Hello All,
And thanks, Corelli, for starting this thread. I've read a bunch of it, but not all 4715 replies - WOW, why don't you add politics and religion to the mix so people get involved! :)
I am glad to see so many people enjoying this apparently phenomenal sounding speaker. I am not an audio snob (I'm a bit of a music snob, though, unless you're already listening to some quality rock-n-roll, and I'd be happy to tell you what that should be), so to me it should always be about the music. I used to read those hilarious articles in Absolute Sound, what was her name? Enid Lumley? Yeah, Lumley's Corner, that was it. She was probably clinically insane, telling people bat-sh-t crazy stuff, like maybe fart on the ends of your interconnects before you plugged them in because the methane adds depth and air to the upper frequencies, while extending harmonic decay by a factor of ten - which you can measure!
Anyway, anyone that far gone has totally missed the point, IMO. Forget adding "lifts" to your cables to get them off the carpet, it's utter nonsense. Put on a record and leave it alone. See, I'm already off on a rant. But I did want to contribute, even though I've never heard the Tekton DIs, though I'd like to. What I can say, though, is I was involved in hi-fi (as a salesman) back in the day when $3,000 was pretty close to the upper limit of what virtually anyone would spend on a pair of speakers. My very similarly sized pair of Snell CVs retailed for around $2,600. A pair of B&W Matrix 802s were also $3,000. The top of the line 801s were a staggering $6,000. K-Horns were also in the $2,000 - $5,000 range, depending on finish. Aside from what were then a few fringe brands, those were the upper limits on speaker prices. Obviously there's some inflation between 1990 and 2018, but not 20 or even 10 grand worth of inflation. There has been a definite and pronounced spiraling out of control in the high end audio market for decades now. It is disheartening, to say the least.
Imagine, thinking of the Matrix 802, having a FULLY braced and acoustically dead speaker cabinet, let alone the high quality crossovers they were using at that time, three independent enclosures - one for each driver, that bulletproof Kevlar woven midrange, two high quality ten inch woofers, some nice bi-amp binding posts and a high quality real wood veneer in walnut, oak or black oak - all for just $3,000! That's a serious amount of work and craftsmanship for your money, even in 1990 dollars. Regardless of your opinion of B&W, at least in those days you couldn't claim that were taking advantage of you.
There is no doubt in today's dollars that Eric Alexander of Tekton Designs is providing an exceptional value in sound, and probably making a few manufacturers nervous in the process. I know some theories have been bandied about regarding their design, and I believe that those observations are mostly correct. Mr. Alexander has quite deliberately reinvented the accepted physics of loudspeaker design. It reminds me of the subwoofers by Sunfire, REL and their ilk.
There has always been a physical law, it even has a name but I'll be damned if I can remember it. But basically it says that with a driver of X surface area and Y "Q" value, and Z P-to-P excursion value, then your cabinet needs to have "this much" volume and "this much" mass in order to reach a particular frequency. There are some pretty intense equations you can check out at this site if you want:
https://www.ajdesigner.com/phpsubwooferclosed/resonance_frequency_equation_qtc.phpBut Sunfire and REL produce incredibly deep bass in surprisingly compact cabinets. You can't just ignore laws of physics when it's inconvenient, or when you really feel like getting a leg up on the competition. So how do they do it? In the case of these subwoofers, they didn't alter the formula one bit. In fact, that law informed their thinking. What they ended up doing was tweaking one single variable of the equation, causing all of the other numbers to change as a result. What did they do? They created a driver with a massive peak to peak excursion measurement. It's been quite a while since I looked, but IIRC, these drivers move, like, four inches or more in their peak to peak excursion. That's way beyond the capabilities of a typical woofer - even a subwoofer driver. When you look at one of these drivers they always have a massive, thick, fat surround. The redesign allows them to travel two, three or four times the distance of a traditional driver. With that number so significantly increased, with the driver moving LOTS more air, all of the other numbers can be lowered. Pretty cool solution, and it totally disrupted the market.
I believe Mr. Alexander has tapped into the same type of innovation with the Double Impacts, and he may have realized some unexpected benefits in the process. Several people have already mentioned in this thread the concept of his tweeter array working together as a single driver, and I think this is absolutely correct. Without direct knowledge of his secret sauce, it appears that the six tweeters surrounding the seventh, center tweeter are all working together, and likely crossed over to operate in the upper mid-band frequencies. The result is the mathematical equivalent of one large midrange driver, at least in terms of surface area, but with an effective mass that is no larger than that of any single small, light, rigid and fast tweeter. This would give the speaker heretofore unparalleled performance in terms of micro detail and micro dynamics, as the drivers are light, rigid and can move incredibly fast compared to a traditional midrange driver. Being that all of these midrange drivers working at full capacity would likely result in a very forward, bright presentation, it seems logical that they are voiced at a very subdued level within the crossover, meaning that none of them are probably working very hard, giving way to a very relaxed, effortless musicality.
Of course we can't forget the four more traditional midrange drivers. With the six tweeter array handling upper midrange, these two higher mass drivers can be relegated to just the lower midrange, picking up where the bass woofers cross over. Being of a larger mass, this is well within their comfort range, but not needing to operate in the upper midrange, they are relieved of the need to operate at that region's demanding speeds, so they don't have to work that hard. And again, because there are two of them, it seems quite likely that they are voiced well below their full output, adding once again to the speaker's overall effortless presentation, with lots of headroom should you want to crank it up. Combined with the tweeter array, the critical midrange bandwidth is usually the first sonic aspect to start to fall apart when a speaker's volume approaches its upper limit, yet with each half of the frequency range's workload being handled by drivers that are significantly UNDER-driven, this speaker is never under strain.
Others have noted that the six tweeter array, being arranged in a circle, with the ACTUAL tweeter positioned in the center, similar to the design of a co-axel driver, probably lends to the imaging capabilities, which makes sense, with information emanating from a single, concentric location. Yet, here's where Mr. Alexander likely reaped some unexpected benefits from his unique design. One of the biggest challenges to soundstage presentation is the speaker's baffle. It's why so often that small monitors, like my little NHT SperZero computer speakers have amazing, holographic imaging characteristics (even though a crappy 35 year old receiver), and why so often it seems that larger, much more expensive speakers don't image as well as these little guys.
Kevin Voecks, speaker designer at Revel Audio, is obsessed with his speakers' baffles, and puts great expense into machining away large portions of the speaker baffle surrounding the midrange and tweeters of his Revel speakers. Reducing the size of the bezel also helps tremendously with off-axis dispersion, something that is critical for quality imaging, and, as Revel has found through their use of focus groups, also adds to a speaker's perceived sense of realism and life-like sound. Back when he was designing at Snell, in lieu of expensive machining, he used felt around those drivers on many Snell models in order to trick the drivers into behaving as though they were mounted on a much smaller bezel. Other manufacturers have employed this technique since those early designs.
With the Tekton Double Impact, the six tweeter array, essentially working as a single driver, uses the majority of the speaker baffle, thereby gaining the same benefits of a small driver on a small baffle, and while the ratio of driver size to baffle size may be similar, the PHYSICAL size of the array vs the baffle is comparatively enormous, enabling a large, life-like soundstage. Likewise, the focused, transparent imaging characteristics on the DIs are remarkable for a speaker of such prodigious dimensions.
Someone also noted Mr. Alexander's fondness for using drivers typically reserved for use in pro audio equipment. Notably, pro drivers are both very efficient (decibels vs power ratio) and unusually mechanically robust, able to handle gobs of power without distortion or overheating the voice coil, a big factor with regards to impedance. Using these types of drivers in a home environment is a bit like using a BMW to lead a foot race. You are vastly under-utilizing the unit's potential. As anyone who's ever plugged a pair of JBL DJ speakers into their home stereo for a laugh knows, this pro audio plays LOUD, has incredible dynamics, and in spite of their high efficiency, they can handle as much power as you'd care to throw at them. Using pro drivers in a comparatively small home environment again adds to the perception that the speaker seems very relaxed, because it is. These components are kind of just loafing along, operating well below their engineered potential. Dynamics, as well as the ability to crank up the volume without strain performs well above expectations.
The ported, dual ten inch woofers and large cabinet speak for themselves. I have a similar design in my Snell CVs and bass is never a problem, though if you want to reproduce frequencies at 25Hz and below, a quality subwoofer still has a place here. That's simply a matter of personal preference.
Eric Alexander holds his cards close to his vest, as he should. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and while some claim that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, in the business realm it's called theft. He should patent whatever aspects of his designs the law will allow, regardless of the technical explanations behind them. He also should be very proud of the results he's achieved. In today's hi-fi universe, his Double Impacts represent an unparalleled value, and are rightly viewed as a "disruptive" product. In my view, it is well past the time when there should be a conscious effort by manufacturers big and small to push back against the ludicrous, never-ending spiral of more and more expensive audio equipment that began its ascent shortly after I left the retail business in the early 90s. Ridiculously expensive esoteric brands come and go like a summer breeze. It is refreshing to see someone who is grounded, serious, and focused on a novel idea: excellent sound quality at a price people can afford.
But that's just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions, they're like... well, never mind what they're like, the point is that everybody's got one.
Sorry for this crazy long post - keep up the great and informative posts!
Regards to all,
Dan
MasterHiFi
