Experience with single-driver speakers?

[tfarney]

Any impressions on the Tektons yet? I exchanged emails Eric at Tekton recently. For a nearfiled system, he recommends the 4.1, with or without the 8" sub (crossed over at 75hz).

 

Carl - Any further impressions of the single drivers you built?

 

Tim

 

[Innertuber]

I did finally get them hooked up over the weekend. I sold my KHorns (gasp) so we were listening to Klipsch right up until about an hour before I hooked up the Tektons. Since I like to be different, I always contemplate the smash test. While my wife says bigger is not better, I suspect she is being nice to me. The KHorns would obliterate the Tektons if dropped on top from a couple feet. On to the music -

 

I started out with no sub. Mind you, the little red banditos are sitting on a phone book, on the floor, which is certainly a little low in a rather large room. I have to say they really shocked me as to how good they sounded. They delivered respectable volumes and it sounded clear and I suppose a bit brighter than I am used to. Enough volume to satisfy many folks and they just sing. Not tinny, not fatiguing. They really sounded nice at low volumes, like wake up Sunday morning stuff. Now, I'm probably not as critical as some, but I sat there listening and starting thinking, how does such a little driver do so much? I was pleased. I should try and A/B them to some of the other small stuff I have around.

 

Then, I hooked up the sub using the Outlaw 2150, which just sends everything below my selected 80 hz to the sub and strips it from the mains. The Fostex 127 (from what I read) really starts to fall off quick below 80, so I concluded why even try? There is an adjustable freq selector on the sub if you wanted to do it that way (I didn't) , or you can take speaker line inputs off the mains (I'll try that next). It's a Bash 300 watt amp that you can study at Parts Express. The sub definitely added some bottom end as you would expect. I’d say the “relative” volume of different ripped CD’s and the bass in the mix had me tweaking the subs volume more that I was used to, but remember I just plopped everything on the floor and fired it up. I'd have to say the overall sound was very pleasing. I'm not that good at all the descriptive terms, but for me, I either go Ewwww, turn that crap down, or hey that's nice, turn it up. This was a turn it up. Sounded great on Zep, Chris Rea and a few others. Now, I did find the sub got a little boomy, oddly on Josh Grobin, but I think that's more of an issue related to going from one CD to the next. I turned the volume of the sub down a bit and it was fine.

 

With the KHorns bass was never boomy. Just clear as a bell. Of course, the Tektons are $350 a pair versus another zero, apiece. These are going to wind up in a much smaller bedroom and I am certain I will be happy with them. They are my first full range driver experience. I think where they really shine is in the midrange which to me sounded excellent. A little more high end than I was used to I'd venture.

 

So, I'd say without a sub they sounded surprisingly good. With the sub, I noticed a lot more low end (obviously as you would expect). If I didn't have the sub sitting there, I probably would have been pretty happy with the sound of the speakers, but would notice some missing lows (I amuse myself playing bass on and off and dig Claypool/Stanley/Geddy/Jaco/Jack Bruce and on and on). Again this was in a room probably 25 foot square (I gotta measure that thing) and those little honkers did quite well.

 

As an aside, often when I goto a big box electronics store and the 19 year old sales guys is telling me how great the speakers are, and if I wanna mess with him a bit, I'll pop in Mrs. Blaileen.

 

Per Wiki - Mrs. Blaileen is a song by Primus from their 1995 album Tales from the Punchbowl. The song is a mix of heavy metal, prog rock, and funk, and features a rapidly alternating bass line, constantly switching from low notes, at wider frets and thicker strings, to high notes, on thinner frets and thinner strings. However, this is nothing special or unusual coming from bassist Les Claypool, who has indeed devised some of the strangest bass lines imaginable.

 

Point is that this song can shred speakers if they have weakness. I love that song, it's chaotic. I demo'd the KHorns to the buyer playing this at a volume that you could not talk over just to give them a workout. Point being, the Tektons are not for everything, they would probably launch or ignite at high volume or maybe melt. But at reasonable volumes with the sub it all sounds tight. They are cool in their niche.

 

I have a little Baby Sophia amp I hope to use with these ultimately, so that's the next thing for me. We're going to use these in the big room for a while, at least until I drag my old DCM TimeWindows back up from downstairs and the Tektons get proper stands in their new home - the Boudoir.

 

So, for what I wanted, which included a veneer with a red translucent finish (I know it's a decorative thing), a small system, a dose of fullrange, I like these. I had read many, many good comments about Eric's Tektons. For $350 (maybe $400 now) or so for the stock ones, compared to say Bose or Infinity you get a lot more clarity. The Tektons are clean and clear. Both my Infinitys and Bose can get on my nerves and force me to turn them down. The Tektons didn't do that (so far), but I haven’t listened too much honestly. I hope that helps, but I'm better at reacting than describing. I don’t regret buying them which for me is good.

 

The last thing I’d say is I really noticed the difference in efficiency. That’s not bad, I was just spoiled. These are actually 91 db so pretty good. Compared to 105 though, I noticed I was putting a lot more power into them, which again you would expect. Like I said, my KHorns had only been gone about an hour.

 

So, yes, I'd buy them again, maybe turquoise finish or sunburst next time. Give Eric a challenge. He's very easy to deal with. He packaged them great - one box had a gaping hole from transit, but they were dbl boxed and foam corners. Perfect inside. I like the posts, the workmanship is top notch. One comment my wife made, was that in the right light, they look like they have pock marks. They don't of course, it's the grain of the wood. I think it's a type of birds eye. But in full Florida sun many things look different. I think they are really nice looking. Exactly what I asked for in fact. I sent Eric some wood finish samples from the PRS guitar website and he matched that. He's seems like a really easy going guy and a craftsman. The next fullrange project I am interested in will probably be some homebuilts using a typical too big Fostex style cabinet someday. Time for some Alice ... Cooper or in Chains? I declare decisions are tuff!

 

Fostex driver - http://www.fostexinternational.com/docs/speaker_comp/pdf/fe127erev2.pdf

 

Tekton - http://www.tektondesign.com/model45.htm

Main Features:

• Superior quality Fostex FE127E 4.5” (114.3mm) full-range drivers to provide an unsurpassed level of output, fidelity, and detail all the way up to 20kHz

• Warm and rich bass response that is produced by a textbook Quasi third-order ported Butterworth alignment, and at the foundation is the top-quality MDF cabinet, with fiberglass damping

• An oversized port that eliminates all possible vent noises

• Gold plated 5-way binding terminal posts

• Completely designed, critically voiced, and hand built by a master craftsman

 

 

 

 

[tfarney]

Thanks. Actually that's a pretty raving endorsement straight out of the box. They're supposed to have like a million hours break in time or something. I hear Eric recommends the short cut of setting them up facing each other and running pink noise through them for 48 hours. I'll ask and confirm when I order. Break-in should open them up in the mids, probably effectively addressing the brightness. I'll order without the sub. I may be fine particularly up on the desk with a wall just a few inches from the backs. May be hard to resist that sub in the long run. Did it integrate well?

 

Tim

 

PS: By the way, that boominess you heard on Josh Grobin was the sub gagging on the artificial sweeteners.

 

[carlseibert]

Hi Tim,

 

My read on the Metronomes hasn't changed much. I've just this weekend tried experimenting with my subwoofer a little. It seems to expand the soundstage some, as well as filling in the bottom and giving the system more authority. This go around, I fed the speaker level signal to the sub and let the sub's crossover roll off the the last 20 Hz or so of the Metronomes. And I lost A LITTLE midrange clarity. Next I'll try feeding the Metronomes full range so the crossover won't be their part of the circuit. Or maybe the subs aren't really necessary at all. We'll see.

 

I got a chance to hear my friends's Metronomes this weekend. Bob has his pair in a much larger room, with better electronics, and you can really hear the difference in amplifiers. The bass is better than what he had from his previous stand mounted speakers, so he's happy enough there. But in the big room, a good sub might be a good idea. He discovered that the surface underneath the speakers makes a big difference in bass quality. (The Metronomes have a downward-firing port. I include this detail only for curiosity sake, since the speakers you're considering are stand-mounted.) I didn't hear any boominess in the bass at all. A friend of ours has an electronica recording that he uses as an acid test for authority and drive. The Metronomes failed in flying colors. (My main system can't play that disk convincingly, either.) But most music sounded pretty darn good. Curiously, in the bigger room, they didn't seem as beamy as they do in my tiny room.

 

Neither of us have a baffle step filter in place. At this moment, I don't feel any pressing need to try one.

 

We did some more crude measurements at Bob's (but a little better than my measuring effort). F3 was 62 Hz and the point at which the high end response goes south looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15KHz.

 

Cheers,

 

-Carl

 

 

 

 

 

[Innertuber]

Yeah, I saw his suggestions on break in, but I'm not good at following instructions.

 

The sub fits in great, it's the difference from CD to CD I think I notice.

 

You know, my wife gets on these jags, Coldplay for a while (I mean like 6 weeks non-stop), she's now weaning off Josh (amen) and I've got her on a playlist of Fixx/Chris Issac/Rea/Knoffler which I like too. She's even getting into all the Robbie Plant solo stuff. There is a God!

 

[tfarney]

Yes and it would appear that God is on your side. Congratulations on the turn for the better in household music. Now, if I could just somehow get my wife into mid-70s King Crimson....

 

Tim