Never heard Tekton speakers. Given the high cost of shipping these days, and the savings to the consumer associated with direct purchase, I think that the cost of shipping is reasonably put on the buyer. If you buy something from B&M store of any kind, and you want to return it, you usually have to bring it back to the place you bought it from. And many (but not all, I'll admit) mail/internet sellers place return shipping cost on buyer. Those that don't typically have so much purchasing power that they pay far less than a small manufacturer does, so they have little at risk. As far as payment up front w a cc guaranteeing a serious purchaser and not a lookie-loo, just read the threads on this site about folks returning stuff, claiming shipping damage or other nonsense. PayPal and the cc company charge-back policies place virtually all of the risk on the seller, so it's not unreasonable to ask the buyer to pay two-way shipping. If that does not work for you, you can vote with your feet and your wallet. Just my $0.02.
Tekton Double Impact & Comb Filtering
Like many of you, I have been pondering purchasing these speakers but am very curious about the unusual tweeter array. I asked the smartest speaker person that I know (he is a student of Sean Olive) about the design and below is what he had to say.
"In theory it could work, but the driver spacing means that the crossover point would need to be very low.
He is using the SB acoustics tweeter which is 72mm in diameter, center to center on the outside opposing drivers is around 5.7 inches, which is about 2400Hz. This means that combing would stop between 1/4 to 1/2 of the wavelength (between 1200-600Hz) is where the outside tweeters should start playing nice with each other.
Since he is not using low enough crossover points he has created a comb filtering monster. Now while it's not the great point source that was promised, it's no worse than most line arrays and the combing will average itself out given enough listening distance.
The MTM spacing on the other hand is ridiculous. Hopefully he is cutting the top end off on one of those midrange drivers to avoid combing."
"In theory it could work, but the driver spacing means that the crossover point would need to be very low.
He is using the SB acoustics tweeter which is 72mm in diameter, center to center on the outside opposing drivers is around 5.7 inches, which is about 2400Hz. This means that combing would stop between 1/4 to 1/2 of the wavelength (between 1200-600Hz) is where the outside tweeters should start playing nice with each other.
Since he is not using low enough crossover points he has created a comb filtering monster. Now while it's not the great point source that was promised, it's no worse than most line arrays and the combing will average itself out given enough listening distance.
The MTM spacing on the other hand is ridiculous. Hopefully he is cutting the top end off on one of those midrange drivers to avoid combing."