Tekton Pendragon Loudspeaker Questions:

[Cos]

I am in the process of upgrading my current HT setup and I was looking at my main speaker options. Want to stay within the 3-4k range for speakers and while I was checking out the Revel F206 and Studio 100v5 I came some reviews about Tekton: The Tekton Pendragon Loudspeaker is advertised as the second coming of Christ through the marketing and reviews I have read. I would like appreciate feedback from any owners of these speakers and how they think they compare. I did like the Revel F206 I tested out and while I have had great success with my Paradigm 100v3s I am starting to feel that there are some better options out. Completely off topic, why doesn't my Enter Key work on these forums?

 

[ratso]

here's a million page thread on the subject

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/loudspeakers/81002-tekton-next-big-thing.html

 

[Cos]

I love million page threads where about 2 people own the speakers It did have some good links, just hard to buy a speaker where I can't audition it first.

 

[V8POWER]

Is waiting for the Pendragons really worth it? I have run into the eternal wait from Eric and I am starting to rethink my position.

Are there owners out there that care to commit on why they would or would not buy something different.

Thank you !!

 

[TLS Guy]

Is waiting for the Pendragons really worth it? I have run into the eternal wait from Eric and I am starting to rethink my position.

Are there owners out there that care to commit on why they would or would not buy something different.

Thank you !!

Sounds like another speaker company going down the tubes to me.

If you like the Revels buy them.

If you want a monstrosity go ahead with the Pendragons

I have designed more than a few speakers now. And I would never drive a large speaker cone up that high, never ever. There are good engineering reasons for that, very good ones. That is why you don't see other people do it.

A review from an owner who bought a speaker like that is not reliable. They will like it even if its horrid.

If you want to post further go to the original thread, we don't need another one on these way off the beam speakers.

 

[ski2xblack]

He is going through a divorce which has completely disrupted his whole life, business included. And while I too cast a critical eye toward the Pendragons, he does the best cab work you'll find anywhere. I hope he makes it through this difficult time.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Sounds like another speaker company going down the tubes to me.

If you like the Revels buy them.

If you want a monstrosity go ahead with the Pendragons

I have designed more than a few speakers now. And I would never drive a large speaker cone up that high, never ever. There are good engineering reasons for that, very good ones. That is why you don't see other people do it.

A review from an owner who bought a speaker like that is not reliable. They will like it even if its horrid.

If you want to post further go to the original thread, we don't need another one on these way off the beam speakers.

Such subtlety. Surely you can be more direct. But an objective question. When you say you would never cross the woofer "that high"--do you know how high it is driven? I haven't seen that spec. Is it 1500 Hz?

 

[TLS Guy]

Such subtlety. Surely you can be more direct. But an objective question. When you say you would never cross the woofer "that high"--do you know how high it is driven? I haven't seen that spec. Is it 1500 Hz?

I don't think that tweeter will go low enough to keep the large cone out of break up mode.

Even in the good old days, big cones were crossed by 1200 Hz.

It's too bad about his divorce, never a good plan.

 

[VicTorious1]

I haven't heard the Pendragons, but I have the Tekton M-Lores. They sound good for what I'm using them for. I'm not sure how accurate and neutral they are as female voices seem to be more forward/prominent than in other speakers I've compared them to. They have plenty of great reviews, but few measurements are available. Most audiophiles here and on AVS write the Pendragons off as flawed designs. I'm no engineer so I can't say whether or not that is the case.

For their price, there are various speakers that I would purchase over them without first auditioning them. I've been quite fascinated with high sensitivity speakers recently: Noesis by JTR, Seaton offerings, GedLee, Pi and others. Whether Eric engages in sound design principles (no pun intended) is yet unknown; however, I'm not one to simply write something off due to lack of info.

TLS and others who are respected on these forums have made their opinions known, but keep in mind they aren't working with all the facts. Initially, various members erroneously identified the tweeters and said the design was flawed, but readjusted their assessments after more info came out (yet still believe the design is flawed). That well may be the case; I'd like to reserve judgment until we see some measurements.

With that said, I don't think I would blindly (deafly?) drop $4K on speakers I haven't heard. You can find glowing reviews for almost any speaker. The M-Lores I purchased for approx $600 and that was a blind impulse purchase. They also have a smaller driver than the Pendragons; nonetheless, if high sensitivity isn't what you're after, I'd look at offerings from Philharmonic Audio, Salk Sound, Ascend, Revel, KEF or any of the various other offerings which you can audition and have objective data available.

I have Philharmonic 2s (which sound amazing for music and HT), KEF LS50s (great near field monitors for my work office), EMP Tek E41s and Tekton M-Lores. My Phils sound the best of these speakers followed by the KEFs, but the M-Lores are a fun little speaker. Would I recommend them to others? The jury's still out for me as I haven't yet auditioned them enough (with my wife recently having a new baby), but I don't think they sound bad at all. It all depends on what you're looking for.

No one can say these are accurate speakers until they've been measured. If that doesn't matter to you, feel free to audition them or buy them if you trust others' subjective reviews. Jury's still out.

 

[dduval]

^^^ Well stated...

 

[gtpsuper24]

M-Lores seem kinda interesting and $649 pr doesn't seem bad at all (unless shipping is crazy high). But the price of some of the others Pendragon, I think there might be better options like JTR. I think a CD would be a better fit than 1" domes and dual 10". Just seems the tweeters would run out of steam before the 10s will. Which is one of the reasons Axiom claims to use multiple tweeters and they only have to keep up with 5.25" unless the Tekton tweeters are much higher quality than the Axioms (which is probably likely.)

 

[VicTorious1]

I think a CD would be a better fit than 1" domes and dual 10". Just seems the tweeters would run out of steam before the 10s will. Which is one of the reasons Axiom claims to use multiple tweeters and they only have to keep up with 5.25" unless the Tekton tweeters are much higher quality than the Axioms (which is probably likely.)

Not sure if they would have to be higher quality tweeters than Axiom uses; they simply need to be able to be crossed over low enough to prevent the 10" woofer/transducer from operating outside of its optimal range. That's assuming the three tweeters are crossed over to handle different frequency ranges than one another. If I'm not mistaken, the three tweeters are employed to maintain the desired sensitivity.

 

[Cos]

Picked up an old thread of mine, I just stayed with Paradigm's and went with the V5s. While paradigm's don't get much love on these forums I am satisfied. I did test them against B&W, Revels and Golden Ear, and they were my listening preference. That along with the fact my dealer gives me incredible pricing

 

[bitterwaste]

Thanks Vic for the info! if you every have a GTG let me know and I will be happy to listen to them too some time as well!

 

[V8POWER]

Does anyone have the Pendragons? Has anyone recently received the Pendragons? Are they worth the wait and cost?

 

[ptalar]

I ordered a pair of Pendragons on Friday 11/28 with grills and they arrived in perfect condition on Tuesday 12/2 with grills. They were the standard black Pendragons with the stock capacitor. They replaced an old set of Bose 701 Series II speakers, which were not bad sounding. The main speaker replacements were the final part of a 4 year Home Theater upgrade. The Pendragons were chosen based on a number of positive articles and owner comments.

So far, I have been quite pleased with the Pendragons. They are quite an improvement over the Bose Speakers. I have been running the speakers all day for the past couple of days with all kinds of music and home theater movie tracks. They appear to get warmer/smoother as they break in. They are full bodied speakers in their output. I have an SVS Subwoofer, the PB12/plus 2 (two 12 inch subs in one box) and I have had to turn down the gain on the subs to work with the Pendragons. Using a sound pressure meter I have retweaked all the speaker output levels (I have a 7.1 system) to be consistent with the Pendragons and the results have been quite impressive. I have no regrets. The speakers are big but I have the room in my Home Theater room. I am getting use to the size, not a big deal.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

...an old set of Bose 701 Series II speakers, which were not bad sounding.

Compared to the Bose 701, I bet a pair of cheap Infinity P363 or Pioneer FS towers would sound great too.

Of course, I'm not saying the Tekton speakers don't sound good compared to any speaker you've heard. I'm just saying even cheap speakers from Infinity, Pioneer, & EMP sound better than or at least as good as much more expensive Bose speakers.

 

[ptalar]

Compared to the Bose 701, I bet a pair of cheap Infinity P363 or Pioneer FS towers would sound great too.

Of course, I'm not saying the Tekton speakers don't sound good compared to any speaker you've heard. I'm just saying even cheap speakers from Infinity, Pioneer, & EMP sound better than or at least as good as much more expensive Bose speakers.

That's a fair statement. I was meaning to get rid of the Bose for a long time. I looked at the SVS Ultra Towers, Salk Song Towers and the Ascension Sierra Towers as well as the Pendragons. I was going to pull the trigger on the SVS Ultras until I found a couple of good articles on the Pendragon as well as feed back from owners. Unless you have the chance to listen to all these speakers in the same listening room with the same system it is hard to tell. It was a little bit of a risk. But I am happy with the Pendragons. I feel I got my moneys worth. Believe me, I would of returned them and taken the $467 shipping hit if they were bad. They are good to go. When it comes to speakers, as you know, the subject is very personal and subjective, plus you can spend anywhere from a couple of hundred to many tens of thousands of dollars on speaker towers. My budget was $2500. There is no good definitive article that rates all these speakers and picks the best. They all have their good and bad points. I consider myself lucky buying like this but it paid off. Cheers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's a fair statement. I was meaning to get rid of the Bose for a long time. I looked at the SVS Ultra Towers, Salk Song Towers and the Ascension Sierra Towers as well as the Pendragons. I was going to pull the trigger on the SVS Ultras until I found a couple of good articles on the Pendragon as well as feed back from owners. Unless you have the chance to listen to all these speakers in the same listening room with the same system it is hard to tell. It was a little bit of a risk. But I am happy with the Pendragons. I feel I got my moneys worth. Believe me, I would of returned them and taken the $467 shipping hit if they were bad. They are good to go. When it comes to speakers, as you know, the subject is very personal and subjective, plus you can spend anywhere from a couple of hundred to many tens of thousands of dollars on speaker towers. My budget was $2500. There is no good definitive article that rates all these speakers and picks the best. They all have their good and bad points. I consider myself lucky buying like this but it paid off. Cheers.

The ONLY important thing is you are happy with the sound.

 

[ptalar]

The ONLY important thing is you are happy with the sound.

As a 9 month follow-up here is where I stand:

I purchased the basic Tekton Pendragons in December of 2014 based on a couple of online reviews. I know the best way to demo speakers is to demo them in your home with your system and room acoustics. Well that is better said than done. I was replacing a set of Bose 701s which in my opinion were not bad sounding. With that said I received the Pendragons and hooked them up. I was not happy. I like a more treble type audio with a lot of clarity. I am not a videophile or audiophile just a guy with a basic system to listen to once in a while that I upgrade periodically, about every 5 to 10 years. I was thinking about selling the Pendragons but did not want to spend another $2500 or more for another set of speakers. So I purchased the Mundorf Capacitor Upgrade for the Pendragons. I installed them last weekend and I have been listening to them. It is my perception that the whole personality of the Pendragons changed. A much warmer tone overall with much more clarity from the tweeters which I like. I probably should of bought the Mundorfs initially but at the time it was a $750 upgrade. Eric sold me the Mundorf capacitors as a retrofit for $375 shipped. Retrofitting the Pendragons was not hard. The hardest part was cutting off the wire from the old capacitor from the crossover and soldering the new Mundorf into place. On the first try I cut the wrong wire but was able to solder the proper wires back together and install the Mundorf. It is a relatively tight place for soldering. I am a big guy with big hands so I am not too surgical. However I got it done. I hot glued the Mundorf into place on a piece of wood stiffener that sat below the crossover. Reinstalled the 10" lower woofer and reinstalled the speaker cover and hooked up the speaker wires from the AV Receiver. Tested the speaker by turning on the AV and it worked and the AV Receiver did not burn out. I then did the second Pendragon. It went much faster and I was able to cut the correct wire on the first try off the basic capacitor that came with the Pendragon crossover. The basic capacitor is much smaller than the Mundorfs by the way. The reason why I had a hard time cutting the wire off the base capacitor was that it was not visible from my angle when cutting it. Easy to cut one of the other wires. I put a mirror on the back of the speaker and was able to see what I was doing. Got smarter. The speaker sat on its back on my carpet while I was conducting the surgery on the Pendragons.


After buttoning up the Pendragons and hooking up to the AV Receiver I fired up the receiver with the system set up in stereo mode and the receiver playing a variety of music from Pandora, Quick Mix. I must say the whole persona of my Home Theater System changed. The Mundorfs really worked. For me. The system plays well with my SVS Subwoofer in other sound modes like the music halls such as the Roxy and the Movie modes. Originally the Pendragons were not synching well with my Subwoofer with the basic capacitor. The Mundorfs provided the balance and clarity and richness of sound I was looking for. Is it better than a B&W 800 that costs $10,000 a pair? I don't know. I never heard one. The quality of the music is much better than the Bose 701s. The music is more robust and full. The sound really fills my room. Very happy Pendragon owner.


If the Mundorfs had not of worked I probably would of sold them off and looked at the Song Towers or the Sierra Speakers that are made nearby me in So Cal. I believe the Sierras are made in San Clemente. I would of probably listened to them there and bought them with all the upgrades if I liked them in the showroom. That was my plan. Plus it is easy to return them since they are local and within close driving distance.


I also listened to a couple of movies. One was Jupiter Rising in Blue-Ray in True HD and the other was The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 in regular DVD and 5.1 Dolby Digital. The system sounded good for both of those DVDs. To me. I am happy.


Cheers.