Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

[olieb]

I haven't bothered to calculate the pressures in vented speaker boxes but it has to be well below the conditions in a pipe for supersonic flow because most speaker boxes would have exploded well before that.

HaHa!
Maybe that is just what happened a few times to him in his mad scientist laboratory?
Could certainly explain something.

 

[DanTheMan]

Jesus Christ…….he's built a cloaking device

When I read this, it’s in Christopher Lloyd’s voice and it starts with “Great Scott!”

 

[Thomas Lutro]

The cycling industry is also rife with subjective BS. Nobody wins the Tour de France because their bicycle is 'better' than all others, despite the claims of marketing departments. Just like properly designed audio amplifiers, bicycles built to a purpose are more alike than different.

An engineer named Hambini has a YouTube channel (and website, Instagram, etc. -- links at this YT site) where he reviews hyped and over-priced bicycle products and 'reams' them if they are poorly made or the claims are false. Hambini is essentially 'Bicycle Science Review.' He takes measurements and then analyzes products with diagrammatic explanations and, oh my, mathematical equations. Like Amir, the products are sent to him by consumers, sometimes he buys them, and some companies have him evaluate gear before market. Admittedly, his style is abrasive and outrageous, in contrast to Amir and Erin.

He gave a poor review to after-market 'rear derailleur pulleys' from a company called Absolute Black. These are the 2 little sprockets on the rear gear changer. High priced 'upgraded' versions are available from several companies, with unsubstantiated claims of less friction, improved shifting, and/or improved aerodynamics. The cycling industry equivalent to audiophile fuses, for example.

He recently received a 'cease and desist' order from Absolute Black's lawyers. But before they did that, they went to extreme measures to discredit him. They created a website, with his name, to attack him. They stalked him, on video, as he rode his bicycle from his home, to a cafe, and then to his place of regular employment (he has a 'day job', so to speak).

They attacked his engineering credentials. They also accused him of EU tax evasion, because he makes and sells custom 'bottom brackets' which are designed to fix poorly manufactured, but expensive, carbon fiber bicycle frames. (The cycling industry, in general, has issues with making a round and symmetrical hole for bottom brackets/cranksets in carbon fiber bicycles).

The cycling industry MAFIA stalks Hambini. At this point, ASR, Amir and Erin are lucky that this Tekton mess is still just a war of words. Keep up the good fight Amir.

Here is his ~12 minute video which describes the experience in more detail.

I used to think HiFi was a special case, "taste-fi" and all, but no. There shouldn't be any "I I find this 7.8kg bike lighter than that 6.8kg bike", or "this 50W aero drag loss is faster than that that 25W aero drag loss", but there is.

Love the potty mouthed 5-year old.

 

[Rottmannash]

Oh heck. Why don't I post what Eric sent me on March 15th:

View attachment 362369

...if only he could spell "advice".

 

[Rottmannash]

Does he realize that throwing a fired employee under the bus, instead of taking responsibility for the company that he owns and operates makes him look worse, not better?

"As CEO, my policy is..." Okay, but what's the actual process at Tekton the business to make sure this happens? Make vague, legalistic, drawn-out threats at people until they figure out what to do on their own? Hint at a process they should be following, but never reveal it? Promise to make and release a training video that almost certainly doesn't and will never exist?

Now we need to start a fund for Tammy, as she now is unemployed?

 

[ahofer]

Did EA ever offer any measurements or specific rebuttals?

 

[amirm]

Did EA ever offer any measurements or specific rebuttals?

No.

 

[xray]

Did EA ever offer any measurements or specific rebuttals?

He has stated on other forums he will not post his measurements. I take that to mean he never had any.

 

[tmtomh]

Did EA ever offer any measurements or specific rebuttals?

No - in fact, even most of his initial claims were not specific, in the sense of being detailed or quantitative enough to prove or falsify. For example, he said that measuring from the woofer axis instead of the tweeter axis would make a big difference. It doesn't - it makes a measurable but tiny difference whose audibility in the far-field is somewhere between uncertain and very unlikely; and it's a pretty nebulous claim.

The only truly specific initial claim he ever made was that the Troubadour impedance bump Erin measured around 250Hz was caused by the feet not being screwed in. And of course that claim turned out to be 100% incorrect.

 

[squared80]

Box losses [4 leaking holes] are easy to predict and measure. Furthermore, once we get into the 5-10 watt range the air pressure jets in and out of them at speeds above Mach1 and they get audible. Hard to fathom a top-notch reviewer not discerning audible jet sounds coupled with Nora Jones and Diana Krall!

I just emailed Tekton to start the process of returning my Symphonies. Not because I don't like the speakers, but because I can't support a company with this level of toxicity. Tekton is dead to me. Because of you. Not because of Erin or Amir's objective measurements.

 

[diddley]

I just emailed Tekton to start the process of returning my Symphonies. Not because I don't like the speakers, but because I can't support a company with this level of toxicity. Tekton is dead to me. Because of you. Not because of Erin or Amir's objective measurements.

I hope you succeed without to many loses.

 

[tw 2022]

I just emailed Tekton to start the process of returning my Symphonies. Not because I don't like the speakers, but because I can't support a company with this level of toxicity. Tekton is dead to me. Because of you. Not because of Erin or Amir's objective measurements.

i'm glad to see people following their heart , knowing what integrity is and who has it ... well done....

 

[tw 2022]

I hope you succeed without to many loses.

sometimes , "losses" can't be measured with money... imo , this is that time.. i applaud people who try to do the "right" thing...

 

[xray]

I just emailed Tekton to start the process of returning my Symphonies. Not because I don't like the speakers, but because I can't support a company with this level of toxicity. Tekton is dead to me. Because of you. Not because of Erin or Amir's objective measurements.

It's a shame it had to come to this if you were happy with the speakers otherwise. I have a lot of respect for those that "put their money where their mouth is". I can see where it would have been annoying to sit down to listen to music, see those speakers and be reminded of this whole fiasco.

 

[dziemian]

Hahahah. I have never heard of Tekton speakers. Thanks to the owner and huge interest in the subject I know what to avoid in future and not to recommend to anyone. Good job Eric A.

 

[teched58]

I asked and was told it [the audiokarma thread on Tekton] 'devolved including denigration of moderation' so they decided to delete it rather than purge those posts. I hadn't seen an activity alert on it at all yesterday so I can't say I saw any posts that fit that bill.

In fairness to Audiokarma, they're not used to hosting threads that grow to 10 pages long over the course of several days. Must've been all hands on deck over there.

 

[JP]

In fairness to Audiokarma, they're not used to hosting threads that grow to 10 pages long over the course of several days. Must've been all hands on deck over there.

Maybe - I didn't see anything in it that was unusual for them. Must have gotten under someone's skin as it was deleted rather than just closed.

 

[Timcognito]

Must have gotten under someone's skin as it was deleted rather than just closed.

Yeah maybe EA in the background. Just a guess on my part.

 

[YSC]

Box losses [4 leaking holes] are easy to predict and measure. Furthermore, once we get into the 5-10 watt range the air pressure jets in and out of them at speeds above Mach1 and they get audible. Hard to fathom a top-notch reviewer not discerning audible jet sounds coupled with Nora Jones and Diana Krall!

Are you serious? at >300m/s speed of air at that hole size is likely hazardous to the table/ desk or any living things somehow going pass it (e.g. cats), if that is attainable with a large enough air volume moving to create the issue in FR, I would believe it is dangerous to the user...







OK, ignore all that, as a good speaker designer, why on earth you would leave such a hole in the first place??? is it that difficult to fix the foot, or a non leaking, metal female screw socket on the speaker to keep the box volume right and allow the use of spikes if desired????? if the spike is necessary to keep the speaker sound as it is designed, it should be fixed in the design, not an option, if it is user optional item, you should make the use of spikes non critical to how the speaker sound, not leave a supersonic blowhole in it and let the customer, who should not require a pro at any sense, to get the optional foots.

 

[YSC]

In the midst of all this drama, including my own critiques of Eric's behavior, I do agree with others that we can criticize available data, design decisions, and handling of reviews without resorting to adhominems and exaggerations about the measurable performance of Tekton speakers as a whole.

It seems like a lot of people are now dismissing the measured performance of all the Tekton speakers out of hand when we just don't have enough to say that about the brand as a whole. Yeah, it'd be great it Eric shared some, but we also shouldn't be assuming all the Tekton's suck from a handful of measurements.

Edit: To be clear, I think everyone is more than entitled to ignore Tekton after the threats of litigation and such. I'll certainly never be buying a speaker from them, barring some oscar-worthy redemption from Eric. But this specific post was prompted by feeling people were talking as if these were the worst-performing speakers of all time, which I don't feel is true. I'm just trying to recalibrate the conversation a bit.

Even after this debacle, I'm fine with most of the Tekton data I've seen. This Lore just measured okay, but I voted "not terrible" (I switched my vote to poor after learning about the feet but then switched it back). Keep in mind Erin *liked* the ones he measured (certainly more than the JBL L52 I sent in myself!). The Moab's posted earlier weren't that bad. And here's a stereophile measurement of the Tekton Impact, which was actually the first measurement of a Tekton speaker I'd seen:

I remember being very pleasantly surprised at that directivity performance for a speaker that looks like this:

Granted, the quasi-anechoic measurements make it hard to discern what's going in the lower mids and upper bass, but that is generally a flattish response that would probably score decently in the preference formula, and that most people would evaluate as solid if they didn't know they were tektons. And keep in mind they are $2000 a pair for dual 6.5-inch woofers (and maybe too many tweeters lol). So I never got the sense Tekton was trying to outright scam, even after seeing Eric's behavior here, and I even think he's trying to offer a decent value.

Here's another one measured by stereophile with triple tweeters.

That one's a bit worse in the listening window, but far from awful. I've seen worse from much bigger names. The directivity in particular is once again quite solid.

I found these measurements of the old Tekton 8.1T, a simple 2-way bookshelf, in a blog post from 2009. Note the lack of smoothing and tall vertical axis.

So yes, an awful reaction to to reasonable criticism, inconsistent remarks about measurements, questionable design decisions, and unimpressive measurements for some models are all fair game. But there's no need to pile on with personal attacks, and let's not draw immediate conclusions about speakers that haven't actually been measured extensively yet.

I'm not saying this to defend Eric, but simply to point out that we should stick to what's actually known, and isolate what actually needs to be criticized.

To be fair for other tekton speakers, at least from what I can google, don't seem bad, but with the owner having such aggressiveness I personally lost faith if ever my expensive purchase gone wrong what I will get is a litigation letter, so no, unless it's literally dirt cheap it becomes a brand I would avoid at all cost. TBF the M lore isn't that bad even in amirm and Erin's data in a big picture, but the aggressiveness is much more harmful than helpful