Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

[Darthprater]

Okay, then why do people change their vote? Is this supposed to be a kind of revenge?

General sentiment towards a product does now and has always involved sentiment towards the practiced morals/ethics of a company, in other words, what the company stands for. a food genuinely tastes better or worse by people based on the company that those people believe produce it. This has been proven time and time again, and honestly, it’s arguably as important as the product itself. Even if someone creates something that performs extremely well; if that person is harmful to the people and community involved with the product, then what’s the point of the thing performing well?

I suppose one could argue that the art is more important than the artist. However, that is a rabbit hole that usually ends in differing opinions and hypothesis than actual fact-based conclusion.

really, the point you raise is a moral one in and of itself and it would be pointless to do anything but let this thing play out any other way than the way it’s gonna play out.

 

[markus]

Months back I wrote to Amir and informed him of his data being collected from the wrong angle. His response was that it didn't matter and wouldn't change anything in the far-field at the listening listening position. It was at this moment that I knew he and I were never going to agree on much of anything.

The Klippel NFS collects data from all angles. You don't seem to be familiar with this state of the art speaker measuring tool: https://www.klippel.de/products/rd-system/modules/nfs-near-field-scanner.html

Any serious speaker designer should have one as it allows for better speaker designs in a shorter time. Long gone are the days when dentists had only nippers.

 

[AdamG]

Okay, then why do people change their vote? Is this supposed to be a kind of revenge?

Many times I personally have changed my vote for a particular product reviewed based on my initial impressions and understanding of the review data and also considering Amir’s subjective comments/conclusions. As threads develop and mature, more and more really smart members who know their stuff when it comes to this very complex science. Start making their observations and opinions known. Thus driving the discussion into new areas of discovery and understanding of why a product was designed this way. Or they point out a particular problem that was not evident to us mere mortals. Thereby increasing our level of understanding and appreciation for the design work that was required to achieve the results confirmed by Amir’s technical review. So allowing members to revise/change their votes allows for this constant process of absorbing, learning and understanding. Changing your vote based on some information you later discover about a particular companies track record for Customer Satisfaction and or product quality and reliability issues both positive and negative. Dynamic voting permits our members to be able to change their minds. I think that is a great thing and applaud Amir for giving us the option.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Thanks for all the detailed data and relevant arguments, @Eric Alexander !

I'm now waiting for the next video promising the next video will tease a next video stating that measurements perhaps could appear in another video. Or maybe another video before or after that to say you're producing these.

 

[AdamG]

Gentleman hear me out here. Mr Eric Alexander is an active ASR Member. And as such he is entitled to not be personally insulted and belittled. You can attack his claims and data (if he got around to posting any yet). You can rip into his concepts and products. You can challenge his understanding of Audio Science principles and his grasp of what the measurements mean. But please stop making personal insults. We don’t permit this type of behavior here and it rather lowers the standard of which we all work very hard to maintain at respectfully higher levels of discourse. This is a science Forum and some of the comments would be more comfortable at a dive bar (not that I have any reservations about dive bars. I’m a Navy guy and cut my teeth in such uncountable establishments).

Let’s be professional and respectable. Even in the face of little respect or dignity being offered. It’s my job to remind us all that how you say a thing is many times more important than what you say. I hope my ASR Brothers and Sisters are picking up what I’m try to lay down here.

 

[Pinkynator]

I don't understand how negative the community here is. Why is this speaker rated "poor" and "not terrible" by the vast majority? It's kind-of a cheap speaker, the measurements really aren't that terrible.

First, price is not a factor. The entirety of ASR is about science and measurements, and I honestly think price shouldn't even be listed anywhere in any of the reviews. You can't expect people to give a "great" rating to a loudspeaker that sounds atrocious, but costs $5, just because it produces sound and is literally cheaper than dirt (sorry, plant soil - I call it "dirt" whenever the wife tells me to buy her some).

Second, you said "measurements really aren't that terrible", and then you complain about people rating it "not terrible"

Third, these ones are just marginally more expensive and even if you don't understand the graphs, there are words on those graphs that say "very good", "superb", "stunningly smooth", "one of the best tested", "incredibly smooth and accurate" and "amazing". The results are in line with those words: "Great (golfing panther) 81.6%".

Now guess what: even if the speakers above had triple the price, the rating would still be the same. And if the ones in this thread cost a tenth of their price (which is a couple of bags of dir... ahem, plant soil, and a couple of ceramic plant pots), the rating would still be the same.

Because these ones suck, and those ones are effing awesome and I wish they had an European distributor.

 

[antcollinet]

Personally I have no sympathy for bad faith litigators, or those who threaten it. It's nothing more than a tool to extort and blackmail people with less money than you.

It's almost better to beat someone up in a parking garage. It's less cowardly, more honest, faster, less expensive for the victim, and is roughly morally equivalent.

This.

 

[antcollinet]

To my eyes he sounds sincere when he says he didn't mean a lawsuit.

I seriously disagree here. The (para) phrase "when I post the video it will be too late" can only be taken as a threat of a lawsuit, and nothing else.

He sincerely regrets making that threat - this I accept. But is still being disingenuous about it.

If he regrets it, he should apologise for it, and start an open discussion in good faith. it is the only way out for him.

EDIT : linking in @Eric Alexander Please take the advice above. Pretending (as you do in your video) that you never threatened to sue anyone won't hack it. Apologising for the threat is the only way out of this.

 

[Dave Bullet]

When ego and emotion are charging, science steps out of the way to watch the inevitable crash and document the evidence.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Been watching this trainwreck the last few days - as a manufacturer myself I've tried to stay out of it.

I would still like to say this:
While I don't think Eric could have handled this much worse, he is still a person, a human being.

I can only imagine the immense pressure he is under right now, with thousands of negative messages (at this point mostly repeating themselves) across several different audioforums, threads/comments on various social media, as well as several youtube videos about this topic. Many of you will probably go "But he brought this upon himself", and while that may be the case, he is still a person, currently seeing his world falling apart around him. Please relent.

He is currently trying to respond and react to this in some form or fashion, and while we may still disagree to his perspective - can we please try to ease up a little bit, at least not keep repeating the same points and hammering the man to the ground? I think he has got the point by now. While I do not agree with his position or the way he has handled this, I still feel bad for him. As he points out, at the end of the day he is a person passionate about the same things we are.

@amirm So did you measure the Tekton with the tweeter as the reference axis? If that is the case, I see how that would at least yield a different result than the woofer. Which measurement will look better I guess we don't know until someone has the opportunity to measure it on the woofer axis.

@Eric Alexander If you think the speaker will measure better with a different reference axis (on the woofer as opposed to the tweeter?), I think the only reasonable way forward here is to send Amir a new unit so he can re-measure it according to your specifications. As you also point out this is not your end game, top of the line model. It is a reasonably priced speaker and an old design. So perhaps accept (rather than contest) that it will not measure perfectly. People may still enjoy it for what it is.

 

[Tangogod]

While he has probably chased off some buyers, I'm not sure he has "destroyed" his company's reputation. I read a number of other audio forums and there are certainly many ardent subjectivists who don't think much of ASR. These people are not going to be bothered by whatever test numbers or opinions ASR publishes.

There probably was some damage done with the threats of litigation -- which has now turned into claiming that their use of the word "litigation" doesn't mean what the dictionary says it does. This is where they continue to dig their hole deeper and deeper. Someone needs to tell them to stop digging.

Tekton would have likely been better off by embracing the ASR review, saying to their customer base that they are more concerned about how their speakers sound than how they measure. The subjectivists out there would have eaten this up. It's a bit late to undo what they've done, but my two cents is that they need to walk away from this pissing contest and get back to their customer base. Plenty of companies do just fine in this market segment.

How many people have read this thread?

How many people have looked at the Youtube vidoes about this issue?

Potentially he has put off side a quarter of of a million customers.

 

[BeeKay]

Okay, then why do people change their vote? Is this supposed to be a kind of revenge?

Why do you care for votes? Measurements are key. If you don’t like the community‘s discussion and votes just don’t consume these?

 

[Sokel]

I really,REALLY don't like the way this thread evolved.
Most of us are here for the technical side of stuff (I hope) and to benefit by the few well-informed,educated and seasoned members putting both blind faith and emotion out of it.
Price too ,but that is just me,many members like to tie raw performance to it but I like to also tie nice looks,hints of durability,support,etc.

So,I hate the looks of that speaker,raw performance is ok and the company's rep has been victim to his own emotion.

So what?Acting like a mob or like we have to prove loyalty to someone does not look very scientific to me.
The strength of this place is using data,not claims nor emotion.

I think anyone who wants to differentiate itself from such an involvement has to do so.

 

[DanielT]

Been watching this trainwreck the last few days - as a manufacturer myself I've tried to stay out of it.

I would still like to say this:
While I don't think Eric could have handled this much worse, he is still a person, a human being.

I can only imagine the immense pressure he is under right now, with thousands of negative messages (at this point mostly repeating themselves) across several different audioforums, threads/comments on various social media, as well as several youtube videos about this topic. Many of you will probably go "But he brought this upon himself", and while that may be the case, he is still a person, currently seeing his world falling apart around him. Please relent.

He is currently trying to respond and react to this in some form or fashion, and while we may still disagree to his perspective - can we please try to ease up a little bit, at least not keep repeating the same points and hammering the man to the ground? I think he has got the point by now. While I do not agree with his position or the way he has handled this, I still feel bad for him. As he points out, at the end of the day he is a person passionate about the same things we are.

@amirm So did you measure the Tekton with the tweeter as the reference axis? If that is the case, I see how that would at least yield a different result than the woofer. Which measurement will look better I guess we don't know until someone has the opportunity to measure it on the woofer axis.

@Eric Alexander If you think the speaker will measure better with a different reference axis (on the woofer as opposed to the tweeter?), I think the only reasonable way forward here is to send Amir a new unit so he can re-measure it according to your specifications. As you also point out this is not your end game, top of the line model. It is a reasonably priced speaker and an old design. So perhaps accept (rather than contest) that it will not measure perfectly. People may still enjoy it for what it is.

I don't understand why Eric Alexander got so worked up. He says himself that this Tekton M-Lore is an entry level speaker, or a speaker to have in a secondary system (see Tekton's latest Youtube video). He does not claim that it is a top of the line, or "high end" speaker, quite the opposite.Plus he says he had no intention of producing a linear loudspeaker. It isn't, is it? Is that good or bad? Note, that if you see it based on Eric Alexander's own statements and design principles, that is.

This Tekton M-Lore got over 50% Not terrible vote in the poll here at ASR. The conclusion is....well what is the conclusion? The speaker fulfills, if you read Amir's review of it, what Eric's purpose for the speaker was or is.

Now with Eric's outbursts and unjustified threats of lawsuits people have changed their vote and 42% say Not terrible. It was expected that this would happen. The purpose of Eric's outburst, however, is the strangest thing about Tekton M-Lore.

 

[markus]

@amirm So did you measure the Tekton with the tweeter as the reference axis?

No he did not. Is this a "mistake" Amir made? I don't think so as most speakers are designed to be listened to at 0 degrees with the tweeter at ear level. So Amir did what anybody else would do and what is recommended practice.

There are speakers that are designed for other listening angles but it is the manufacturer that needs to inform the consumer about the fact. Geddes for example designed his speakers to be listened at 20 degrees off-axis. He was very clear in his communication about that. Tekton was and is not.
You can see Steve Guttenberg reviewing the speaker the same way Amir did. Why did Tekton use bullying tactics on Amir but not on Steve? Looks like it's ok for Tekton to have people listen to the speaker without feet installed and from wrong angles as long as the review is good. That just shows how the consumer audio business works these days. Subjective beliefs trump objective facts. Sad.

Now should Amir add the newly gathered information about the listening angle to his review? Absolutely! If this site is really about science and being truthful and not just about finding fault and creating drama then the first post should have been edited a long time ago. Unfortunately there are examples of the same behavior in the past. Monoprice HTP-1 for example.

So I do see there's room for improvement on both sides. But the largest room for improvement is certainly on Tekton's side. Eric Alexander might even have killed his own business with his behavior.

 

[sigbergaudio]

No he did not. Is this a mistake Amir made? I don't think so as most speakers are designed to be listened to at 0 degrees with the tweeter at ear level.

There are speakers that are designed for other listening angles but it is the manufacturer that needs to inform the consumer about the fact. Geddes for example designed his speakers to be listened at 20 degrees off-axis. He was very clear in his communication about that. Tekton was and is not.
You can see Steve Guttenberg reviewing the speaker the same way Amir did. Why did Tekton use bullying tactics on Amir but not on Steve? Looks it's ok for Tekton to listen to the speaker without feet installed and from wrong angles as long as the review is good. That just shows how the consumer audio business works. Sad.

Now should Amir add the newly gathered information about the listening angle to his review? Absolutely! If this site is really about science and being truthful and not just about finding fault and creating drama then the first post should have been edited a long time ago. Unfortunately there are examples of the same behavior in the past. Monoprice HTP-1 for example.

So I do see there's room for improvement on both sides. But the largest room for improvement is certainly on Tekton's side.

Looking at how the NFS mechanism work, I may have been mistaken. It looks to be moving the microphone up and down without changing axis (I was assuming it tilted as it moved around somehow). So it actually did capture the on-axis measurement of the woofer as well if I understand it correctly. I was assuming the microphone tilted as it moved around the speaker. So you actually don't need to remeasure. It's a matter of just selecting what is reference axis from the existing measurement/data? @amirm is that correct?

 

[sigbergaudio]

No he did not. Is this a "mistake" Amir made? I don't think so as most speakers are designed to be listened to at 0 degrees with the tweeter at ear level. So Amir did what anybody else would do and what is recommended practice.

Not sure if I would call it a mistake as such, but as this is a relatively low floorstander, and the woofer is on top, practically the listening axis will likely be closer to the woofer than the tweeter in an actual listening position. My understanding is that Amir has given Eric plenty of chances to explain what was wrong here, so I am not saying Amir did anything wrong.

 

[markus]

Looking at how the NFS mechanism work, I may have been mistaken. It looks to be moving the microphone up and down without changing axis (I was assuming it tilted as it moved around somehow). So it actually did capture the on-axis measurement of the woofer as well if I understand it correctly. I was assuming the microphone tilted as it moved around the speaker. So you actually don't need to remeasure. It's a matter of just selecting what is reference axis from the existing measurement/data? @amirm is that correct?

Not Amir but yes, that's correct. I don't understand why there are still speaker designers without the Klippel NFS. Do they all have anechoic chambers linear down to 20Hz or do they drag out their speakers to measure them in a real free field environment?

 

[Snickers-is]

I find it kind of scary to be a reviewer with people act like @Eric Alexander has done for the past few days. Erin Hardisson and @amirm were both accused of having shown some faulty data that was suposedly showing the result of the missing feet or other mistakes. With the feet in place, the measurement shows the exact same thing, and it coincides with the cabinet dimensions, and the frequency response measurements. The only contribution these holes could ever give that would be visible on the impedance curve would be below Fb, but then the pressure is not sufficient for this to happen. If you really know how to read an impedance curve, you know that this is an internal standing wave and that it has nothing to do with those feet.

Then there is the measurement axis. These are baloon measurements. Having made 20 000 measurements, you would know why that is not a valid claim. The manufacturer says that the ripple at the top and bottom of the tweeter range easily identifies as "the other tweeters saying hello". This is what is commonly referred to as higher order modes. In other words, Erin's measurements shows exactly what you would expect from such a configuration. Again, 20 000 measurements, this is the kind of thing you would also know.

Here is a timelapse showing how the microphone moves around the loudspeaker (I have cued directly to the timelapse part of the video):

We do find all kinds of mistakes and errors, even in very expensive speakers, all the time. This normally does not damage reputations, but where everything starts to go from "honest mistakes" to "a damaged reputation" is through Mr Alexanders own threats and demands. I mean, at the end of the day, it is his product that has been measured. If he had instead gone for a positive approach, thanking for the reviews, and taken the oportunity to rectify any errors, fixing the holes, the HOM, the resonance and all the small resonances in the midrange band, re-releasing this product with a fanfare, then it would have been all positive for him, and satisfied costuomers would have lined up for the newest version.

At this point, the situation is quite out of control. @Eric Alexander 's video confirms what most people understood a long time ago, you are not going to sue anyone. Firstly, you don't have a case. Secondly, you would not have formulated threats on a forum to attract publicity if you were actually going to sue anyone. I would have hoped you could just say "it got out of control, let's just stop, shake hands, and forget about it". Insteas you keep trying to push in some accusations (Yes, I am referring to todays video). Why would lawyers discuss if an impedance curve is real or not? Or if the baloon plot is a good way to measure a speaker? If you had taken half an hour to actually discuss this with a lawyer who had your interests in mind he would have said: "You don't have a case, be nice to people, and try to minimize the damage".

You could either apologize to @amirm and Erin Hardisson and go on with your life and company. People tend to love when other people admit having made a mistake. Noone expects you to be anything other than a human being. If you really want to extend this further, you would at least have to provide some credible data and documentation that your claims are valid.

Whatever you do, just do what you can to disarm the situation, and accept that what they measured is honestly showing what you built. If you know there is a land mine in front of you, it does not mean you have to step on it to see if it works.

 

[amirm]

@amirm So did you measure the Tekton with the tweeter as the reference axis? If that is the case, I see how that would at least yield a different result than the woofer. Which measurement will look better I guess we don't know until someone has the opportunity to measure it on the woofer axis.

As you guessed later, Klippel NFS fully captures the response of the speaker in 3-D space. The reference axis is just a presentation value. All the data is captured independent of it.

I just went through and recompuated the reference axis being 5 inches higher. Review is updated with more detail. But here is the key results:

And this is exactly what I said to Eric. He simply said he disagrees but provided no comparison like I am showing above. Or explanation of why that would make a difference in far field listening. Or how a customer was supposed to sit to have their ear constantly be at that precise angle.

Above is why I don't jump when the manufacturer says this and that is wrong. The responsibility is theirs to prove their point, not just claim it. Otherwise, it winds up making me do a bunch of busy work per above.

I am not guessing at above. As I have mentioned, I have made this adjustment many times with similar results. Unless you are moving way higher or lower, a few inches doesn't make a difference.