Tekton tweeter design

I think the discussion in DIYaudio are pretty comprehensive.

Hi Eric @tektondesign 
You could have let this thread die. I was ready for that.
But please, it isnt just American brands who have shipped production over seas. Please don't disrespect Americans all by themselves.

Tempest, teapot, but honestly this thread would have stopped ages ago if we weren't arguing over whether this thread should be here or not. 


:D :D :D

My interest in the subject matter has always been narrow and limited.

This thread has merit because the community talks tech all the time and there was a lot of tech talk about how the tweeter array worked that was not very well informed.

Personally, I'd rather not talk about whether they are decent speakers or not. :)


Best,

E

Anyway, there’s not much more useful stuff I can add here. As I’ve repeatedly stated, my goal here was narrowly focused: I wanted to discuss the innovation in the tweeter array accurately and point those who are curious to more resources to see how they can be analyzed.


It was never to sell Tekton, or to nit pick their aesthetics or every electro-acoustic design choice.


As I’ve said before, the tweeter/mid array is curious and innovative, and in that sense should be pretty exciting to speaker design geeks in the same way planar speakers and large speaker arrays like the IRS or McIntosh brands have used in the past. Unless you are named "kosst" in which case "comb filtering" reflexively exits your mouth with little idea what you mean.


For certain, cost, aesthetics, pleasure and value are not things I want to rehash here as all that gets us far afield from the "hey, they are doing something cool and interesting" discussion I wanted to have. Perhaps one of the few, truly innovative things I've seen come down the speaker design pipe in a long time.

Best,
E

I don’t get it with you and your strange obsession with giant motors made of lousy magnets.

I call slander. Where have I been obsessed? I just don’t like micro magnet tweets, based on sound, measurements and compression. They tend to suck. If I was obsessed with anything it would be with good AMT tweeters. The tweeters I like are some liked by many top brands too, so what IS your problem with them?

I don’t get your strange obsession, @kosst_amojan, with comb filtering, even when it’s been proven that

1. You don’t know how to read measurements
2. They don’t actually have comb filtering
3. You wouldn't know what comb filtering sounds like if your life depended on it.
   

But hey, bring that up a few more times, please.

BTW, I use a version of a ring radiator previously used by Krell, Sonus Faber, Magico and YG Acoustics in my desktop monitors. It's not that much more expensive (at least at retail) than the tweeters Tekton is using.


My point is, judging performance on price alone is really not a good idea.

I am not sure how you could possibly assume that a large number of tweeters is going to narrow the dispersion…

I'm not assuming, I am estimating. It's called physics. The larger the effective radiating surface, the lower the frequency at which beaming occurs. Basic principle of driver and speaker design.  See the analysis over at DIYaudio which includes the drivers, crossovers, and beaming.

Not sure how you might conclude that the performance of each tweeter might "best" that of much more high end tweeters.

What I said was much more nuanced than this, but if you believe that MSRP = High End, we will have to disagree forever. What I actually said was:

[Tweeters used by Tekton] are relatively inexpensive soft domes, but very nicely performing. Probably perform much better than a lot of micro-motor tweets in famous named kilobuck speakers out there.

Yes, I said they are high value and there are some tweeters out there I really don't like, which are those used by Focal and B&W with tiny motors. I stand by that. I don't like the sound of them and never will, when compared to a well made, full motor version even at these value prices. If Tekton charged 10x what they do, would you suddenly call them high end?



Best,

E

Hey Tonykay :

You say you are "...neither a fan boy nor a detractor of Tekton," yet you are the originator of this thread and the most frequent responder.

I have no financial interest in Tekton or any other. I make my own speakers, and like to talk technology.  If you'd like to build my speakers, the design is free and here:


https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2017/12/snr-1-two-way-high-end-diy-monitor.html

Please don’t tell me that you are just an enthusiastic audiophile trying to spread the gospel of Tekton because they give you goosebumps. 

I haven't actually heard Tektons! :) 



My point to this thread was there were some Tekton threads about the tweeter array which weren't rooted in very good speaker/acoustics theory, so I thought I'd point A'goners to some really good analysis by someone I admire over at the DIYaudio thread.  My hope is for armchair speaker critics to see how Patrick deconstructs them and compares them to other types of arrays.


As I've said before, there's good and bad points of the Tekton designs, but the array is innovative and worth discussing more accurately.

Best,
E

Hey Jetter,

For technical questions like that, DIYAudio is a better place than Audiogon. :) 

Best,

E

We are back to pricing the steak at the restaurant.


These are relatively inexpensive soft domes, but very nicely performing. Probably perform much better than a lot of micro-motor tweets in famous named kilobuck speakers out there.


The interesting part of the array, @soundsrealaudio, is the large planar wave front. It can narrow dispersion, and increase clarity at the listening location. So it acts kind of like an ESL, only with a much smoother response and dynamic range! :)


Again, I'm not the biggest fanboy in the world of Tekton. I'm just saying, this is a novel approach, and an interation on ideas from the 80s and it is executed well and at a very fair price point.

I wanted to say, in case this wasn't clear, that I am neither a fan boy nor a detractor of Tekton.


I think they are ugly, but I think the tweeter array is interesting, and their ability to sell the speakers at the prices they do is amazing.


I've also had issues with the crossover design, but a lot of the conventional wisdom thrown at them about the arrays having comb filtering, etc. has just not borne out to be true in any of the measurements.

My point is just I don't really wish to help or block Tekton sales, but I hope the work by Patrick over at DIY Audio helps those technical geeks here to learn a little more about what goes into evaluating speaker performance and design.

One thing I know is not happening, is you are not getting better sound from lighter, more drivers. That's a myth that has been debunked numerous times.

In terms of extension, dynamic range and distortion, large drivers with equally large motors rule.

Hi @travbrow

Part of it is by design. Having a tight beam means less room interference. The speakers will sound more like headphones when you are in the sweet spot.


But part of it was how they tweeters would remain integrated off axis. That part is clearly lacking based on the measurements.

In the case of this particular speaker, one thing I noted was the choice of low crossover slopes between the 6" (or whatever) mid-woofers and the tweet array.


I felt off axis response could be greatly improved, especially vertically.


Patrick, having examined the actual parts, also makes the point that there are some parts that seemingly don't have to be there at all.

1 - Yes, if you mean, the quality of the sound. However, it's the dispersion that's the key unique attribute of this design.

2 - The controlled dispersion is the main attribute of the array. It will act more like a line array or ESL in that it will have a rather large mid range, with the top end of a tweeter.


It would be interesting to compare an arrangement like this with something much more conventional, like an Eminence coax.