Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews


I’ve briefly taken a look at some online reviews for budget Tekton speakers from ASR and Youtube. Both are based on Klippel quasi-anechoic measurements to achieve "in-room" simulations.

As an amateur speaker designer, and lover of graphs and data I have some thoughts. I mostly hope this helps the entire A’gon community get a little more perspective into how a speaker builder would think about the data.

Of course, I’ve only skimmed the data I’ve seen, I’m no expert, and have no eyes or ears on actual Tekton speakers. Please take this as purely an academic exercise based on limited and incomplete knowledge.

1. Speaker pricing.

One ASR review spends an amazing amount of time and effort analyzing the ~$800 US Tekton M-Lore. That price compares very favorably with a full Seas A26 kit from Madisound, around $1,700. I mean, not sure these inexpensive speakers deserve quite the nit-picking done here.

2. Measuring mid-woofers is hard.

The standard practice for analyzing speakers is called "quasi-anechoic." That is, we pretend to do so in a room free of reflections or boundaries. You do this with very close measurements (within 1/2") of the components, blended together. There are a couple of ways this can be incomplete though.

a - Midwoofers measure much worse this way than in a truly anechoic room. The 7" Scanspeak Revelators are good examples of this. The close mic response is deceptively bad but the 1m in-room measurements smooth out a lot of problems. If you took the close-mic measurements (as seen in the spec sheet) as correct you’d make the wrong crossover.

b - Baffle step - As popularized and researched by the late, great Jeff Bagby, the effects of the baffle on the output need to be included in any whole speaker/room simulation, which of course also means the speaker should have this built in when it is not a near-wall speaker. I don’t know enough about the Klippel simulation, but if this is not included you’ll get a bass-lite expereinced compared to real life. The effects of baffle compensation is to have more bass, but an overall lower sensitivity rating.

For both of those reasons, an actual in-room measurement is critical to assessing actual speaker behavior. We may not all have the same room, but this is a great way to see the actual mid-woofer response as well as the effects of any baffle step compensation.

Looking at the quasi anechoic measurements done by ASR and Erin it _seems_ that these speakers are not compensated, which may be OK if close-wall placement is expected.

In either event, you really want to see the actual in-room response, not just the simulated response before passing judgement. If I had to critique based strictly on the measurements and simulations, I’d 100% wonder if a better design wouldn’t be to trade sensitivity for more bass, and the in-room response would tell me that.

3. Crossover point and dispersion

One of the most important choices a speaker designer has is picking the -3 or -6 dB point for the high and low pass filters. A lot of things have to be balanced and traded off, including cost of crossover parts.

Both of the reviews, above, seem to imply a crossover point that is too high for a smooth transition from the woofer to the tweeters. No speaker can avoid rolling off the treble as you go off-axis, but the best at this do so very evenly. This gives the best off-axis performance and offers up great imaging and wide sweet spots. You’d think this was a budget speaker problem, but it is not. Look at reviews for B&W’s D series speakers, and many Focal models as examples of expensive, well received speakers that don’t excel at this.

Speakers which DO typically excel here include Revel and Magico. This is by no means a story that you should buy Revel because B&W sucks, at all. Buy what you like. I’m just pointing out that this limited dispersion problem is not at all unique to Tekton. And in fact many other Tekton speakers don’t suffer this particular set of challenges.

In the case of the M-Lore, the tweeter has really amazingly good dynamic range. If I was the designer I’d definitely want to ask if I could lower the crossover 1 kHz, which would give up a little power handling but improve the off-axis response.  One big reason not to is crossover costs.  I may have to add more parts to flatten the tweeter response well enough to extend it's useful range.  In other words, a higher crossover point may hide tweeter deficiencies.  Again, Tekton is NOT alone if they did this calculus.

I’ve probably made a lot of omissions here, but I hope this helps readers think about speaker performance and costs in a more complete manner. The listening tests always matter more than the measurements, so finding reviewers with trustworthy ears is really more important than taste-makers who let the tools, which may not be properly used, judge the experience.

erik_squires

@mahgister Agree partially. I feel there are cultists on both sides and there is trench between them and that is usually where I find myself.

They are both right and wrong at the same time. If they would listen to each other instead of talking over each other, they would find the common ground of enjoying music and the hobby

Ever been to AudioKarma - where the only good audio is 'Vintage' and everything else is not? One can find the same attitudes and aggressive tendencies there.

I think we need to find common ground and move on from there. I understand English is a 2nd language for you. I thank you for expressing yourself as well as you do. Oft times, we write small chunks of ideas that can seem to be more aggressive than they actually are.

thanks for your kind words...

I am glad i am not alone in the cracks where truth wait between the bricks of the jailing house...

You are lucky that i never spoke english in my life... I only had read english in science books and philosophy. I know very few concrete words and no slang...

In french i would have been much more clear and much more long and proficient with hues of meanings and humor...😊

 

By the way welcome on audiogon...

😊

 

 

@mahgister I have foibles just like anyone else, but as the old saying goes, "I have no dog in this fight'. I just feel people should listen and discuss rationally. I have issues getting out of hand, just like anyone else. It is easy, when you just have a keyboard and screen in front of you. Hard when it is face to face.

@amir_asr  is not his forum, he just started it. People can get out of hand, what does he do ban them all? There would be no audiophiles left to discuss things. Cooler heads need to prevail. After all, isn't hobby about enjoyment of art?

One of my dearest friends is German, who is married to a wonderful French woman, and they live in France - he is tri-lingual also. I vacationed, last year, with him in Brittany. With him showing us all that makes that part of France so amazing. I would like to go back again.

CHEERS! 

Tekton is dead to me. Not that their speakers were worth buying anyway. The industry is worse with people like Eric Alexander in it. 

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