Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

[mglobe]

I…That said, I don't think the build-up in hostility here is helping things chill.

Yup

 

[Doodski]

I doubt that. It is open in personal email threads that gets published here and there. Clearly Tekton will no comment on any of these threads. The ASR community has one-sidedly communicated and perpetuated their combined hostility to Tekton, whether it helps or doesn't help the case. Why would they come here?

Do not ever get me wrong - I am in no way an apologist for the clear missteps in the way this was approached by Tekton. That said, I don't think the build-up in hostility here is helping things chill.

I agree. It is a group think and when Eric has appeared he has been inundated with a flood of commentary and questions. I would not come here either.

 

[dday84]

So for anyone who read Eric Alexander's Tekton Facebook posting over the weekend where he claimed he heard Edgar Choueiri said one of his most expensive speakers were the flattest he had ever seen.......well that might have been another false narrative, at least based on this below response to that Facebook posting on the Tekton page.

----------------------------

I'm a close associate to Edgar Choueiri. In fact, I spent almost all Axpona with him and talk to him multiple times per week.

I went to this link because I heard there was a comment about him. Ironically, he and I knew nothing about this recent drama and discussed an install of a Bacch on Tekton prior to this drama even occurring (at least as far as I can tell from the dates as I'm just now catching up).

The quote here is not accurate and I confirmed with Edgar last night. I'm not sure of the source of the misunderstanding, but that quote is really not possible and deserves context to understand why.

I will share what we discussed and provide context to understand why it's not accurate in both actual wording or implied meaning.

First, he was not expecting much from the Tekton based on first impressions of the design just looking at them on the website. It's an unconventional design that he was afraid would measure poorly pre Bacch corrections.

However, the in-ear IMPULSE RESPONSE measurements that the Bacch produced prior to any correction surprised him that it wasn't as bad as he thought it might be.

In one of our phone calls afterwards, he told me the story of that install, and asked if I ever heard of these speakers. We had a chuckle about the delta between his expectations and what the measurements showed (STRICTLY with the impulse response in-ear at the listening position). He was genuinely impressed on that one metric relative to his expectations. He's seen far worse with more expensive speakers.

I specifically asked him about the uncorrected frequency response, and he said it was a mess...but to be fair...that is the case with every speaker measured by Bacch in-room, in-ear at the listening position. It's not just the speakers fault when you take such measurements... In fact, it's generally the room that dictates severe anomalies in the frequency response measurements.

The important thing to note is that the ONLY measurements the Bacch takes are in-ear and at the listening position. Thus, implying it was flat or commensurate with typical measurements and high fidelity metrics is evidence of some misunderstanding.

Once the Bacch DSP correction filter was applied, Edgar said the measurements were beautiful, flat, and the client extremely happy with the time and frequency domain DSP improvements from the Bacch.

Thus...in short...it's a sign of some misunderstanding. Edgar's quote is not accurate plus not applicable to the native frequency response of the speaker without DSP correction. The impulse response showed a surprising level of performance better than expectation, but that's about all that was concluded in our call and my subsequent call last night to confirm my understanding with him.

Again, this was before all the hoopla and drama. Edgar CAN'T comment on the current drama one way or the other. Those seem to be based strictly on speaker measurements taken via quasi anechoic methods. Edgar strictly had access to in-room, in-ear measurements at the listening position pre and post Bacch filter correction. Those other measurements are for other people to fight about.

The Bacch filter easily corrected frequency response and crosstalk issues caused by whatever combination of room or speaker issues existed. That's all Edgar can conclude.

To imply the speaker frequency response measured great BEFORE such DSP is inaccurate. The satisfaction of the Bacch customer AFTER corrections is quasi proof of a delta that was corrected, but again to be fair... it's not an indictment of the speaker because the room could have been responsible for most of the correction needed.

The native performance of the speaker's frequency response is for others to debate... He strictly can comment on in-room, in-ear, at the listening position which needed correction like all speakers do.

 

[kemmler3D]

I got contacted as well.

---------
Amir,

The image I forwarded to you is provided by Eminence and it's the SPL/frequency response of the 8 driver in the M-Lore.

Thanks for correcting your mistakes. With the corrected listening-axis the step response needs to be published correctly. Please correct the step response to the point of exactly 6.5" above the tweeter so your work reflects the speaker is 'mechanically time-aligned.

Sincerely,

Eric Alexander
President
Tekton Design, LLC
---

My answer to him:

---
I didn’t correct any mistakes. The manual for your speaker says tweeter is the listening axis, not the woofer. And regardless, I stated the measurements were relative to tweeter axis and they were.

While I could computationally change the listening axis, I can’t do that for step response as that is measured separately. I will need to remeasure the speaker. Why don’t you give me that measurement and I post it in the review?

Amir

----

Told you guys we were not done....

Honestly if I were you, I'd give him the name of your lawyer and block his email at this point.

My neighbor has several unruly dogs. When the dogs start barking, she screams at them. Although I understand how she feels, I think it actually makes the dogs bark more.

 

[Doodski]

Honestly if I were you, I'd give him the name of your lawyer and block his email at this point.

My neighbor has several unruly dogs. When the dogs start barking, she screams at them. Although I understand how she feels, I think it actually makes the dogs bark more.

LoL... I trained a male golden retriever to be totally silent until I gave permission to bark again. I said very very quietly and softly, "Shhhhhh." He knew exactly what I meant and people where amazed at that command. Very smart dog.

 

[Jim Taylor]

LoL... I trained a male golden retriever to be totally silent until I gave permission to bark again. I said very very quietly and softly, "Shhhhhh." He knew exactly what I meant and people where amazed at that command. Very smart dog.

Obviously smarter than some people.

Jim

 

[tmtomh]

I can agree with you that it may not be the main one, but in my opinion it is a disconnect. Eric’s communications and litigation threats were wrong, and he owes you an apology, and also clarification on why he thinks you may have measured wrongly.

But in other speaker reviews, you have found the point to measure based on where the expected response matched best, so I’m curious (for my own reasons of owning a pair of these) in where that position is. I’m hoping you could tell me that the optimum axis is a certain spot of those 34” so I could try that listening level at home.

The measurements show that both axes produce extremely similar response, in fact identical response across the majority of the audible spectrum. If you look at @amirm 's response graph that compares the measurements from both axes, there are a couple of small increases in energy in the lower treble when measuring from 6.5 inches above the tweeter aka at the woofer. But you'd have to listen for yourself to really determine if such a small difference is audible - and if it is audible, if it sounds better or worse to you. From looking at the measurements, the woofer axis response could be slightly smoother, which could be good. But on the other hand, the speakers are a little elevated in that region and so the extra energy when listening from the woofer axis could further accentuate that, which could be bad.

This is part of Amir's point (and Erin's point with the Troubadour, which measures equally similarly from either axis): the measurements are so close to each other regardless of the axis that there's no significant difference.

So I suggest you try listening from both heights and see if you hear a difference, and if so, which height produces the sound you prefer.

Also, remember that @Eric Alexander threatened Amir with litigation based on this allegedly incorrect axis measurement when the Tekton user manual states that the tweeter is the axis. Amir followed the manual. The speaker is Eric's design. The company is Eric's company. The user manual is Eric's responsibility. Everyone makes mistakes, but you don't threaten legal action against someone for following the instructions in your own user manual. That's nuts.

 

[pablolie]

Honestly if I were you, I'd give him the name of your lawyer and block his email at this point.

My neighbor has several unruly dogs. When the dogs start barking, she screams at them. Although I understand how she feels, I think it actually makes the dogs bark more.

I echo the sentiment.

The more these threads are perpetuated, the more doggedly either side will entrench behind lawyerish crap. Great for lawyers in the USA (the most ridiculously litigious country on the planet, for our international visitors), but not great for ASR, as evidenced by the fact this Tekton stuff has monopolized discussions here, which I honestly have zero interest in anymore, that dead horse has been flogged into ridiculously tiny shreds of inconsequential pieces by now.

All I can do is continue to voice my support for ASR and my willingness to seriously contribute to any defamation suit against it.

 

[tmtomh]

Honestly if I were you, I'd give him the name of your lawyer and block his email at this point.

I agree this is the ideal solution for @amirm 's mental health/peace of mind at this point - but it's feasible only if Amir's attorney is on retainer, or if Amir is comfortable with a potentially very large, open-ended set of hourly billing statements from his attorney, because his attorney could end up having to bill for a virtually endless string of letters and emails responding to @Eric Alexander 's communiques.

 

[HeadDoc12]

Here is where I believe the main disconnect is - Amir and Erin like accurate flat response speakers. The m lores are not designed to be, there used to be or is a model called the lore reference that was supposedly accurate, but less preferred by some to the response of the m lore. Amir doesn’t like a lot of things like the original Kef ls-50s, but likes the metas. Most I know who own or listen to both can eq the ls50s to sound the same, or prefer the ogs. Sean olive and Harmon have their favorite non linear tweaks, why can’t Tekton have theirs? Amir, why not just show the data, and let the readers decide? Why the I recommend, or I don’t recommend comments, when surely you are aware others have different hearing preferences than you? When did buying an AP and Klippel become the “I am now the god of what gear sounds good, and what gear will sound like crap?”

In what universe do you translate individual preference to “I am now the god…”? There is this thing people do called IGNORING. It means if you only care about the measurements, just read the measurement. If you have a specific deviation from linearity, just look for that. More importantly, with all the insane and objectively dishonest rantings of Eric Alexander on this thread, why are you focused on THIS issue?

 

[diddley]

In what universe do you translate individual preference to “I am now the god…”? There is this thing people do called IGNORING. It means if you only care about the measurements, just read the measurement. If you have a specific deviation from linearity, just look for that. More importantly, with all the insane and objectively dishonest rantings of Eric Alexander on this thread, why are you focused on THIS issue?

He is a owner of a tekton

 

[pablolie]

I agree this is the ideal solution for @amirm 's mental health/peace of mind at this point - but it's feasible only if Amir's attorney is on retainer, or if Amir is comfortable with a potentially very large, open-ended set of hourly billing statements from his attorney, because his attorney could end up having to bill for a virtually endless string of letters and emails responding to @Eric Alexander 's communiques.

Amir has showed his competency with many very educational videos that benefit budding, fact-interested audiophiles around the world. He has the backing of a loyal community doggedly determined to fight off charlatanerie from those who don't have a single factual leg to stand on when offered a chance.

I do not enjoy this distraction (I'd rather read new measurements of other gear), but I also want any bullying vendors to know we will NOT roll over. There will come a day when *not* being able to produce verified testing results from an impartial third party will be the death of any audio company, and I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

I have zero doubt there are reasons to not design totally linear gear with all the old school big power full range etc qualities - but then just *state* that.

I have been totally open about the fact I greatly enjoy gear that is *not* recommended here, but that's because I can read measurements between the lines and easily establish whether that means something to me (and I owe Amir a thank you for the excellent educational explanations). I am not stupid enough to take subjective opinions personally, and even less so to dispute measurements - but I'll establish how relevant they are to my use case all by my d*mn self, thanks. And having a vendor be honest about it helps (hint).

 

[CleanSound]

I don't even think that's a terrible way to go about it, if you and your customers are happy with potentially-technically-imperfect speakers. Which lots of people seem to be. It's a common and valid point of view to say one prefers ears-based design than a technically perfect speaker. I wouldn't trade my Genelecs for anything Tekton makes, but some people may feel the opposite, and that's fine.

Which just makes this whole episode all the more bizarre. Eric has plenty of happy customers, none of whom (I assume) are clamoring for him to start using a Klippel. Why take this horrible, reputation-destroying detour just to call out measurements that weren't even that bad to begin with and that nobody really cared about in the first place?

It's hard for ASR audience to believe this. But, you be shock that there are boutique speaker manufacturers who make speakers with no measurements and all by ear. I personally know of at least two, one of them is started by a former cabinet maker who is an audiophile and have very little knowledge of how speaker even works, I think he eventually shut down.

 

[tmtomh]

I got contacted as well.

---------
Amir,

The image I forwarded to you is provided by Eminence and it's the SPL/frequency response of the 8 driver in the M-Lore.

Thanks for correcting your mistakes. With the corrected listening-axis the step response needs to be published correctly. Please correct the step response to the point of exactly 6.5" above the tweeter so your work reflects the speaker is 'mechanically time-aligned.

Sincerely,

Eric Alexander
President
Tekton Design, LLC
---

My answer to him:

---
I didn’t correct any mistakes. The manual for your speaker says tweeter is the listening axis, not the woofer. And regardless, I stated the measurements were relative to tweeter axis and they were.

While I could computationally change the listening axis, I can’t do that for step response as that is measured separately. I will need to remeasure the speaker. Why don’t you give me that measurement and I post it in the review?

Amir

----

Told you guys we were not done....

Also, if a reviewer measures step response at the axis your own user manual indicates, and you think the step response should be measured from a different axis, and the review is months old and the tested speaker long out of the reviewer's possession, then you either ship the reviewer a loan of one of the speakers from your stock, or else you shut the f*** up.

 

[kemmler3D]

or if Amir is comfortable with a potentially very large, open-ended set of hourly billing statements from his attorney, because his attorney could end up having to bill for a virtually endless string of letters and emails responding to @Eric Alexander 's communiques.

I think the thing to do is ask the attorneys not to respond unless there's something legally substantive that requires a response. Not suggesting Amir take this as advice, it's just me commenting from the sidelines.

At this point we've seen plenty of evidence that Eric's behavior is (at least in this saga) not amenable to fact or reason. At this point one might guess we'll see actual "litigation" about half past never, when the measurements also get posted. If so, the question is just how to deal with him as little as possible from now on.

 

[kemmler3D]

It's hard for ASR audience to believe this. But, you be shock that there are boutique speaker manufacturers who make speakers with no measurements and all by ear. I personally know of at least two, one of them is started by a former cabinet maker who is an audiophile and have very little knowledge of how speaker even works, I think he eventually shut down.

Having been in the industry myself... not only is it not hard to believe, but (outside of the high-end world) I'd say it's probably downright common.

 

[pablolie]

It's hard for ASR audience to believe this. But, you be shock that there are boutique speaker manufacturers who make speakers with no measurements and all by ear. I personally know of at least two, one of them is started by a former cabinet maker who is an audiophile and have very little knowledge of how speaker even works, I think he eventually shut down.

I have absolutely zero issues with someone taking a more artisan approach to doing things. It can be brilliant. In 2023 a Stradivarius was sold for $15M. I doubt that manufacture measured their gear. But just be open and informative and confident about it.

Even in ASR, the consensus in the topic "Are measurements everything?" seem to trend into the "They matter, sure, but naw, they are not EVERYTHING". Why don't some manufacturers get it?

 

[tmtomh]

I have absolutely zero issues with someone taking a more artisan approach to doing things. It can be brilliant. In 2023 a Stradivarius was sold for $15M. I doubt that manufacture measured their gear. But just be open and informative and confident about it.

Even in ASR, the consensus in the topic "Are measurements everything?" seem to trend into the "They matter, sure, but naw, they are not EVERYTHING". Why don't some manufacturers get it?

I take your point - but a Stradivarius creates sound. It doesn't reproduce it. That's the issue with artisanal hi-fi gear - to each their own of course, but the idea that you put your trust in a speaker designer to be an "artist" who applies a blanket "artistic interpretation" to every piece of music you listen to is IMHO inherently a more suspect proposition than a musical instrument designer being an artist whose work imparts a specific tone or sound characteristic to everything you play on it.

I will freely admit I'm no expert on violins, but I know a little bit about the world of guitars and this artistic issue is precisely why every professional guitarist (and many amateurs who have the money) owns several different guitars that they use for different purposes.

 

[napilopez]

So for anyone who read Eric Alexander's Tekton Facebook posting over the weekend where he claimed he heard Edgar Choueiri said one of his most expensive speakers were the flattest he had ever seen.......well that might have been another false narrative, at least based on this below response to that Facebook posting on the Tekton page.

----------------------------

I'm a close associate to Edgar Choueiri. In fact, I spent almost all Axpona with him and talk to him multiple times per week.

I went to this link because I heard there was a comment about him. Ironically, he and I knew nothing about this recent drama and discussed an install of a Bacch on Tekton prior to this drama even occurring (at least as far as I can tell from the dates as I'm just now catching up).

The quote here is not accurate and I confirmed with Edgar last night. I'm not sure of the source of the misunderstanding, but that quote is really not possible and deserves context to understand why.

I will share what we discussed and provide context to understand why it's not accurate in both actual wording or implied meaning.

First, he was not expecting much from the Tekton based on first impressions of the design just looking at them on the website. It's an unconventional design that he was afraid would measure poorly pre Bacch corrections.

However, the in-ear IMPULSE RESPONSE measurements that the Bacch produced prior to any correction surprised him that it wasn't as bad as he thought it might be.

In one of our phone calls afterwards, he told me the story of that install, and asked if I ever heard of these speakers. We had a chuckle about the delta between his expectations and what the measurements showed (STRICTLY with the impulse response in-ear at the listening position). He was genuinely impressed on that one metric relative to his expectations. He's seen far worse with more expensive speakers.

I specifically asked him about the uncorrected frequency response, and he said it was a mess...but to be fair...that is the case with every speaker measured by Bacch in-room, in-ear at the listening position. It's not just the speakers fault when you take such measurements... In fact, it's generally the room that dictates severe anomalies in the frequency response measurements.

The important thing to note is that the ONLY measurements the Bacch takes are in-ear and at the listening position. Thus, implying it was flat or commensurate with typical measurements and high fidelity metrics is evidence of some misunderstanding.

Once the Bacch DSP correction filter was applied, Edgar said the measurements were beautiful, flat, and the client extremely happy with the time and frequency domain DSP improvements from the Bacch.

Thus...in short...it's a sign of some misunderstanding. Edgar's quote is not accurate plus not applicable to the native frequency response of the speaker without DSP correction. The impulse response showed a surprising level of performance better than expectation, but that's about all that was concluded in our call and my subsequent call last night to confirm my understanding with him.

Again, this was before all the hoopla and drama. Edgar CAN'T comment on the current drama one way or the other. Those seem to be based strictly on speaker measurements taken via quasi anechoic methods. Edgar strictly had access to in-room, in-ear measurements at the listening position pre and post Bacch filter correction. Those other measurements are for other people to fight about.

The Bacch filter easily corrected frequency response and crosstalk issues caused by whatever combination of room or speaker issues existed. That's all Edgar can conclude.

To imply the speaker frequency response measured great BEFORE such DSP is inaccurate. The satisfaction of the Bacch customer AFTER corrections is quasi proof of a delta that was corrected, but again to be fair... it's not an indictment of the speaker because the room could have been responsible for most of the correction needed.

The native performance of the speaker's frequency response is for others to debate... He strictly can comment on in-room, in-ear, at the listening position which needed correction like all speakers do.

I've met Dr Choueiri a couple of times and briefly visited his lab. I found the quote highly suspect and thought to ask him about it, but then I figured it wasn't worth dragging him into this...

 

[pablolie]

I take your point - but a Stradivarius creates sound. It doesn't reproduce it. That's the issue with artisanal hi-fi gear - to each their own of course, but the idea that you put your trust in a speaker designer to be an "artist" who applies a blanket "artistic interpretation" to every piece of music you listen to is IMHO inherently a more suspect proposition than a musical instrument designer being an artist whose work imparts a specific tone or sound characteristic to everything you play on it.

I will freely admit I'm no expert on violins, but I know a little bit about the world of guitars and this artistic issue is precisely why every professional guitarist (and many amateurs who have the money) owns several different guitars that they use for different purposes.

I totally get and agree with your point.

But I also know there are for a fact very informed audio aficionados that know gear and make choices that simply sound their perceived best for their very focused preference. One of my best friends, for example, owns gear he completely knows doesn't measure great universally - yet play a 1960s recording of a Chopin etude through... and if you don't shed a tear you're not human.

It just depends on what your personal goal is. And being educated to explore different things is powerful. I know what my preferences are, and even though they don't always coincide with Amir's, hey. I am a dedicated donor on this site and I utterly applaud the education here. Through the educational videos, the measurements, and the exchanges with the community. In my few years here, I have learned more about the hobby than in 40 years previously.