NEW Tekton Design Speakers - The Bonnevilles
I have in for review the Tekton Bonnevilles, described by Eric Alexander as a “passion project,” and easily the most attention-grabbing speakers set I’ve had in-home. These speakers aren’t for everyone, but if you have the space and can tolerate the eccentricities of setup, the Bonnevilles offer strengths that many other speakers really can’t match.
They feature four 15" woofers for deep bass, six horn-loaded tweeters arranged in a Tekton Polycell array for midrange, and a seventh dedicated horn-loaded tweeter that handles the high frequencies. Paired with the right amplifier, they can fill a room beautiful and visceral music, like a few other speakers. With proper setup, the Bonnevilles sound vibrant, alive, with absolutely amazing bass.
The Klipsch Jubilees are the closest comparison in terms of bass pressurization that I’ve heard. The Jubilees arguably have a bit more punch in the mid-bass, but the Bonnevilles seem to extend lower. I would also say the midrange and treble on the Bonnevilles are better than what I’ve heard from the Jubilees. The midrange of the Bonnevilles have the characteristic speed and detail that Tekton speakers are known for, but also seem warmer and more relaxed than Tekton’s smaller speakers.
Logistically, these speakers can be a challenge – in more ways than one. They require a lot of real estate in the listening space, they need 2-3 people to move, and turning a corner can be a real problem. But once they’re set up, the Bonnevilles deliver an absolutely gorgeous sound.
As a final brief observation, the Bonnevilles seem to require careful amplifier pairing. While the sensitivity of the Bonnevilles is relatively high – just a couple of watts will create a lot of sound – there seems to be a strong correlation between an amplifier’s power supply and current output, and the overall quality of sound. In short, the Bonneville’s seem pair well with amplifiers that can drop a lot of current.
I currently have three well regarded amplifiers available to pair with the Bonnevilles. Of those three, my current favorite is the Coda No. 8, which has an unusually large power supply and can deliver over 150A of current when needed. The other two amplifiers, while brilliant with smaller speakers, did not drive the Bonnevilles as well as the Coda.
Again, the Bonnevilles will not be for everybody – but a really fun set of speakers to listen to if you ever have the opportunity.
I’ll be publishing a full review of the Bonnevilles in the coming weeks in Stereo Times.
*For a sense of scale – the "little speakers" (as my kids call them) are the REL 212/SX subwoofers.
It is a well known fact that some women date the ugliest dudes on earth (the infamous O'Hideous category)... Such a darlin might accept Bonnville or Chronosonic XVX, especially if she's been popping Filbanserin and tolerating such non-handsome cupcakes for years...
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Hmm, seems like a legit competitor to the Jubilees at less than half the price..I have heard/have a pretty good feel for the jubilees and know what they can do. Very tempting, but unfortunately, to make the room i'd have to get rid of a lot of stuff. @willrich47 Thank you for the insight...
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Step a) Something the designer oughta do....Get a grille made that covers the 4 front woofers. I would assume the mid array crosses over fairly low.
Step b) Maybe, move the ports to the back side....that really improves the look of things in my books
Hmmmm....now let me imagine the cabinet in a very dark crimson red or a very dark navy blue....and....hmmmmmm...it’s starting to look like a modern art piece now buddy (WAF’s going up, marriages are getting saved). |
@jmrrobbie1 Very impressive, we need this in every US city.
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The best sounding speakers in the world (for stereo) will never be a tiny goofy speaker. They will be huge and most probably look kinda ugly. When i heard both the klipsch jubilee (~38k) and the Levinson M1 (200k), both are not pretty at all...but, i thought they slayed every Magico, Wilson, Schweikert, mbl, etc out there. The OP reviewer says that these Bonnvilles have certain traits that are better than the jubilee. At less than half the price, it could be a easy buy for guys who can accommodate something the size of a jubilee (Not for the guy living in a closet with ls50 squawk boxes, of course...and a jubilee type of customer is certainly not needing the ls50 guy's approval). if i bought it, it will not look like the OP's set in that hideous grey, it will have some customization to look like a piece of modern art.
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@willrich47 ...I was visualizing it with a different color/ grill, etc yesterday and it started to look doable to me. That’s a kind of quirky I can appreciate. Some guys doing the thread crap here are also the ones who’’ll provide a standing ovation to KingOUgly - Chronosonic XVX. So, you can’t believe the opinions of these guys on aesthetics too much. If you add a couple of extra zeros to the price tag's tail end , everything will get prettier in snobville somehow.
What are your test tracks/ genres? Any rock or metal in there? One of my go to test tracks, especially what I was trying out on the Jubilee was "Ozzy Osbourne - Desire"....would be curious to know how this track sounds on Bonnville. |
Sometime ago, I thought the best sound I ever heard was at a relatively upscale nightclub randomly one night. I found out that it was a large higher end Pioneer PA array (XY-3B). Something about the acoustics of that venue and the PA system made it quite insane/thoroughly enjoyable. The same guys offer something in the ultra high end for the audiophiles at ~150k these days (TAD reference, beautiful finish n all). If you set up this 15k, 20k, whatever PA kit and this 150k audiophile kit in a larger room with some high end electronics, i would not be surprised if 50% of the audiophiles who did a A/B somehow preferred the sound of that PA system, i.e., the price wouldn’t matter here, just a different type of sound, they preferred.. (Put a blind-fold on them for bias removal, of course). What Tekton appears to be doing is trying to synthesize together ( trying atleast) the pros of each type of sound delivery ethos mentioned above with their own concoction perhaps. I mean it’s obvious the guy’s around live sound a lot/in a band/in venues whatever. Many manufacturers don’t even think about it perhaps, anechoic chamber, kliippel, whoop di doo. If Mark Levinson did the same thing, price will go back up to 200k. Go figure.
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Most of conventional hifi is a ’bad idea’, i.e. a bunch of matchbox sized lifestyle speakers that are incapable of sounding like the real thing, i.e., lifestyle crap in undersized cabinets made to look good and that's it. Cables the size of fire hoses, amps the size of washing machines and speakers the size of matchboxes...that is what I refer to as a bassackwards ’bad idea’.
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MBL 101 X-Treme : 1080 lbs Magico m9: 1000 lbs Chronosonic XVX (King O’Hideous): approx 700lbs Von Schweikert ultra 11: 750 lbs Magico M7: approx 530 lbs Klipsch Jubilee: 330 lbs I would wager Bonnville (not specified, what is it @willrich47 ) is in the vicinity of 500 lb maybe, not enough to give you an exquisite sexy figure. Ya gotta manhandle the magico m9 or mbl extreme for it.
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Everything is a Lamborghini these days... until you put a blindfold on a dude, walk him into a room blindfolded, sit him down in front of 2 pairs of speakers and ask "Does A sound better? Or does B sound better?"
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No The bigger Tektons are anything but a flat wall of sound. They can attempt a TAD-like depthwise layering and nuance, but also with the big live dynamics and slam.
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@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).
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@carlsbad2 I am not a fanboy of any brand... But, you gotta give some credit when it’s due. When I briefly owned the Double Impacts, I tore it down and it took me quite a while to simulate it/understand what he’d done with the crossover, etc..even the small I delay I thought he had in there to mimic a baffle curve, etc. There is no unnecessary complexity, but he made it work ingeniously.. I’d rather not get into it too much of what i recall...on a open forum, as it is their in-house design. It is funny watching the ’all knowing’ hater van criticising the array all day, as if it were the stupidest thing on earth. Here’s monitor audio trying to do the same now. It looks like the monitor audio engineering crew has been busy tearing down a few tektons and studying it... https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/blog/introducing-m-array/ Get prepared for the sticker shock though when monitor audio reveals the price tag on their plagiarized offering. I am certain there’s a razor thin margin on Tekton speakers or he barely makes any money selling his speakers. In consideration of an underdog non-greedy (fatalistic even) brand made in the USA, I’ll willing to keep the hater van in check from time to time. He’s maybe the American version of Andrew Jones.
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@carlsbad2 Monitor Audio is a UK company, no recourse for a US ...well... don’t know if he went through the hassle of EPO for Europe after his US patents were granted, not to mention the Brexit complication, etc I agree on "many models" in the catalog as well and not much guidance provided on what’s what for the curious onlooker....There is a category of persons who need to stay busy pretty much all day...or they’d drive themselves nuts
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He seems to have well more than one patent. Start with this one.. (download pdf, RHS) https://patents.google.com/patent/US10805715B2/
and here's a list. https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Eric+Jay+Alexander
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@lanx0003 Oh, yeah what’s this??
Nice try, but, you knew very well this was out there , right?
Really? monitor audio put it under a cover and got real innovative, huh?.... hogwash, you couldn’t spin it any other way. At least, they are trying to hide what they stole a bit. |
I would wager that the sonic comparison would be that of a mack truck running over a pretty li'l pinata. But, it's better to go with the pretty li'l pinata than making alimony payments, i suppose.
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