy another pair or ever recommend them again) is the owner... Eric. I have spoken to him on the phone at least 4-5 times over the years and the last call with him was a game changer for me.
I had ordered a pair of speakers (2-10 Perfect SET) and understood that they would take an undetermined amount of time to build/ship (which is kinda normal with Tekton). After about 6-7 weeks, I sent an email asking to "cancel the order". Never got a reply. After another 2 weeks... sent a 2nd email to "CANCEL MY ORDER". Again, never heard back. Finally I called and Eric picks up right away. I explained that I had sent two separate emails, about 2 weeks apart with no response and that I wanted to cancel my order. His attitude changed suddenly and drastically and he told me to "call him tomorrow".
When I called back the next day, I did not get an answer, so I sent a text, again asking to cancel the order and provided my name and the speaker that I had ordered. All the sudden I get a call immediately from him and the tone was not good from the get go.
He started ranting about people canceling orders and he has to refund this guy or that guy because of this reason or that reason and he is sick and tired of it. He told me that he just refunded a guy on a pair of Moab's because the guy said that he got cancer. Then starts ranting about that his painter quit and went elsewhere for more money and that he is out painting the speakers himself. And that he cannot answer every call and email.
In my opinion, you CANNOT try to do it all.... you cannot answer the phone, answer emails, paint speakers and design new models and everything else that needs to happen to run a successful business... it will not work. If you are not willing to hire some people to help things go more smoothly, then you will eventually have some serious issues.
I was so upset at the way that Eric was talking to me that I told him... "Forget the order cancellation... go ahead and make the speakers, ship them to me and I will take a loss selling them when they arrive". If he is so busy and cannot get a pair of speakers out to someone in under 3 months, then there is a problem. And if that is the case, then WHY NOT ALLOW ME TO CANCEL MY ORDER!!! That would help him move onto other builds by cancelling my order.
I have never seen a person be so helpful and appreciative of a repeat customer buying several models in the past and then talk like he did to me on the phone that day... wish I had recorded the call.... WOW.
