Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

[Danny23]

Thank you!

Should have noted that my experiment is conditioned on the nutserts being installed. If just unfilled holes, the impact would be greater.

After the designer complained to Amir, am pretty sure more than a few Tekton owners started checking their speakers.

Fixed it for you:
After the designer complained to Amir, am pretty sure more than a few Tekton owners started questioning why their experienced speaker designer didn’t have the knowledge of how minimal the impact would be. checking their speakers.

 

[Inertiaman]

Here's Ferrari's official position:

Reward Anticounterfeiting

www.ferrari.com

Simply report your findings, with proper documentation, specifically outlining EA's behaviour that puts an extra negative spin on associating the name of Ferrari with EA's speaker company. Add a Link to this thread etc.

Lamborghini is a member of REACT: https://www.react.org/members/

Don't know the specifics about Maserati's or Lamborghini's policies, but usually written consent or even a specific contract are required when you advertize or associate your products with the trademark or wordmark of a registered Trademark.

Tekton's use of the Ferrari name should be a pretty black & white case. One of two outcomes:
1) the paint used is produced/marketed by a paint manufacturer who has licensed the use of the Ferrari trademark for the product. Any downstream use of the product is also defacto licensed to make the same reference (ie, solely to the paint color). So *if* the paint product is actually called Ferrari White, for example, then Tektron can legally describe their product as having a Ferrari White finish. They cannot, however, make any further associations to Ferrari (ie, performs like a Ferrari, etc).
2) the paint is *not* marketed as Ferrari White, but some other white, and Tekton has unilaterally chosen to use "Ferrari White" in their product descriptions. In this case, Tekton would face a swift and immediate cease/desist warning from Ferrari.

Trademarks can be "eroded" if they are not defended. In other words, if enough entities begin using a trademark term without permission, and the trademark owner does little/nothing to defend their mark, any subsequent attempts to defend the mark are weakened. For this reason, even companies who are not particularly litigation-happy may be motivated to act in defense of trademarks, because not doing so risks the effective loss of trademark in the future.

I learned this while running a trade association with an acronym name which was occasionally used without permission.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Tekton was using the Ferrari and Lamborghini terms without permission. Its a classic attempt to associate qualities of one product to another. Definitely fits E. Alexander's M.O.

 

[tmtomh]

In my listening seat measurements with OmniMic V2, I can get a ~1db difference at 100-200Hz just by moving the mic position a foot or so horizontally or vertically. Especially vertically. I'm having trouble believing that difference would be audible, unless you were listening at low levels, and who listens critically at less than about 75-80db at their listening seat? It's just difficult to believe.

Indeed - not to mention that bass response will vary as much, or more, than that based on the temperature of the listening space (as @amirm has shown and discussed in a couple of his reviews of other speakers).

 

[blueone]

Indeed - not to mention that bass response will vary as much, or more, than based on the temperature of the listening space (as @amirm has shown and discussed in a couple of his reviews of other speakers).

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Since had been meaning to do anyway, I approximated the potential leaking due to some holes in the cabinet using my Purifi SPK4s. The results are posted here.

The results demonstrate that there would likely be a shift in the box tuning and some potential impact to the bass performance. How much depends on the particular design so would need to model for the Tekton. Or, as he has claimed his prowess, the designer should be able to readily sim and illustrate for us. In any case, lacking a baseline from Tekton, Amir would not have been able detect via his testing...

However, it also had been alleged that the leaks would be audible due to the velocity of the air through them. I thought this was another very dubious claim. In my experiment with a powerful woofer in a much smaller cabinet (my SPK4), I was unable to produce any noticeable whistling or chuffing with bass heavy music. Based on this, am very confident Amir (or Erin) would not have experienced any audible anomaly that would have allowed them the detect the leaks. For that matter, any leak is barely perceptible by covering the hole with your fingertip.

I have posted multiple times but both threads are very long.
I'm going to post again now due to actually having a set of speakers with this issue.
Though I can't speak for the M-Lore or Troubadour.
There is a reason I ended up discovering the foot holes go through and that they need to be filled.
In my Tekton Impact Monitors the holes audibly chuff, no question about it. It was 100% noticeable the 1st long listening session. But only once I realized certain tracks were exciting it. There are content and SPL factors that affect when and how much. Sometimes it is very audible(which is why I investigated during the 1st session & other times you can go 4 or 5 or more tracks without exciting it.

In my view it has little to do with the extreme high velocity that a simulation will show. A small rough edged port will chuff at relatively low port speed, so way before it reaches high speed. The slug off air is going to slam into itself as it vibrates and possibly/likely make chuffing sounds. Now these are small enough to be 'leaks' more than 'ports' but the concept is the same. The chuffing is not a huge amount but is annoying. The chuffing is similar to a leak around a badly sealed driver (the poorly designed 3 hole mounted tweeter in my old AA monitors would chuff until I used silicone behind it). It is similar to some drivers that have a phase plug and sometimes you get chuffing from around the plug as it is open to airflow there, or maybe like a typical port that just chuffs a little bit here and there/not a worst case scenario with big farts coming out non-stop. A lot of the time is just sounds like something is not right, and it is blended in but noticeable. I kept getting up to try and figure out what that sound was and it took some effort to realize the issue.
Ultimately it seems if the airflow in the holes reached a very high velocity the air in the hole would vibrate so fast it basically stands still in the hole and seals the cabinet. (extreme port compression)Due to musical content rising and falling that seal is created and breaks constantly and at any time you can have some chuffing even if high SPL 'seals' the holes it is always extremely temporary.

I bring this up mainly as I think folks with speakers by this brand should fill any open holes to be sure.

No interest in defending Tekton, that said I would be a bit surprised if they do not chuff in the Troubadour, though in the M-lore they might not due to the cabinet size and resulting relationship, also sitting on the floor may have sealed them. Anyway I can only speak from my experience with a Tekton product different from what Amir and Erin tested.

 

[DLS79]

The part you don't seem to get is that this is ASR - Audio Science Review.
The science of High Fidelity loudspeaker design (although infinitely harder) should be the same as an amplifier, DAC, etc. It needs to be able to deliver to the listeners ears a FR, etc; that is as close to the input as possible. "Tweaks" should come after the fact at the listeners discretion (tone controls, DRC, etc) and not be build into the component.
The purposeful introduction of aberrant FR is bad design science.

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

check out this post by @amirm.

Neumann KH80 DSP Monitor Measurements #3

Seems that if you want to create a riot in the streets of ASR, all you have to do is show a non-ruler flat response of Neumann KH80 DSP professional monitor (speaker). Not knowing that, that is precisely what I did in my first review of KH80 DSP: This was one of the earliest speakers I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[tmtomh]

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

I never knew it either until it came up in one of Amir’s reviews.

 

[Rick Sykora]

I have posted multiple times but both threads are very long.
I'm going to post again now due to actually having a set of speakers with this issue.
Though I can't speak for the M-Lore or Troubadour.
There is a reason I ended up discovering the foot holes go through and that they need to be filled.
In my Tekton Impact Monitors the holes audibly chuff, no question about it. It was 100% noticeable the 1st long listening session. But only once I realized certain tracks were exciting it. There are content and SPL factors that affect when and how much. Sometimes it is very audible(which is why I investigated during the 1st session & other times you can go 4 or 5 or more tracks without exciting it.

In my view it has little to do with the extreme high velocity that a simulation will show. A small rough edged port will chuff at relatively low port speed, so way before it reaches high speed. The slug off air is going to slam into itself as it vibrates and possibly/likely make chuffing sounds. Now these are small enough to be 'leaks' more than 'ports' but the concept is the same. The chuffing is not a huge amount but is annoying. The chuffing is similar to a leak around a badly sealed driver (the poorly designed 3 hole mounted tweeter in my old AA monitors would chuff until I used silicone behind it). It is similar to some drivers that have a phase plug and sometimes you get chuffing from around the plug as it is open to airflow there, or maybe like a typical port that just chuffs a little bit here and there/not a worst case scenario with big farts coming out non-stop. A lot of the time is just sounds like something is not right, and it is blended in but noticeable. I kept getting up to try and figure out what that sound was and it took some effort to realize the issue.
Ultimately it seems if the airflow in the holes reached a very high velocity the air in the hole would vibrate so fast it basically stands still in the hole and seals the cabinet. (extreme port compression)Due to musical content rising and falling that seal is created and breaks constantly and at any time you can have some chuffing even if high SPL 'seals' the holes it is always extremely temporary.

No interest in defending Tekton, that said I would be a bit surprised if they do not chuff in the Troubadour, though in the M-lore they might not due to the cabinet size and resulting relationship, also sitting on the floor may have sealed them. Anyway I can only speak from my experience with a Tekton product different from what Amir and Erin tested.

Thanks for sharing!

Aside from the design, chuffing may be masked by the music, bass content and other conditions. In any case, there is no absolute guarantee that Amir or Erin would encounter in the time they take to do a review. Your point about turbulence around the hole is noteworthy but goes back to the design and potential quality diffs. Did your speaker chuff with nutserts or empty holes?

The fact that the designer thought they should points more to convenient deception on his part or that if it is really obvious, why customers have not complained. His knowledge of the potential problem is also disturbing in that he has not implemented what is a very simple fix. In any case, not his best card to play!

p.s. the turbulence is noteworthy as it is more likely to cause chuffing than the air speed claims by the alleged top notch designer

 

[ROOSKIE]

See post #1385

Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

I believe Eric has repeatedly stated in the forum and in videos that the screw holes reach airspeed Mach 1, leading to significant audible sound impairments. The giant issue with his argument is that the speaker already has a large port on the front of it...

audiosciencereview.com

There are nut inserts in the holes. (are there some without these?)
I used Allen head threaded inserts(also overkill wrapped in Teflon tape to avoid any chance of metal on metal vibration) to fill them so I could use them without the feet.

 

[rynberg]

As much as I think the comment above is far, far off the mark (as others have already commented), I do want to add one interesting piece of information I came across that was news to me and adds a wrinkle to Harman's listener response data. Someone had linked to this stunningly dense and beautiful page of teachings from the great Mr. Linkwitz himself and item "H" got my attention. Basically, he says that around 3 kHz there's a difference in the way we hear sound coming from directly in front of us in free space versus sound coming broadly from all around us. He cites classical recordings as an example where mic position passes this on to the recording and describes that he typically includes a 4 dB notch at 3 kHz in his crossovers, possibly with a switch to disable it for recordings that weren't mic'd this way (most everything else apparently). When I listened to the LS50 Meta it became apparent that it has a broad dip in the 1-3k range that nixed it for me, but that I now wonder if KEF put in there intentionally, and that I now want to look for it in other speakers as a "telltale" of the designer's thinking (having listened to the KEF and not liking the response with certain material).

Again, this page is awesome:

Electro-acoustic models

Acoustical and electrical models for the design of a dipole loudspeaker with numerical examples for the PHOENIX project.

www.linkwitzlab.com

If that were true (I've never heard anyone else claim such an effect, nor do I understand what physical mechanism would cause it), it should be addressed during the mixing and mastering of the recording and not by permanently EQ-ing the speaker! While I realize a disable switch is discussed, it's just better to avoid the Circle of Confusion in the first place.

 

[olieb]

Basically, he says that around 3 kHz there's a difference in the way we hear sound coming from directly in front of us in free space versus sound coming broadly from all around us. He cites classical recordings as an example where mic position passes this on to the recording and describes that he typically includes a 4 dB notch at 3 kHz in his crossovers, possibly with a switch to disable it for recordings that weren't mic'd this way (most everything else apparently).

Linkwitz is not the only one who incorporates this psychoacoustic effect into his designs, though it maybe not a general trend.
Here is a snippet from an interview with Joachim Kiesler of Geithain (manufacturer of monitors mainly for classical music production) about the way they deal with the directivity of hearing around 3 kHz.

"What's important is tonal neutrality, correct localisation and a correct sense of distance. This is achieved, among other things, by not splitting the radiation of a loudspeaker across drivers that are more or less far apart, as is often the case with multi-way systems [ME Geithain uses coaxial systems that are close to the ideal point source, the author]. In addition, the effect of the directional characteristic of a loudspeaker is often underestimated: Compared to other frequency ranges, the human ear rates direct sound between 2-4kHz about 2.5dB higher than diffuse sound, which must be taken into account when developing loudspeakers. Depending on the loudspeaker model and the associated optimum listening distance, we make sure, for example, that the loudspeaker is less focussed in the range between 2-4kHz. Otherwise, there would be an overemphasis in this range, which would not be conducive to sound colour fidelity or distance detection - the sound image would appear more present and subjectively closer to the listener."

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
from

Firmen-Bericht Reportage Musikelektronic ME Geithain Interview​

As I understand it the idea is to counter a (deliberate) dip on axis (direct sound) with a wider directivity (diffuse sound) around 3 kHz.

And this seems to be what Linkwitz did in the LX521: a (rather strong) dip and a (equally strong )widening around 3 kHz.
This can be seen in measurements from linkwitzlab.com

Upper mid driver

All (three) drivers from panel

left: https://linkwitzlab.com/The_Magic/The_Magic.htm

right: https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews...21-4mg-open-baffle-loudspeaker-system-review/

He does not provide an on-off switch in the LX521 though.
In the FR at the listening position this dip-widening is not visible as these effects cancel more or less.

 

[Rick Sykora]

See post #1385

Tekton M-Lore Speaker Review

I believe Eric has repeatedly stated in the forum and in videos that the screw holes reach airspeed Mach 1, leading to significant audible sound impairments. The giant issue with his argument is that the speaker already has a large port on the front of it...

audiosciencereview.com

There are nut inserts in the holes. (are there some without these?)

Not sure as had not seen that part of your earlier post (as it is rather long and did not scroll down) and larger holes would have more effect (on box tuning).

 

[prerich]

As I'm fond of saying, I'm the biggest variable in my stereo system...

THIS!!!!!!

 

[kschmit2]

Tekton's use of the Ferrari name should be a pretty black & white case. One of two outcomes:
1) the paint used is produced/marketed by a paint manufacturer who has licensed the use of the Ferrari trademark for the product. Any downstream use of the product is also defacto licensed to make the same reference (ie, solely to the paint color). So *if* the paint product is actually called Ferrari White, for example, then Tektron can legally describe their product as having a Ferrari White finish. They cannot, however, make any further associations to Ferrari (ie, performs like a Ferrari, etc).
2) the paint is *not* marketed as Ferrari White, but some other white, and Tekton has unilaterally chosen to use "Ferrari White" in their product descriptions. In this case, Tekton would face a swift and immediate cease/desist warning from Ferrari.

Trademarks can be "eroded" if they are not defended. In other words, if enough entities begin using a trademark term without permission, and the trademark owner does little/nothing to defend their mark, any subsequent attempts to defend the mark are weakened. For this reason, even companies who are not particularly litigation-happy may be motivated to act in defense of trademarks, because not doing so risks the effective loss of trademark in the future.

I learned this while running a trade association with an acronym name which was occasionally used without permission.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Tekton was using the Ferrari and Lamborghini terms without permission. Its a classic attempt to associate qualities of one product to another. Definitely fits E. Alexander's M.O.

You are absolutely right. There is a very big pro in this case though, as one could simply report the possible infringement to Ferrari and Ferrari's legal team would evaluate the situation and take action if necessary.
No financial risk at all to the person reporting their observation (if the reporting is limited to known and verifiable facts).

 

[olieb]

If that were true (I've never heard anyone else claim such an effect, nor do I understand what physical mechanism would cause it), it should be addressed during the mixing and mastering of the recording and not by permanently EQ-ing the speaker! While I realize a disable switch is discussed, it's just better to avoid the Circle of Confusion in the first place.

It is a well known effect from the HRTF.
I do not see how you want to address it, at least not easily, in mixing. The microphones record (more or less) from all directions, but in stereo everything is reproduced from the front. That changes the balance in the signal between direct and diffuse sound.

 

[Inertiaman]

You are absolutely right. There is a very big pro in this case though, as one could simply report the possible infringement to Ferrari and Ferrari's legal team would evaluate the situation and take action if necessary.
No financial risk at all to the person reporting their observation (if the reporting is limited to known and verifiable facts).

Totally agree. Don't mistake my general context / explanations for any objection to reporting . . . in fact, I would encourage LOTS of us to report it to Ferrari and it may accelerate their action (if any).

 

[tomtoo]

Totally agree. Don't mistake my general context / explanations for any objection to reporting . . . in fact, I would encourage LOTS of us to report it to Ferrari and it may accelerate their action (if any).

Hehe bashing on ferrari saying "Hey whats wrong with you guys did you smoked to much? Ferrari white is blue you ######.' And they what??? Sounds like fun.

 

[jkasch]

Totally agree. Don't mistake my general context / explanations for any objection to reporting . . . in fact, I would encourage LOTS of us to report it to Ferrari and it may accelerate their action (if any).

Do snitches get stitches in the audio community?

 

[ta240]

.....
Trademarks can be "eroded" if they are not defended. In other words, if enough entities begin using a trademark term without permission, and the trademark owner does little/nothing to defend their mark, any subsequent attempts to defend the mark are weakened. For this reason, even companies who are not particularly litigation-happy may be motivated to act in defense of trademarks, because not doing so risks the effective loss of trademark in the future.
.....

I often see people mocking companies for defending their trademarks in situations that they see as silly; due to no understanding of what you just stated. It can make big companies seem petty but the alternative isn't good either. The comments usually are something like: "Nobody is going to think a Ferrari F150 is similar to a Ford F150". And then the next thing you know some new manufacture is calling their truck the F150.

 

[Shorty]

Totally agree. Don't mistake my general context / explanations for any objection to reporting . . . in fact, I would encourage LOTS of us to report it to Ferrari and it may accelerate their action (if any).

Totally disagree.
1) In this relatively minor case (we’re not reporting a murder here) I think it would be dishonourable to be a stool pigeon; and
2) Ferrari is more than capable to take care of itself.