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:
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):
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):
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.
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):
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):
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.
