250 MODELS AND COUNTING: AN INTERVIEW WITH TEKTON DESIGN’S ERIC ALEXANDER

One measure of Eric Alexander’s drive and versatility is that, by his own count, 19-yearold Tekton Design has engineered and built roughly 250 different models of loudspeakers, one at a time, made to order, with a team that currently numbers eight people.

RvB: Your speaker designs vary quite a bit. Sometimes the ports are in the front, sometimes in the back. You make speakers that are intended to be coupled with SET amps, and others that do well when driven with considerable power. You have an open-baffle model in the works, and so on. Do you add new models because you essentially love the thrill of designing, or because you see niches in the speaker market that you rush to fill?

EA: I see the need for small monitors, smaller towers, midsized towers, and larger towers in my lineup. I’d like to believe there’s a need and an explanation for every model we’ve produced to date. But we’re also a custom shop, and if we count the one-off custom speakers we’ve produced, it comes to around 250 different models. As things have evolved, I’ve observed trends, voids, and niches that I feel need to be addressed, so we go to work on that. For example, the Moab started life as a model intended to provide audiophiles with an Ulfberht experience at half the price.1 And yes, I love my job!

RvB: I’m wondering if you’ve thought about playing with different form factors for your cabinets. Maybe rounded enclosures à la Sonus faber speakers or Focal Sopras, or wild-and-wooly forms like the pill-shaped Devialets or the Giya “curls,” or B&W’s and Gallo’s globes. What’s the attraction of sticking with rectangular boxes?

EA: It’s what we’re known for. I’m not too interested in producing stunning visual pieces of art that second as high-performance loudspeakers. There are competitors who already cover that base. I’m a form-following-function audio designer who’s comfortable hanging out right where we’ve carved out our niche in the audiophile world. The best-sounding vintage loudspeakers weren’t visual pieces of art, and a loudspeaker doesn’t require visual flair to sound amazing.

RvB: I’ve seen people respond with incredulity when they see the seven-tweeter polycell array you’re known for. They often don’t understand that those tweeters collectively act as an ultralight midrange driver. And they seem to think there’ll be comb-filtering effects and phase-accuracy issues.

EA: The center tweeter is the only highfrequency producer. The circle arrays above and below the tweeter are precisely tackling the midrange duties, making for a revealing, low-distortion presentation that produces dramatic realism with high output capabilities. The loudspeaker is carefully engineered, taking comb-filtering considerations into account. But yeah, audiophiles who haven’t heard our product intuitively get skeptical about the arrangement.

RvB: In direct listening comparisons between the OG Moabs and the Be version, I almost always preferred the latter—but often not by a huge amount. This doesn’t imply that I find them disappointing; it’s just that it seems to me that you set the bar very high with the original Moabs, and met it. What do those beryllium drivers add that, to your ears, is especially dramatic or exquisite?

EA: My goal with the beryllium edition was to go all out in search of fidelity.

RvB: Depending on configuration, the beryllium version is four to six times as expensive. Is it also four to six times as good?

EA: The beryllium model has a slight edge, but I’d agree it isn’t four or six times better. When we switch from our standard fabric dome tweeters to all beryllium, that’s a $12,000 addition. The cabinets are visually similar but internally different in construction, with the beryllium version containing more reinforcements and materials. Next, we have the addition of high-end paint work similar to Wilson and Magico. Put all that together, and it firmly plants the speakers in the $30,000/pair range. Pricing differentials like this are quite common in the realm of cool man products. For example, why is a stainless Rolex Daytona $25,000 more than the stainless Rolex Submariner model?

RvB: Beryllium drivers are associated in many people’s minds with brightness, but I don’t get that from the new Moabs. To my ears, they are more laid-back—that is, not treble-forward—than those 30 Be drivers suggest.

EA: I’m glad that’s what you’re discerning. I’m always careful to not voice speakers too forward or bright. The Satori beryllium drivers we use are exceptionally linear, and that helps too.

RvB: How do you voice your speakers? What’s your benchmark?

EA: I’ve been a drummer since I was 12, so that’s 45 years. I’ve loved being immersed in what real live music feels and sounds like. That’s my baseline reference for tuning and voicing a loudspeaker. A majority of the work is completed through computer simulation; then we do a final voicing through careful listening. Live music, including the human voice, is full of nuances, overtones, and microdetails that can instantly turn on a dime and become visceral, dynamic, and energetic. My primary goal is to produce a loudspeaker with those reproduction abilities.

RvB: When I knock on the Moab’s cabinet, it doesn’t seem especially inert. Why is that? Manufacturers like Rockport and Magico go to enormous lengths to make enclosures that don’t vibrate at all.

EA: The moment we move to produce an inert version of the Moab, our business model changes. The price will double, the weight will be three times more, and you’ll need piano movers to get them into your house. We’re not the only manufacturer doing cabinets like this. For example, Harbeth and ATC have been making loudspeakers based on similar cabinet-shaping philosophies for a lot longer than I’ve been around, and they both produce wonderful-sounding loudspeakers. Speaker design is an exercise in trade-offs, and I believe we’ve found a wonderful balance between fidelity and price.

1 The Ulfberht is one of Tekton’s top-tier models.