Tekton- why so many tweeters?

[Pearljam5000]

Was always curious about the design
What's the point of 15 tweeters?
Also if that's such a good idea why don't other companies use it too?

 

[Chrispy]

IIRC there's really just the center tweeters in the arrays, the rest more act as mids....but its been a while....

ps Think it's a Bessel array?

 

[Pearljam5000]

IIRC there's really just the center tweeters in the arrays, the rest more act as mids....but its been a while....

ps Think it's a Bessel array?

Why use tweeters as a mid driver though?

 

[Chrispy]

Try this discussion perhaps, I had to revisit it to see how my memory was working on that https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/tekton-design.110940/

 

[MZKM]

They act as a midrange. As for why to use them over a single 2”-5” midrange, the tweeters are small and thus have wide dispersion and have the exact same dispersion as the center tweeter they are being crossed with.

2 obvious cons would be the the physical real estate they take up and the cost of all the drivers.

As for actual performance, the one measured by Stereophile performed well except for narrow vertical dispersion, but that may just be due to being MTM.

 

[ryanosaur]

Pretty much nailed everything. Erik likes the idea of low moving mass, so he creates the array to achieve the effect of a midrange driver, but with the lower mass of the tweeters.
I've seen comparisons to a Bessel Array before, but I think a Bessel Array is more indicative of a Line Array Speaker.
The interesting thing here, is that Eric effectively creates a point source tweeter and mid...
But I truly wonder how these measure.
With the multiple arrays, the Tweeters are so far apart, there has to be an acoustic effect to this.

(77" tall!)

I always hope to wake up one day and find somebody sent a pair to Amir or Erin to play with!

 

[Pearljam5000]

Pretty much nailed everything. Erik likes the idea of low moving mass, so he creates the array to achieve the effect of a midrange driver, but with the lower mass of the tweeters.
I've seen comparisons to a Bessel Array before, but I think a Bessel Array is more indicative of a Line Array Speaker.
The interesting thing here, is that Eric effectively creates a point source tweeter and mid...
But I truly wonder how these measure.
With the multiple arrays, the Tweeters are so far apart, there has to be an acoustic effect to this.

(77" tall!)

I always hope to wake up one day and find somebody sent a pair to Amir or Erin to play with!

I would never buy them because it's too disturbing to see so many tweeters at once lol

 

[Slayer]

All I can say is, I have no idea if this design choice is a good or bad idea until I have seen proper objective, measurements.
On the other hand, the ones I heard awhile back, going on close to two years now, far exceeded my expectations.
Granted it's been a while and just going off pure memory, yet they sounded, dare I say it, good. If I had one complaint, it would have been, wishing that better drivers had been used for the bass. Then again, maybe they weren't designed to go as low as one might have hoped for. Adding one or even two (15'' or 18'') subs to these, would be very nice.
All of the above recollections are purely subjective of course. But if you get the chance, you do owe it to yourself to have a listen. Like myself, you may very well be surprised.

 

[fluid]

They act as a midrange. As for why to use them over a single 2”-5” midrange, the tweeters are small and thus have wide dispersion and have the exact same dispersion as the center tweeter they are being crossed with.

The directivity of an array of drivers combined is quite different than the individual directivity, so in this case the directivity of the mid rings is likely to be narrower than the tweeter. The filtering applied to the drivers in the ring can have an effect too but they end up behaving a lot like a larger driver as far as directivity is concerned.

An example of 2" drivers placed in a ring

 

[DanielT]

The challenge with line speakers, or arrays:

High frequencies​

Practical line array systems act as line sources only in the low- and mid- frequencies. For the high frequencies, some other method must be employed to attain directional characteristics that match those of the lows and mids. The most practical method for reinforcement systems is to use wave guides (horns) coupled to compression drivers. Each horn must have a very narrow vertical and a very wide horizontal dispersion.

Rather than using constructive and destructive interference, horns achieve directionality by reflecting sound into a specified coverage pattern. In a properly designed line array system, that pattern should closely match the low-frequency directional characteristic of the array. If the array's vertical dispersion is 60 degrees and there are 12 boxes, then each horn would need to have 5 degree vertical coverage. (Narrow vertical coverage has the benefit that it minimizes multiple arrivals, which would harm intelligibility.) If this is achieved, then the wave guide elements can be integrated into the line array and, with proper equalization and crossovers, the beam from the high frequencies and the constructive interference of the low frequencies can be made to align so that the resulting arrayed system provides consistent coverage.[12]

L-Acoustics V-DOSC/dV-DOSC line array at a concert

Four-driver column loudspeaker polar patterns, taken at six frequencies

Line array - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DanielT]

These Tektons :

... are measured here:

"When I first saw the Impact Monitor's array of seven 1 "dome tweeters, I wondered how it could possibly work. But its measured performance shows that this unusual design is not compromised — I keep coming back to that superbly even on-axis response — and that the array works well to control the speaker's treble dispersion. "

Tekton Design Impact Monitor loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Edit:
Further in that measurement it is said:

"In the vertical plane (fig.5), the use of two woofers spaced relatively far apart leads to major cancellations in the midrange above and below the response on the central tweeter axis, which again appears as a straight line. The Impact Monitor's vertical radiation pattern suggests that the speaker needs to be listened to within a narrow window centered on the central tweeter axis if the midrange balance is not to sound colored."

Which makes me think of this:

Select dispersion pattern

Which dispersion pattern had you chosen? If we play with the idea that you would use a waveguide. Choose vertical and horizontal dispersion and feel free to justify your choice. For inspiration here you can see different waveguides...

audiosciencereview.com

Tekton Design Impact Monitor loudspeaker

"It was not subtle. The [$2000/pair] Tekton Impact Monitors were doing it all: singing, drumming, shaking the air, drawing me in, and making every CD or LP pure pleasure to listen to. A little soft . . . but not too soft. Imagine a gentle but guiding touch with a most perfect sparkleand then...

www.stereophile.com

 

[peanuts]

Tekton is a joke in the DIY community. there is no way he is getting anything worthwhile from this. completely counter intuitive compared to say using a waveguide. not to mention the huge cost of all thoes drivers.
GR research had a video where he explained why using multiple tweeters will not help with dispersion and will not increase output. Eric got angry and took the entire speaker off the market.

 

[DanielT]

Tekton is a joke in the DIY community. there is no way he is getting anything worthwhile from this. completely counter intuitive compared to say using a waveguide. not to mention the huge cost of all thoes drivers.
GR research had a video where he explained why using multiple tweeters will not help with dispersion and will not increase output. Eric got angry and took the entire speaker off the market.

An advantage of arrays, for home HiFi is that it can reduce floor and ceiling reflections. If they are done correctly. But it requires , for example, EQ, see from page five:

Murphy's Corner Line Array project

What listening distance will you have? It will dip in higher frequencies, do you think of EQa? With a straight line source of limited length, problems are obtained because the frequency response becomes distance dependent and also when the receiver position is above the top point of the source...

audiosciencereview.com

Expensive, well 50 pcs tc9, with (probably) discounts when buying many:

Home

Peerless by Tymphany TC9FD18-08 3-1/2" Full Range Paper Cone WooferThe TC/TG Series offers a high performance full range and mid-bass solution for TV products and other compact applications. The use of leading-edge technologies like a polymer chassis, NRSC (Tymphany patent) paper cone, and a...

www.parts-express.com

 

[thewas]

Here is a very good implementation with wide horizontal and very narrow vertical directivity:

Source and detailed information: http://hannover-hardcore.de/infinity_classics/!!!/Quasikoax 1 Dokumentation.pdf

 

[peanuts]

Tekton is using up all the Beryllium!

Hi Guys, I just thought you might like to see this extravagant use of the latest SB Acoustics Be tweeters. Ulfberht Be - TektonDesign LLC Actually, given the number of tweeters, I have to say this guy is getting a MAJOR discount from SB. I have no idea how it sounds, but I can't really stop...

www.diyaudio.com

 

[theREALdotnet]

Point sources in an array combine to form surprising (to the lay person) radiation patterns.

For example, this LED array on my torch:

projects this light pattern:

 

[mhardy6647]

Pretty sure that Tekton was influenced by arachnids.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Pretty sure that Tekton was influenced by arachnids.

They certainly don’t suffer from trypophobia.

 

[Geert]

Also if that's such a good idea why don't other companies use it too?

Because the concept destroyed to many relationships.

 

[AdamG]

McIntosh Speakers