Tekton M-Lore Speaker Measurement Update

[amirm]

Probably want to consider picking up some basic insurance and corporate structure for ASR to shield your family from idiots if you haven’t already.

I have had both for some time.

 

[rynberg]

I agree with you almost.
Remember when President Bush said he didn't like broccoli ?
Well the sales of broccoli went up noticeably!
An influential outlet's posts can have a direct effect on business. So if I had posted that, or you, it would have been free speech, but when ASR does it, ASR becomes responsible.
At any rate, Mr. Alexander was wrong about the whole shebang, he handled it very badly, there was no need.
All I am trying to say, that individuals can enjoy free speech, but organizations can not hide behind it in theory.
ASR was blameless here, perhaps Amir could keep his opinions & interpretations, in a separate section from actual test data, in the future.
If anything .....

You just plainly don't understand how free speech in America works...that's OK, far too many Americans don't either.

 

[rynberg]

Amir, please read more carefully. First of all, you can do what you want, it's your platform. I was only suggesting that you might move the comments below the graphs rather than directly embedding them, this has nothing to do with whether I agree or not. If you have a feeling that people will be only be looking at the plots anyway and never read comments/captions and therefore the only way to propagate the information/description/judgement/opinion is by embedding it directly, then so be it.

Pretty standard practice to add notes to figures even in formal engineering reports. I know every firm I've worked at has done that and I've seen the same from our competitors. So, not really sure where you're coming from.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

You just plainly don't understand how free speech in America works...that's OK, far too many Americans don't either.

Probably not.
However, since manufacturers, reviewers etc. all operate internationally, US free speech law/rights apply only to the US, and therefore mostly are beside the point.
From last report, most ASR members were Europeans, if I recall correctly.

 

[KSTR]

Pretty standard practice to add notes to figures even in formal engineering reports. I know every firm I've worked at has done that and I've seen the same from our competitors. So, not really sure where you're coming from.

Where I come from this style is only ever used in presentations/slides, accompanying spoken word.

 

[Timcognito]

The subjective reviewers get out of legal issues by always liking the device they review, damning it only by faint praise or pointing to some other feature that makes up for an issue. Test based reviewers have really no way out but to say some aspect tests poorly when it does but we have seen a few that just ignore a bad number and say the thing is good. Amir will say good for money or what to expect for the price sometimes, which is good for value or low budget buyers, but never if it's really subpar or expensive. I think this issue is being forgotten, that rarely will the even most flamboyant subjective reviewer be legally challenged for saying they don't like what they hear.

 

[DLS79]

Where I come from this style is only ever used in presentations/slides, accompanying spoken word.

One of the reasons to put comments directly in the plot is to ensure that someone can't steal them and use them for themselves.

 

[MattHooper]

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said:

"Stop. Don't do it."
"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.
"Well, there's so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Are you an audiophile?"
He said: "Yes."
I said: "Me too. Are you objectivist or subjectivist?"
"Subjectivist."
"Me too. Are you transistorist or tubeist?"
"Tubeist."
"Me too. Are you triodist or pentodist?"
"Pentodist."
"Wow. Me too. Are you suppressor wired to cathode or suppressor wired externally?"
"Suppressor wired externally."
"Me too. Are you 6V or 6.3V?"
"6.3V."
“Me too. Are you 7V7 or 7W7?"
He said: "7W7."

I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off the edge.

“ ha ha! Nice one centurion like it, like it!..”

 

[bmwr75]

Eric Alexander is ruining his own company. I own two pairs of Tekton speakers and like them just fine. These boutique speaker companies sometimes have way to thin a skin. I've had bad experience trying to buy a pair of Zu speakers. Saw pictures a fellow posted of the Zu "factory" that he took while touring the place. Looked like a big garage divided into a few different rooms.

 

[Thomas_A]

One of the reasons to put comments directly in the plot is to ensure that someone can't steal them with use them for themselves.

Raw data is there and images can be photoshopped as well.

(I agree with KSTR that figures in scientific journals do not have comments embedded in figures, they are described in text, but in presentations/slides they may be embedded. ASR is a mix of various presentations with scientific content/methods, so there is certainly no strict need for one or the other.)

 

[HeadDoc12]

Eric Alexander is ruining his own company. I own two pairs of Tekton speakers and like them just fine. These boutique speaker companies sometimes have way to thin a skin. I've had bad experience trying to buy a pair of Zu speakers. Saw pictures a fellow posted of the Zu "factory" that he took while touring the place. Looked like a big garage divided into a few different rooms.

I just sold a pair of Zu speakers that were gathering dust in my basement. While very few people here would ever consider purchasing from them, Sean Casey, the founder of Zu, has a reputation as one of the nicest guys in audio. He knows full well his products are not for everyone. I have a very hard time imagining him behaving like Eric Alexander after a less than perfect review.

 

[HeadDoc12]

Probably not.
However, since manufacturers, reviewers etc. all operate internationally, US free speech law/rights apply only to the US, and therefore mostly are beside the point.
From last report, most ASR members were Europeans, if I recall correctly.

You keep making huge assumptions and leaps of logic to argue your very incorrect point. Everyone involved in this dispute lives in America, works in America, and made all of their statements in America. You keep wanting there to be some justification for not being too mean in a review, or something, and the law is just not on your side. I am very much allowed to say "Don't ever buy this product. It is terrible by any standard." I am NOT allowed to support that argument with falsehoods or distortions. Please embrace this truth, even if you don't like it.

 

[amirm]

Where I come from this style is only ever used in presentations/slides, accompanying spoken word.

Your stance harkens to days that it was hard to annotate measurements. While there is some effort today, it is far more feasible in a world where measurements are all electronic. Here is a graph from Sean Olive AES paper:

Clearly he could have put those annotations in the figure caption below but he choose to label them as I do. It is far more efficient for a reader to see the notes right next to the measurements as opposed to constantly going back and forth from graph to text. I hate this in stereophile measurements. You have to even hunt to know where in the text the description is as the info is not in the caption.

If you look around the web, you see that more and more people are annotating their measurements like I do. One critical reason is that when you "hot link" to the graph from other sites, all the relevant information comes with it. I routinely do this myself and am able to fully convey the meaning of the measurement that way.

 

[DLS79]

Raw data is there and images can be photoshopped as well.

The type of people that would do what I suggested, Are too lazy for such things.

 

[dzerig]

... often rightly viewed as cowardly, insincere, and a waste of others' investment (this is my personal opinion of course). Like it or not, your response to Amir's objective review (and not his review) has logically damaged your "brand" substantially as a thoughtful designer; the damage you have inflicted will likely persist until, if ever, you are able to achieve redemption and recognition as a thoughtful designer (again this is my personal opinion).

My post is deliberate. Although it represents my personal opinion and nothing more, I would enjoy welcome seeing my post enlarged to the size of a placard as a defense exhibit should your specious groundless claims (again my personal opinion) ever see the light of a courtroom. My direct email is <[email protected]>. Please feel free to contact to have your attorney contact me directly if my remarks require clarification.

People, just writing 'in my opinion' on a post does not automatically mean the courts will decide the post is mere opinion.

 

[Timcognito]

I'm a ME not an EE and though I took a couple of EE and couple acoustics courses back at Cal in the olden days, I still appreciate having comments with arrows to problem or superlative portions of curves and graphs. The audience here is everyone from music lovers, and consumers up to electronic and speaker designers, professional and home based. The learning portion ASR is important to most here, and many are transitioning from mostly subjectively based audio reviewing internet and periodicals. I say don't change it because according to my wife I have "Male Pattern Blindness" and need those annotations.

 

[Klassic]

As most of you probably know, I reviewed the Tekton M-Lore speaker back in October of last year. Company recently complained that my measurements were in error due to woofer being listening axis and not the tweeter (speaker manual disputes this). And that without the feet, the holes that house them go all the way through causing additional leakage. Owner/designer @Eric Alexander has implied that these make a big difference. So much so that he was planning to litigate against me back in March of this year:
View attachment 364796
Company has failed to this date to provide any measurements of its own, backing that I have "damaged this loudspeakers reputation." Instead, it has repeatedly demanded that I either delete the review or lately, to remeasure it.

I had responded to him that changing the listening axis would not make much of a difference. He disagreed. Fortunately Klippel Near-field Scanner computers the full response of the speaker in 3-D space so I could re-present the results using the woofer axis. As simple math would have predicted, there is little difference as I post in the review thread:

Subsequently, Eric Alexander sent me email demanding that I correct the step response. I explained to him that this was a different measurement and to redo that, it would require to test the speaker again. And that if he provides me with his step response, I would include it in the review. I received no answer.

In the interest of going above and beyond, I exchanged messages with the owner of the M-Lore who had since sold the speaker. He was kind enough to offer to actually buy back the speaker so that we could re-test! Fortunately we didn't have to go that far as the new owner was kindly willing to let me borrow the speaker again. I got both speakers with the spikes as shipped. I don't know which one I tested but I think the results below are representative enough that I don't need to test the other speaker.

I put the feet on and measured the impedance (I have left out phase to make it easier to read the graph):

View attachment 364797
As a number of expert members had predicted, the impact is very small and limited to very low frequencies. There was a tiny resonance at around 400 Hz which got reduced a bit and shifted to higher frequency as noted. It should be noted that you can get larger difference if you just change the test voltage. So all of this is in the noise, literally.

The other complaint was about the step response. Most of you know that I only post that for the few people who care and it doesn't enter my analysis of the performance of the speaker. @Eric Alexander however, insisted that there would be a difference here. First, let me explain that the step response comes from my 86 dBSPL, near-field, non-anechoic measurement. As such, it is very sensitive to where you set the reference axis. In my original review, that was the tweeter. I remeasured, this time by making woofer the reference axis. Since the path length to the microphone from the woofer is shorter than the tweeter now, the first spike that represents the tweeter is lower in amplitude (right):
View attachment 364798

Neither represents bad or good results in my book. But if the right graph makes Mr. Alexander happier, there it is.

Conclusions
As is plainly obvious, these are all nits and do not in any way change the picture of the performance of the Tekton M-Lore speaker. All of this was communicated to the company but the designer refused to accept. And kept insisting that the measurements were "botched" or "flawed." The negligible difference could be and have been predicted so there was little reason to bring them up. It is very odd that a speaker designer would exaggerate such differences so much. And then refuse to post measurement differences when challenged. But here we are.

This concludes my testing of the Tekton M-Lore speaker and addresses the complaints of the company. I am open to testing other speakers from the company but I am done with M-Lore seeing how the company doesn't care enough to release its own measurements.

Now please excuse me as I make arrangements to return these two bulky speakers to the new owner. Special thank you to him and the first owner by being so generous with their time and kind motivations to help resolve this issue.

Wondering if this affiliation could be useful..

Membership - AES

The AES is a community. AES membership gives exclusive, full access to fundamental, educational, inspirational and cutting-edge information, spanning all audio knowledge.

aes2.org

 

[MarkS]

These boutique speaker companies sometimes have way to thin a skin. I've had bad experience trying to buy a pair of Zu speakers.

Does that mean you avoided the bad experience of owning Zu speakers? (Sorry, couldn't resist ...)

 

[amirm]

Wondering if this affiliation could be useful..

I am a full voting member of AES.

 

[dzerig]

Just a band of golden road audiophiles pushing tubes onto an unsuspecting public. Don't believe me? Look at the 5 pairs of blue rectangles in the gear.

Regardless of the designer’s appalling behavior, why does this Ulfberht monstrosity merit any consideration?

Not that it matters as Amir is unlikely to deal with its size and Erin is not doing any more Tekton reviews. At over $20K, does not seem very competitive. Stereophile just reviewed a $30K pair of Moabs if you feel a need. For that spend, they are nothing special other than a 10 dB peak at 100 Hz but still somehow manages to get labeled as “neutral” sounding.

View attachment 364983

I would think one would readily get better value buying active pro speakers with some decent customization capability than these backwards Tektons that look like the designer shat drivers on a baffle!

p.s. am sure that hump between 2-3 kHz gives them added neutrality too!

Yeah, but -3 db at ~25 hz and 0 db at ~32 hz is impressive if able to keep it up at high levels! For live 2 track recordings in a large room, they probably sound great. The extra bass at 100 hz might make sense if they are designed to play in free space, without back wall reinforcement.

I don't know why people are so down on Tekton speakers, they actually seem fairly decent for overall performance.

Of course, when one spends so much money on something like audio gear, it also matters what kind of company one is doing business with.