Thin Line Between Critique and Courtrooms: A Dialogue on the Recent Audiophile Drama

that email from Tekton was wild. The damage was done. Mea Culpa? Non-negotiable? This is bullying, period.

I do not wish Tekton, its employees to lose any business because of this, but if they did, had, it’s not the reviewers' fault. The silver lining is the lesson in communication for all sides.

I didn't watch Erin's review because that particular model of Tekton speaker held no interest for me. But overall, any review that Erin does is objective measurement based first, then he listens to the speaker BEFORE looking at the data to make a subjective opinion about what he is hearing, THEN looks to the data to see if what he is hearing makes sense.  Not a bad way to do things. 

Sadly, there aren't very many American speaker companies in existence, but if Tekton can't properly work with a good reviewer (Erin is NOT a hack) then they are off my list to ever consider.  I was considering their Double Impact, but not anymore. 

I mean, as the YouTube video linked above shows, there are damned few objective reviewers out there and we already have too many subjective ones that at the end of the day, are pretty much meaningless to how any product will sound in our own rooms. They only tell us 1. Yeah, the speaker makes noise, 2. It didn't blow up my amp, and 3. I kind of either like it or found it bright. 

Then because of the threat of "sue, sue, sue" these days many reviewers simply will NEVER publish a negative review. That skews things to the point of useless absurdity.  The only reason to watch videos is to get an idea of what a product looks like and that's about it. 

One thing I do want to correct the Audioholics guy on is that my understanding is on Tekton speakers only the center tweeter in any array acts as a real tweeter. The rest are acting as low distortion midrange drivers thus comb filtering isn't an issue. 

One general problem with YouTube and most (but not all) of the reviewers is how some new product comes out, nearly everyone reviews it within about a 3-month period, offering glowing reviews.  Only later say after a year or more does it come out that, "Well, maybe it isn't all that".  I've seen this happen time and time again from speakers, to streamers, to DACs, to cheap Chi-Fi amps.  It seems like an endless cycle.  In fact, I've almost given up on watching YouTubers at all other than for catching a decent album recommendation or just the entertainment value. 

An issue for anyone selling direct to consumers is that if the consumer has never heard the product, how will they know if it is sounding correctly or if there is an "issue" with it?  Ah for the days of brick and mortar stores...

 Confirmation to me if you want advice on how components sound/perform listen to what multiple sources say on these forums.  Reviewers add what the product is, how it works how its features compare to others, where to buy.  Leave the how it sounds to the audiophiles.  If no feedback exists move on. Measurements are nice to see but I prefer listening with ears.

No walking back those emails from Eric, and I found Erin’s responses to be perfectly reasonable and respectful. That’s just nasty behavior from Eric, and IMO he deserves all the business and reviews he loses because of it especially because he has a history of doing this with other reviewers. He should be ashamed of such behavior although I highly doubt it.