Tekton Enzo - The most inexpensive speakers that is in the league with high-end speaker

[ImcLoud]

I played with that rew for long enough to know I don't have the patience for it, way easier to let my ears do the listening, then draw a squiggly line to represent how great they are, the straighter the line the better...

this helps a lot when you need measurements from memory-- here is my interpretation of the power acoustic liquid cooled 12" 3 ways I had when I was a younger -

 

[fuzz092888]

Tekton Enzo - The most inexpensive speakers that is in the league with high-e...

I played with that rew for long enough to know I don't have the patience for it, way easier to let my ears do the listening, then draw a squiggly line to represent how great they are, the straighter the line the better...

this helps a lot when you need measurements from memory-- here is my interpretation of the power acoustic liquid cooled 12" 3 ways I had when I was a younger -

Ignorance is bliss

When you hear a tremendous system that blows your mind and then you try and replicate that for yourself it kinda helps to know what you're looking for. Just sayin........

 

[rocky500]

Yes this REW looks to be something that could zap your time pretty quickly. There is just so much on it.
I have been patiently waiting for quite some time for the XMC-1 with room EQ. Since it may still be a while I have setup Foobar with Fabfilter Pro-Q and was hoping to use REW to offer adjustments to enter into the Fabfilter for playing my music.
Got my 20 posts now were was that competition to win some money.

 

[ImcLoud]

Ignorance is bliss

When you hear a tremendous system that blows your mind and then you try and replicate that for yourself it kinda helps to know what you're looking for. Just sayin........

I own two of them, people come here and listen to my jade5s and sw subs and my evo2-40s and sw subs and then go try and replicate it, I had one of the owners of a local high end audio shop over, he was so impressed with my ascend sierra and single uls15 sub system that he went and ordered a set, he told me he would put that against anything in his store, and he has some expensive gear in there!!! I was only powering the sierras with a pair of 200w carver mono blocks {small a/b amps like the bpa1's and pa150's} with an ipod going to a d1 dac, he sat and listened to 5 songs, and was awe struck he never even heard of Ascend Acoustics, I called him over when we installed my buddies sierra towers and he was amazed but not surprised...

But my favorite system is my evo2-40's 2.2 system, I can listen to that all day and night, most people that hear them prefer the jades but that is because they are a little more forward which I think tricks you into thinking they are more defined, but for a long moderate level listening session the evos are warm, realistic, and just feel like home. A glass of Woodford reserve sitting on the coaster, my feet up on the coffee table, the only light in the room coming from my grandfather clock and 1940s wurlitzer with Amber Rubarth singing novacaine rite in front of me....

I can honestly say, I think I have heard 3 systems I like as much as what is in my front formal Parlor... I am definitely more into music then movies, my movie system sounds awesome, but I love my 2.2 systems, I only spent around $3K on my evo2 system and the only thing I have heard that I like better and would upgrade to in the future is the ascend sierra tower and uls15 dual drive... I think if people could hear them together, A LOT of people would own that setup..... I scored my evo setup so the ascend/hsu in no way sounds twice as good but costs twice as much...

 

[fuzz092888]

I don't think I've ever heard wharfdale's, and I definitely haven't heard any Ascend speakers since no one that I know of around me owns them, well except you. 2.5 hours, not as bad as I thought, although not exactly across town either (from me to you).

Out of what I have heard, I feel the same way about my Phil 3's. They provide a wide, tall, deep soundstage, image with precision, and deliver well recorded tracks with a level of transparency that no $3000 (well not anymore) speaker should. They're not really HT speakers, or at least reference level HT speakers, but if asked to do that at moderate levels they do it with ease as well. I love bass, but I've come to appreciate the ML-TL in ways that I have yet to see a subwoofer adequately replicate. Everything just sounds natural and as it should with zero blending issues between the mid and woofer. For the money, I'm not sure they can be beat, although I'm going to try anyways when I finally get around to building the LX521's.

I'm not still not entirely convinced that a sat/sub setup can completely equal a great tower speaker. Although I'll be adding a small sealed sub to my computer monitors sometime soon with a miniDSP so I guess I'll be on my way to finding out.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm not still not entirely convinced that a sat/sub setup can completely equal a great tower speaker.

It ultimately depends on several factors.

1. How much bass do you like? Does the Phil3 or Salon2 have all the bass you will ever want?
2. How great are the monitors?
3. How great are the subs?

 

[ImcLoud]

I don't think I've ever heard wharfdale's, and I definitely haven't heard any Ascend speakers since no one that I know of around me owns them, well except you. 2.5 hours, not as bad as I thought, although not exactly across town either (from me to you).

Out of what I have heard, I feel the same way about my Phil 3's. They provide a wide, tall, deep soundstage, image with precision, and deliver well recorded tracks with a level of transparency that no $3000 (well not anymore) speaker should. They're not really HT speakers, or at least reference level HT speakers, but if asked to do that at moderate levels they do it with ease as well. I love bass, but I've come to appreciate the ML-TL in ways that I have yet to see a subwoofer adequately replicate. Everything just sounds natural and as it should with zero blending issues between the mid and woofer. For the money, I'm not sure they can be beat, although I'm going to try anyways when I finally get around to building the LX521's.

I'm not still not entirely convinced that a sat/sub setup can completely equal a great tower speaker. Although I'll be adding a small sealed sub to my computer monitors sometime soon with a miniDSP so I guess I'll be on my way to finding out.

I was the same way, but once you get it dialed in sat sub is amazing... A really nice bookshelf sounds better than a tower except on the low end IMO anyway, towers have larger cabinets {resonance} and I have yet to see the 6.5" woofer that can reproduce bass as good as a 12" subwoofer?... I have tried this out with my evo10 bookshelfs vs my evo40 towers with the same subs and crossovers they sound a little better, but I don't turn the subs on all the time so sometimes I just run the towers...
The most important part is the crossover, and doing it before the amp, but I have had good luck with f-mods, you can have them custom made and I tried a few different ones every time... I have had custom xlr ones made too... But the best way to do it is with an eq of some sort, I had an XSP1 and gave it to my brother because I thought it would tune better then my fmods but it sounded almost the same, and I prefer the simple dac to amp vs all that circuitry and confusion...

But I have played with the ULS15 dual drive {I have a single one} ascend sierra towers, xpa2 amp and xsp1 preamp, we ended up crossing the sierra towers around 70hz to the subs, but that xsp made it so easy, he also bought all emotiva XLR balanced cables and used them to connect the amp and subs, the xsp has dual sub outputs, it came really nice... But that system sounds amazing, I actually talked 3 local guys into this setup in some variation {on the subwoofer side}... For around $6000 the system is hands down the best I have heard, The parlor jeff has his setup in is 650 sq. feet with 18ft cathedral ceilings, and it fills that room with hardly any effort!!! I will upgrade someday, maybe in 5 years or so when my evos are getting old...

I would love to see how that system measures on one of your audio geek systems... I know the sound is fantastic....

Alex maybe this winter when I slow down you can take the 2 1/2 hour ride down, or maybe in the spring, we have a giant party, pools heated (although no one goes in), we have music (live and ipod), food, drinks, this year we had a 50ft water slide, rock climbing wall, and mechanical bull riding.... the party goes from 11am to 2am... This year we had around 200 people at once and probably 300 people total.... On a few occasions throughout the party, I threw everyone out of the front parlor so I could show off the sound system and my juke box, so you are welcome to come, Im not sure if you could get a quiet room to setup a mic to do measurements but your ears are welcome, although my tektons are in my bedroom and that is 100ft from the party so most likely quiet...

 

[fuzz092888]

It ultimately depends on several factors.

1. How much bass do you like? Does the Phil3 or Salon2 have all the bass you will ever want?
2. How great are the monitors?
3. How great are the subs?

It really depends. If I'm in the mood for exactly as much bass as the track dictates and tonal balance, then I think most sat/sub systems are lacking. Not necessarily due to the components involved, but because it takes more effort to get everything tuned correctly. More often than not I find sub/sat systems have a disproportional amount of bass and listening to the same track puts everything back into the proper tonal balance.

My HT setup is basically a sat/sub setup since the towers are crossed over above the passive woofer crossover. I've spent probably 15 hours fiddling with it and I'm still not as happy with it as I am just listening to the Phils the majority of the time. However, if we're rockin some gangsta rap, I want the overpowering bass

 

[panteragstk]

You guys have me looking at the Sierra Towers again. I wonder if there is a DIY project out there that is similar? I still really want to build som ER18's. I love this hobby, but boy can it get expensive.

 

[fuzz092888]

I was the same way, but once you get it dialed in sat sub is amazing... A really nice bookshelf sounds better than a tower except on the low end IMO anyway, towers have larger cabinets {resonance} and I have yet to see the 6.5" woofer that can reproduce bass as good as a 12" subwoofer?... I have tried this out with my evo10 bookshelfs vs my evo40 towers with the same subs and crossovers they sound a little better, but I don't turn the subs on all the time so sometimes I just run the towers...
The most important part is the crossover, and doing it before the amp, but I have had good luck with f-mods, you can have them custom made and I tried a few different ones every time... I have had custom xlr ones made too... But the best way to do it is with an eq of some sort, I had an XSP1 and gave it to my brother because I thought it would tune better then my fmods but it sounded almost the same, and I prefer the simple dac to amp vs all that circuitry and confusion...

I've looked at fmods before, but the only one's that would be any use to are the high pass filter ones, but I'd rather spend the money on a minDSP and be able to have much more flexibility and the ability to apply EQ filters (or selectable high pass, low pass filters between the sat/sub).

But I have played with the ULS15 dual drive {I have a single one} ascend sierra towers, xpa2 amp and xsp1 preamp, we ended up crossing the sierra towers around 70hz to the subs, but that xsp made it so easy, he also bought all emotiva XLR balanced cables and used them to connect the amp and subs, the xsp has dual sub outputs, it came really nice... But that system sounds amazing, I actually talked 3 local guys into this setup in some variation {on the subwoofer side}... For around $6000 the system is hands down the best I have heard, The parlor jeff has his setup in is 650 sq. feet with 18ft cathedral ceilings, and it fills that room with hardly any effort!!! I will upgrade someday, maybe in 5 years or so when my evos are getting old...

The issue with crossing sat's to subs over towers to subs is that just because a sat has useful response down to 40hz or so, it often isn't capable of the high output (for most small and medium sized sat's) with low distortion that the monster sub they're crossed over to is. So if you're crossing a sat over at 60-80hz, you're still asking a 6-8" woofer to cover a bandwidth of 4+ octaves. There's a reason towers don't often do that, and if things were that simple for high quality and high output sound, I expect we'd see it a lot more. I'm not saying it can't work, or the resulting sound won't be pleasant or fun to listen to, it just won't have that last level of resolving accuracy of systems with better tonal balance or unless you put some time and effort into (read: a little measuring) to getting it perfect.

I would love to see how that system measures on one of your audio geek systems... I know the sound is fantastic....

Alex maybe this winter when I slow down you can take the 2 1/2 hour ride down, or maybe in the spring, we have a giant party, pools heated (although no one goes in), we have music (live and ipod), food, drinks, this year we had a 50ft water slide, rock climbing wall, and mechanical bull riding.... the party goes from 11am to 2am... This year we had around 200 people at once and probably 300 people total.... On a few occasions throughout the party, I threw everyone out of the front parlor so I could show off the sound system and my juke box, so you are welcome to come, Im not sure if you could get a quiet room to setup a mic to do measurements but your ears are welcome, although my tektons are in my bedroom and that is 100ft from the party so most likely quiet...

1) You know I wouldn't be driving hours round trip without my laptop and mic

2) I'd definitely be in the pool.

3) and on the bull

4) I'd measure the sh!t out of those tektons ...........and.......you know.......listen to them too

 

[rocky500]

Are you sure the sample rates are the same for your output, input and in REW? Making sure all the sample rates match is a good place to start.

Its was all pretty well defaults. The next time I try it I will check it all again. Might have to follow some of the guides on the net too.

 

[SearchofSub]

I was the same way, but once you get it dialed in sat sub is amazing... A really nice bookshelf sounds better than a tower except on the low end IMO anyway, towers have larger cabinets {resonance} and I have yet to see the 6.5" woofer that can reproduce bass as good as a 12" subwoofer?... I have tried this out with my evo10 bookshelfs vs my evo40 towers with the same subs and crossovers they sound a little better, but I don't turn the subs on all the time so sometimes I just run the towers...
The most important part is the crossover, and doing it before the amp, but I have had good luck with f-mods, you can have them custom made and I tried a few different ones every time... I have had custom xlr ones made too... But the best way to do it is with an eq of some sort, I had an XSP1 and gave it to my brother because I thought it would tune better then my fmods but it sounded almost the same, and I prefer the simple dac to amp vs all that circuitry and confusion...

But I have played with the ULS15 dual drive {I have a single one} ascend sierra towers, xpa2 amp and xsp1 preamp, we ended up crossing the sierra towers around 70hz to the subs, but that xsp made it so easy, he also bought all emotiva XLR balanced cables and used them to connect the amp and subs, the xsp has dual sub outputs, it came really nice... But that system sounds amazing, I actually talked 3 local guys into this setup in some variation {on the subwoofer side}... For around $6000 the system is hands down the best I have heard, The parlor jeff has his setup in is 650 sq. feet with 18ft cathedral ceilings, and it fills that room with hardly any effort!!! I will upgrade someday, maybe in 5 years or so when my evos are getting old...

I would love to see how that system measures on one of your audio geek systems... I know the sound is fantastic....

Alex maybe this winter when I slow down you can take the 2 1/2 hour ride down, or maybe in the spring, we have a giant party, pools heated (although no one goes in), we have music (live and ipod), food, drinks, this year we had a 50ft water slide, rock climbing wall, and mechanical bull riding.... the party goes from 11am to 2am... This year we had around 200 people at once and probably 300 people total.... On a few occasions throughout the party, I threw everyone out of the front parlor so I could show off the sound system and my juke box, so you are welcome to come, Im not sure if you could get a quiet room to setup a mic to do measurements but your ears are welcome, although my tektons are in my bedroom and that is 100ft from the party so most likely quiet...

Can I come to the party? I will bring the broiled nachos..

 

[SearchofSub]

You guys have me looking at the Sierra Towers again. I wonder if there is a DIY project out there that is similar? I still really want to build som ER18's. I love this hobby, but boy can it get expensive.

Who would have thought I would spend $4,500 on a 2.1 system?

 

[SearchofSub]

I've looked at fmods before, but the only one's that would be any use to are the high pass filter ones, but I'd rather spend the money on a minDSP and be able to have much more flexibility and the ability to apply EQ filters (or selectable high pass, low pass filters between the sat/sub).



The issue with crossing sat's to subs over towers to subs is that just because a sat has useful response down to 40hz or so, it often isn't capable of the high output (for most small and medium sized sat's) with low distortion that the monster sub they're crossed over to is. So if you're crossing a sat over at 60-80hz, you're still asking a 6-8" woofer to cover a bandwidth of 4+ octaves. There's a reason towers don't often do that, and if things were that simple for high quality and high output sound, I expect we'd see it a lot more. I'm not saying it can't work, or the resulting sound won't be pleasant or fun to listen to, it just won't have that last level of resolving accuracy of systems with better tonal balance or unless you put some time and effort into (read: a little measuring) to getting it perfect.



1) You know I wouldn't be driving hours round trip without my laptop and mic

2) I'd definitely be in the pool.

3) and on the bull

4) I'd measure the sh!t out of those tektons ...........and.......you know.......listen to them too

TOtally agree with fuzz. And that is why I am going with Towers + Sub.

 

[SearchofSub]

Does miniDSP make a lot difference? I was thinking about just doing the sub crawl. Another $150.. ohboy.

I just realized Emotiva cables are pretty damn expensive too. X-series speaker cables with RCA interconnects, X-series XLR Balanced cable for the sub, and 2 HDMI cables total out to be like $230+..

 

[SearchofSub]

Its was all pretty well defaults. The next time I try it I will check it all again. Might have to follow some of the guides on the net too.

Appreciate your measurements rocky. Keep em coming thanks!

 

[SearchofSub]

I was just reading up on AVS right now and there seems to be a group (as usual) of old time members trolling hard on a thread and topic about differences being there for speaker cables. I myself need some cables soon and was wondering if infact Monoprice cables would match the same with moon cables or even emotiva cables...


Rocky, a few weeks back I remember that you said you switched speaker cables and there was a big difference in sound from your enzo's at AVS Forum. Since you do have different pairs of speaker cables can you do all a big favor and switch JUST the speaker cables and playback some music source in repeat and tell us if there is any difference in sound once and for all?

 

[rocky500]

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) I am one that does hear a difference in speaker cables or IC's. For that matter I do not really hear a difference in Dacs either. I have tried a few and they are so close that they really make no difference for me. No bigger sound stage, placement of instruments etc, none of that, that I could make out. I could not pick them blind, no way.
I actually changed Amps and the cable between them when I though the difference was quite noticeable. That Amp in question was failing on the left channel and is still at the service center. Actually it was also the speaker cables too.
That reminds me to go check on the progress.

 

[SearchofSub]

So there is difference in sound with speaker cables.. another $230.00 out of my wallet.. ohboy.

 

[rocky500]

No difference for me but if others hear it that is ok too. As everyone seems to hear a little different.

The best I came up with (without going higher end stuff) is buy a decent Amplifier, PreAmp, speakers you like and quality cables (made well and will last but does not have to be expensive) and just enjoy your system. In the above I class Emotiva amps, Pre, dacs up there. But I am sure there are many many brands that will work just as well.
I really like the Tekton speakers as you do not need big amps to make them work well. Unlike the Maggies I have that sound better with some weight behind them.

I did buy quite a few of those cheap cables a few years ago from monoprice (all RCA's) but I have had no luck with them. They seem to break down on me after a while. Bad connections inside etc.