Considering the New Tekton Design Encores? AND Owners Group - Experiences/Questions

@sedond @whacky   I always thought the woofers were simply placed on the bottom of Encores so that the treble tweeter height would be ideal. If he located the woofer and the midbass driver beneath it it push the entire array down considerably.  The only way around it would be to make the speaker taller which wouldn't make it a mini Ulfberht, which was the intention.

Regarding the tweeter.  He uses a very good Wavcor tweeter that retails for $95 on Parts Express, so yeah that's $3000 in tweeters in the Encores, alone, but I'm sure Eric gets quantity discounts 😁 because he uses so many tweeters. I do not know what tweeter he's using in the Moabs, but I would have to think he's using a more practical priced driver to reach the lower overall price point. The Ulfberhts tweeters are likely even nicer than the Encore tweeters, but I don't know what model he's using in there. I doubt the amount of mounting space between the tweeters is germane to sound quality, he just used the Wavcor tweeter because it was a very good driver for this application at the price point for the speaker. No other manufacturer gives you over 50% of your money in speaker drivers alone and thats not even including the crossover parts, cabinet, paint, labor, shipping, and a reasonable profit margin. Most dealers make 40%-50% profit on highend speakers and high end speaker manufacturers multiply their raw costs by ~500% to reach their pricing.  Tektons are a steal, but you all already know that and I digress. 😊

@stereo5  Great, thanks for stopping by. Many people who have owned speakers costing many times the price of the Tektons, own Tektons.  I am one of them.  Reviewers have said as much as well, but I understand since you haven't heard them.  I can only compare them to the dozens of brands I have heard while selling high end, visiting trade shows, or spending time at fellow audiophile's homes over the last couple of decades. If you enjoy your Tritons that's great. 

@kingdeezie I'm 10' away. 

@kingdeezie Well, I'm reclined at 10'. I'm at ~8' unreclined which is more intimate and revealing. The soundstage of course shrinks a bit though. 6' is pushing it, but not undoable. These aren't exactly bookshelves 😁, but maybe I'd call and ask Eric for advice.  He might suggest a different speaker. See, it really depends on how you like to listen IMHO,  I have a friend who likes to listen more nearfield to his towers. He likes the effect. 

Are you at 6' by choice or because you have no choice? 😁 

@stereo5 Touchy? I'm not sure what you read that you took the wrong way, but I think you're reading entirely too much into my reply. I would ask you to please keep politics out of the thread, it's off topic, serves no purpose, and just causes problems. 

@kingdeezie I just realized you said you do like nearfield.  I think you would be okay, you just need to mess with the toe-in more aggressively. You should be okay technically. 

@sedond You might very well be right on the tweeters for the Moabs/Ulfs since I’ve no idea, but I always wanted to believe he used better tweeters in the DIs SE vs the standard DIs, but I may be totally wrong because my memory is not very good. I thought it was an eminence tweeter in the regular DIs? It’s been years since I sold my DIs. I always wonder what the premium price was for the SE and figured it was for better tweeters.

Here are definitely the Encore tweeters, https://www.parts-express.com/wavecor-tw030wa13-30mm-textile-dome-neodymium-tweeter-with-heat-sink-a...

@sedond The link I provided was provided from a friend who also owns the Encores who had taken his tweeter array apart because he's crazy. (He even sent me a ghastly picture with all them tweeters hanging out, I felt sorry for the array...lol).  He sent me 2 links (one was the wrong tweeter) and I probably copied the wrong url.

@whacky, I would measure for you, but I can't locate my tape measure at this moment. I'm also dealing with cleaning up the aftermath of a nearby lightning strike which took out my modem, switch, router, Roon Server, and UPS that I know of. I have the Isoacoustic Gaia Titan Theia (they were a demo pair and cost about what the Gaia I cost and totally overkill, but maybe I'll buy the 1812 one day, lol!) I'm always in a reclined position when listening and therefore seated lower and everything sounds great to me so I wouldn't worry too much about the treble tweeter height being a tad higher. If I find the tape measure I will let you know, I misplaced it when I installed room treatments a couple of months ago and I just need to clear my mind and retrace my steps. :-)

@stereo5 Thanks for kind words. My apologies for any misunderstanding on my part prior, I wasn't trying to be dismissive and I didn't know you had heard the Pendragons or had a negative experience. I only can speak to the Double Impacts and the Encores and they fit the bill for what I looking for in a speaker sonically (not so much asthetically, but with the Spanish Tile high gloss finish, I'm pretty please with how they turned out).  They are very coherent and the midrange of that array is quite spectacular imho. 
Unfortunately, my system setup is a bit out of date on Audiogon. I now have some Allnic A6000 monoblocks that use 4x 300bxls tubes in a parallel SET configuration and produce 60wpc.  I also have a Pass Labs Xa25 I'm really enjoying that I recently purchased. You can't go wrong with Art Audio though for sound quality, I've owned two of them over the years. I just wanted more power so I moved up to the Allnics. 

@jsoku I come from SET Tube Amplifiers for over 21 years. I love them for their glorious midrange. The XA25 was purchased from Moon-audio.com on a 30 day trial with a 10% restocking fee if I returned it, but my good buddy whose an audiophile said I would really like the sound of it. I read a few reviews by Terry London et al and his equating the XA25 to a SET amp really floored me.

When I got it setup and heard the first 30 seconds even cold out of the box I was speechless and instantly smitten. There's a tonal purity and inner detail in the midrange that leaps out at you with an immediacy that gets your attention right away.
The bass is very tight, the highs are sparkly. It begins to open up as it warms up and relax it's presentation becoming more and effortless as bloom on the instruments increases. The midrange is now starling realistic and as good to my ears as the best SET amplifiers.  THIS is the cheapest PASS Labs amp XA amp and it has the best damping 500, slew rate 100v, noise 50v, and it's 50w class A power envelope is at only .1% distortion which is incredible into any impedance .  It can even do 200w into 2ohm momentarily too.

Only 4 massive matched transistors per side, a completely singled ended class A topology through and through. It's a definite keeper for me. 

You can find them used for $3000 and you might find one on Hifishark on there right now if it's still there. 

I highly recommend the XA25 AMPLIFIER. IT'S PURE MAGIC! 

@jsoku I'm very sorry about your hearing loss buddy. This is something I worry about as I get older. I am very happy though you are getting the Encores. You are not crazy.  The very best stuff is in the midrange my friend. There's few if any speakers with a better midrange in my opinion. I can't wait until you get them bud! :-)

If any you guys haven't already found the Tekton Design Speakers Worldwide Owners Group on Facebook we have over 1000 members and it's a very friendly group, at least we try to keep it that way. Feel free to join us there for chat, questions, or just to post system picts if you want. I posted a link below. Hopefully it works.  Make sure to answer the question, especially the Rules. This filters out fake accounts. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/135142323767796/672203223395034/?comment_id=672254006723289&notif_id=1597954035454151&notif_t=group_comment&ref=notif

@david_ten Of course being solid-state, there's a foundational weight and heft to the Pass Lab's XA25 in the bass region due to its 500 damping factor that accompanies its very beautiful midrange. It also only consumes 240w and emits much less heat into my new dedicated/treated sound room upstairs. The additional heat from 8x 300bxls in the Allnics forced me to put a thermostat sensor in the 20'x14'x8' room which forced the hvac to kick on constantly and made it too cold in my home. Also the AC makes a lot more vent noise upstairs as the system is in my attic which annoyed me because it obscures fine detail. Finally, the price of EML 300BXLS have increased significantly from $750 to $935 a pair with no end in sight. The practicality of retubing the amps with 4 pairs of them moving forward will be way too painful financially for me for how often I listen. I constantly had anxiety about wasting the tubes useful life when the phone rings or I'd get sidetracked and I'd forget to turn them off for hours.  I didn't sell them for sonic reasons, it was mostly just for reasons of practicality and that I actually find the XA25 to be very SET-like in sound signature. I agree with Terry London's review of them, it's pretty spot on. I was going to use the XA25 as a background music amp to spare my tubes wear and tear, I didn't expect the XA25 to replace them. 

@david_ten Yes, actually all of it's specifications are superior to the more expensive XA30 and higher amplifiers.  I assume it's because he uses only 4 large power transistors per side in a slightly different way in the XA25's. 

@sid-hoff-frenchman The Pass Lab engineer told me it was normal considering that deep bass uses 80% of the power of your amp. Sudden transients demand a lot of momentary current. My amp caps out at 10 amps current delivery. That isn't to say the impedance doesn't dip lower as this may very well be the case, but the engineer I talked to said I shouldn't be concerned and said the amp was operating normally considering the source and average load. I don't think it's impedance related because I did try an autoformer on the Encores set to 2x to raise the average impedance of the speaker to 8ohm, but this didn't prevent clipping and I lost like 3db of max volume before the protection circuit kicked in as expected due to the fact that at 8ohms my amp was only delivering half the wattage. 

@sid-hoff-frenchman Another good one is Yim Hok-man "Poems of Thunder". That 10 minute track will put my Pass Labs XA25 into protection if I turn my DAC's volume up to -3db which, to be fair, is nearly wide open. So big Kodo Drums 🥁 really strain my amp at high volume as well. I consider this quite acceptable and normal considering it's a 50wpc Class A amplifier. Other than that one track I've not really had an issue except like twice on very high gain and dynamic recordings that I was playing way too loudly in the first place. 

@smodtactical I've been using SET tube amplifiers for 20 years and this is the first solid-state amp to have a beautiful enough midrange to sway me away from tubes while the added weight and heft in the bass region from the XA25's high damping factor provides a solid foundation to any music.  It's an excellent combo and I highly recommend it. Vocals are velvety smooth, string, and wind instruments sound amazingly dynamic, natural, and very real. I highly recommend this particular model over other XA amps in the line up for its unique minimalist use of 4 high output transistors per side, exceptional specifications when compared to all the other XA series, and its specific distortion makeup which, to my ears, comes closest to a SET tube amplifier. 

@protoss71 Congrats on getting Encores. You will love them! I waited about 6 months for mine, but I knew that going in it was going to take a long time since it was a new model. Let us know when you get them how you like them. 

@protoss71 I had both 4/8ohm taps on my Art Audio and my Allnic A6000 Monoblocks. The Encore is a 4ohm speaker.  Congrats on getting yours in.  Update us when you come.  I'm really enjoying my Friday with my new Holo Audio May KTE r2r dac that should up several weeks ahead of schedule. It is sublime to listen to. 

Congrats dude, have fun!