Just get a better speaker! There are many many out there from $500 on up
TEKTON IMPACT MONITORS
I ove this speakers , on my set up they sound really very dynamic and easy to listen. Is there anyway to replace their tweeters to improve them? I do love the design of the impact.Thanks
310 responses Add your response
in all seriousness, in all these years in this hobby i have never ever considered randomly replacing/upgrading a driver on what i believed to be an expensive, well designed, good sounding set of loudspeakers... to me, what we are paying for, above all else, in a really good speaker, is the maker’s exacting, knowledgeable integration and fine tuning of the various piece parts that in their entirety comprise the loudspeaker that was produced for us to enjoy |
If you send one speaker to Danny Richie at GR Research, he will thoroughly evaluate it's performance (frequency response, spectral decay---aka waterfall plot, enclosure resonances, x/o parts quality, etc. If he thinks a redesign of the crossover will improve the loudspeaker's performance, he will design one. All for free! He sells a product he designed and has manufacture called NoRez. It is applied to the inside of the enclosure walls, to reduce or eliminate resonance if the enclosure requires it. I haven't seen the bracing on the inside of any Tekton, but word is they are rather lightly-braced, the speaker therefore perhaps suffering from audible resonances. Danny will also sell you all the parts needed to build the x/o he designs for a given loudspeaker, and will lead through assembling it. Or you can have a local technician build it for you. He sometimes finds the x/o design of a speaker satisfactory, but the parts quality poor. He carries a number of audiophile-approved lines of caps, resistors, coils, wire, etc. |
@lalitk Forget about calling Eric, if I owned Tektons; I would be calling millercarbon to modify them. Atleast I know post modification they would sound like $30k speakers cause everything mc modifies, they magically starts to sound and compete against components that cost 3x, 5x or even 10x its price I've got a deal for you my friend. I'm going to buy some Tektons and call Eric. I have no idea what I'm going to talk to him about, but I've been told repeatedly that this is the first step on the journey to audio nirvana. Next, I will upgrade the drivers with another set of excellent Chinese drivers made from half-chewed (by exotic Pandas) bamboo wood arranged in weird psychedelic patterns (god willing and patent pending). And because you're such a gentleman, I'm going to strategically place schumann resonance generators on cable lifters. Then I'll put the cable lifters on Townshend podiums for extra impact. And finally, I will carefully place this contraption inside a set (of 3) Russian dolls. The Tektons are big enough to hold several Moab-sized egos around here, so I'm quite sure I'll be able to fit the whole thing nicely. At that point, I can assure you it will handily beat the crap out of any speaker up to $100K ... both figuratively and literally. I will personally deliver the speakers to your house and will gladly take your lowly Canterbury's + an extra $15k in exchange. If you need proof, I will send you several testimonials by random strangers I invite into my home every now and then. If that's not enough, I can send you videos of my cats with dropped jaws and sniffing and drooling all over the beautiful lacquer paint job. Let me know. This kind of deal only comes around once in a century. This is what they call the grandmother of the mother of all bombs (GMOAB). P.S. -- While we're at it, I can also take your silly little Accuphase and give you the gift of life aka Raven Audio Blackhawk. |
"3 of my tweeters both sides including both centers were fried, my fault got carried away I push the impact more than they are capable of. No warranty covered." I am surprised. With a "400 Watt power handling" I wouldn't think you could completely destroy both speakers and not be covered by the warranty. Then I read the warranty. "5-Year Warranty Tekton Design warranties all parts on its loudspeakers for up to 5 years, with the exception of defects due to improper or unreasonable use, accidents, and alterations or modifications, or burnt voice coils." So, even if the voice coils can't handle the recommended power rating you are out of luck. That doesn't seem fair |
| Post removed |
Porsche > Lamborghini just for the record. Far greater racing heritage, history, number of fantastic cars produced. You can take a GT3 to the track and beat on it all day, no so with a lambo. Lambo only became a decent car when it became german. Look up One time a guy is showing me his awesome Lambo engine, pointing out all the great features. Look at this! They have a spare throttle cable already installed! Sure enough. So why don't they just make the one cable so it doesn't break? Nevermind. lol! I used to be a regular at Squire's Autowerke. PCA President, Squire liked me. So many hours studying cars from the underside, engine parts, brakes, all of it. Not only Porsche. They got their share of Ferrari, et al in there. The other cars, once you get used to Porsche level design, they are just not there. Every 10 years Ferrari makes their statement car, supposed to be not only the best Ferrari can do, but the best the world can do. The F40 was the last one I saw. Relative to Porsche it looked like the work of some SoCal hot rodder. I am not kidding. One day the owner hits the wall, and it was big news, because the car went up in a fireball so intense the magnesium wheels burned a crater in the track. You might think what a horrific crash. But the truth is the car barely grazed the wall. Ferrari used a fuel tank instead of a fuel cell. Then they welded the aluminum filler to the aluminum tank. No hose, no strain relief. So any old 15mph collision of this critical part would rip a hole spilling fuel all over the place. Within hours- literally hours - of this event we heard about it down at Laguna Seca, where we were for the Historics. By the time we heard we also knew there was not a single fuel cell to be had on the West Coast. All the Ferrari guys heard the horror story and snapped them all up. Lambo, Ferrari, whatever. You can have em. They are not Porsche. Not even. |
Porsche > Lamborghini just for the record. Far greater racing heritage, history, number of fantastic cars produced. You can take a GT3 to the track and beat on it all day, no so with a lambo. Lambo only became a decent car when it became german. Look up Dauer 962, Porsche GT1, Carrera GT, 918, GT2 RS, GT3 RS, 911 Turbo S… |
And there we have it Dear Readers.......Pavlovian Response at its finest “Ultimately however I am with sbayne on this one, the best upgrade money you can spend will be on a new pair of Moabs. Eric with his low stiction low mass approach has the currently best speaker design philosophy, but this only reaches full fruition with the full MTM array. That is what makes Moab the #1 bargain in high end speakers. “ |
Swapping drivers is the easy drop-in route. Ultimately however all that can do is add a bit of sparkle. The much harder but far more satisfying route is to upgrade some or all of the crossover components. As long as you are careful to use only same electrical value parts and only upgrade the parts quality this will have zero risk of fundamentally altering the character of the speaker but will elevate it tremendously with far greater dynamics, detail, and extension. Ultimately however I am with sbayne on this one, the best upgrade money you can spend will be on a new pair of Moabs. Eric with his low stiction low mass approach has the currently best speaker design philosophy, but this only reaches full fruition with the full MTM array. That is what makes Moab the #1 bargain in high end speakers. If you are interested in doing a full crossover upgrade please check out the pics on my system page, where you will find detailed images of exactly what it involves. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 |
jayctoy - I think you know I've owned the Impact Monitors. In fact, Bill upgraded the crossover and wiring for me. They were excellent but before you spend money on upgrades I'd suggest you replace the blown tweeters yourself, sell them and move up to the double array speakers that Tekton offers. I have the Moabs now and they are much higher performing than the Impact Monitors. If you don't want to do that I believe the Be upgrade uses the Sartori TW29B-B. Check with Eric to be sure. |
Actually I emailed Eric but modification or upgrade was not mentioned to him, I also did call Him to ask and mentioned , 3 of my tweeters both sides including both centers were fried, my fault got carried away I push the impact more than they are capable of. No warranty covered.I thought this is the chance to explore with new tweeters... But Grant (TVAD) is against and Markr1 both good friends. I posted here to get more recommendations, So far Iam thankful for all the suggestions, Iam really serious on modification but I need advise here. |
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
Speakers that present as DIY speakers bring out all the DIY'ers who want to immediately tear them apart, add damping, replace tweeters, build crossovers, build stands, replace parts, etc.... I have honestly never heard of any other speaker brand where the consumers take this approach. There's clearly a market for everything - it's kind of like the Jeep Wrangler market - let's begin modding this out immediately! It's as if they listen to the speaker and are thinking: "Hmmm....it sounds wonky but the price is cheap. I bet for a few hundred $ more I could mod this thing out into something sound good for the money. Plus these massive, empty enclosures give me tons of room to work. Time to roll up the sleeves!" |
