So I am new here and just so happened to have purchased a pair of the Tekton DIs. Note, that I am not a real techie audiophile. I think I match up to one poster's description of being too lazy and too stupid to analyze the measurements (I don't say that in a mean or sarcastic way). While I don't think I'm really lazy, I'd say more impatient...I just want to "do it" or "get to the listening", not the smartest way of doing things I know. But I do try to do a lot of internet research (for what it's worth) before I buy blind. I certainly am not stupid, but I am an ignorant audiophile--I fully admit that. I do like reading posts and learning from communities like this though. Oh, and I don't believe my ears are near as good as most audiophiles...but better than non-audiophiles.
Let me say one last thing before I get on with my Tekton comments. As we all know, the internet makes communication accessible but not easy. Since it doesn't convey body language, facial expressions, tone, etc. which makes it easy to find offense in many posts. This compounded with my less than stellar grammar and vocabulary mean I sometimes can say the wrong thing--so let me assure everyone I never mean to give offense and will try hard not to take offense...I'll try.
I haven't owned a lot of equipment, but with speakers I have owned Apogee Divas (I think my favorite speaker, curses on the WAF), Magnepan 3.6 (I didn't care for these for some reason), some entry level SVS bookshelves (probably comparable to the Prime series) and currently Acarian Alon IIs (which I've had for ~20yrs I believe, they were the first pair of audiophile speakers I purchased and I still have them).
The associated equipment I'm using with the DIs are a Marantz SR7011 receiver (just bought it, a great deal right now), Oppo UDP 203 (just bought it) and an old Mondial Aragon 4004 MkII (pre-out from Marantz to the DIs/Alons). Most of this equipment is new so I don't have a reference system, but I do know the Alon's really well. I posted a pic of the setup--you'll see, I'm still a bit under construction. One question for you all--for the basement (where this room is) ceiling I insulated, drywalled and am putting up a drop ceiling all to help soundproof the room. But the ceiling tiles do have some sound absorption to them. Should I replace a few of the tiles mid-way between speaker and listener with more reflective material (drywall probably)? Anyway, you'll see my room isn't quite ready for critical listening yet and I have no room treatments up at this point (will do that later).
My initial impressions of Tekton. They built my speakers in ~3 days and they arrived in less than a week I think--pretty good responsiveness on order fulfillment. The packaging is very good and the speakers arrived undamaged (save for one small thing, non-issue I think). I have since emailed Eric twice with a question (from 4:00pm last Friday to now, 7:30am Tues) and haven't received a response, so that's a little disappointing, but they are a small company, so... On a different note, I've sent in questions to Marantz and Oppo as well and I can say without a doubt that Oppo is the best of the three companies, and better than most companies. Their packaging was excellent and they were very fast in responding to my question, providing a lot of detail in their response. Marantz didn't double box their receiver and both times (I had to send the first one back) it showed up with holes all the way through the box. They were also very slow in responding to an e-mailed question (4 days I think). Anyway, on to the Tektons.
My initial experience with the DIs were underwhelming. I have always been a skeptic about breaking in equipment (just not sure my ears could hear it), but even after 3-4 hours the speakers sounded a lot better to me...plus I spent a little more time with positioning them (and I'm still experimenting with position). Having the Alons between them probably doesn't help either speaker but I want to do some A/B listening. I currently have about 30-40 hours on the DIs and they do sound good. They certainly are more efficient than the Alons. To get similar sound levels on the Alons, I have to bump the volume +20% over the DIs (even when the Alons are using the Aragon and the DIs are with the Marantz). Imaging is fairly similar between the two but the DIs just sound fuller, fills the room with more sound--drums in particular seem to have more impact with the DIs (pun unintended). I need to spend more time with them. I will say this about the DIs...when I first got them (the second day) I listened to them for about 12 hours straight while working on the basement and I had absolutely zero fatigue which I don't remember being able to do with any other speakers I've owned (not sure that I tried that on all of them though).
Anyway, that's my initial impressions. Any general advice on anything sound related is welcome. I'll post more when I have more to post.
