Tekton Double Impact & Comb Filtering


Like many of you, I have been pondering purchasing these speakers but am very curious about the unusual tweeter array. I asked the smartest speaker person that I know (he is a student of Sean Olive) about the design and below is what he had to say.   

"In theory it could work, but the driver spacing means that the crossover point would need to be very low.
He is using the SB acoustics tweeter which is 72mm in diameter, center to center on the outside opposing drivers is around 5.7 inches, which is about 2400Hz. This means that combing would stop between 1/4 to 1/2 of the wavelength (between 1200-600Hz) is where the outside tweeters should start playing nice with each other.
Since he is not using low enough crossover points he has created a comb filtering monster. Now while it's not the great point source that was promised, it's no worse than most line arrays and the combing will average itself out given enough listening distance.

The MTM spacing on the other hand is ridiculous. Hopefully he is cutting the top end off on one of those midrange drivers to avoid combing."

seanheis1
213runnin, don’t you own Totem Rainmaker? Check the Stereophile measurements on them. The same 12 db swing in frequency response you are blasting Tekton for (-5/+7 db). Totem’s specs state +/- 3 db, which are off by 100 percent. What good are those specs? Lots of really bad cabinet resonances too. I thought that kind of coloration wasn’t your cup of tea. I have never heard Rainmaker so I can’t comment on how it sounds, but the measurements do not look very good. But I have heard Arro, and liked them well enough for what they do....


csmgolf, 2 things. First, that review is from 2004, and the Rainmakers have gone through some changes since then. Totem is both revered and hated for improving their speakers from time to time without so much as a "V2" in the upgraded speaker. So a measurement from 2004 is not going to be an accurate representation of the current sound. Also, the Rainmaker was specifically designed to have the "U" shaped frequency response that was first made popular in the 70’s, by a British speaker I believe. Either way, at least Totem put a decibel range on the frequency response, unlike Tekton.

Second, the Rainmaker is a 1200 speaker. At that price is it made in North America, the cabinets alone take 2 hours to complete. The parts are all from non China based manufacturers, as Totem is one of the few that tries to stand against all manufacturing ending up in China. So one will pay a premium for that stand. Bottom line, the Double Impact is a $3000 speaker, and shouldn’t have the same compromises WRT cabinet resonances and wider than usual frequency swings.

Look, buy what you want, and like what you want. But this over-the-top defensiveness for anything Tekton is silly. Personal attacks against me and my Rainmakers(I’ve owned about 15 different pairs of speakers in the last 3 years) is also silly. Just accept the fact that not everyone will love the speakers you love.
csmgolf was only pointing out that your rainmakers measure worse than the Enzo which is not even the speaker being discussed here.Totem's specs state +/- 3 db which is not even close to what Stereophile measured. I don't really see that as over the top defensiveness nor an attack against your rainmakers. He doesn't even own Tektons and said he didn't really care for the ones he did hear all that much. 
And the nincompoopery just keeps hitting the fan. Some folks are insufferable.
Mofo, the defensiveness and attacks I was referring to were coming from several posters, not just one. I’m sure CSM can answer for him or herself.  Miki, no one is forcing you to read a thing.
It's hard not to notice the similarities between this thread and the several on fuses.