Floorstanding loudspeakers — Tekton Design PMD CONTROL MONITOR

The PMD Control Monitor is a large floor-standing studio monitor from Tekton Design, sold at USD 5,000 per pair. Tekton's own announcement expands PMD as Professional Monitoring Devices, and the speaker is intended as a control-room monitor, although its size means it stands on the floor rather than on stands. It is built in the USA by the company founded by Eric Alexander.

Key specs that matter

Four 10-inch woofers are combined with a proprietary Poly-Cell array for the midrange and high frequencies, with no element count given. The enclosure is a sealed box aligned to a second-order Bessel response. Frequency response is 20 Hz to 30 kHz, sensitivity is 96 dB at 2.83 V and 1 m, nominal impedance is 8 ohms and power handling is 900 W. Each cabinet measures about 1,270 x 686 x 406 mm and weighs about 61.2 kg.

Engineering and use context

A Bessel alignment is a sealed-box tuning with a gentle low-frequency roll-off and a well-controlled step response. Four 10-inch woofers give the PMD a cone area comparable to that of two 15-inch drivers, and the sealed cabinet still reaches the bottom of the audible range. The cabinet is more than twice as wide as a Pendragon tower. A sealed box also removes port noise, an advantage for a studio monitor heard from close range. The Poly-Cell array follows US Patent 9247339 and further pending patents covering Tekton's grouped low-mass radiators. Tekton describes the PMD as friendly to tube amplifiers, which relates to its easy load and high sensitivity. Buyers can choose colours, a crossover upgrade, grilles and footers. Delivery within the continental US carries no charge.

Pairing

For studio use, the PMD connects to a monitor controller or preamplifier through a stereo power amplifier, and the power handling allows high-power solid-state amplifiers for control-room levels. In a home, tube amplifiers of modest power can drive it. The wide cabinets need a room well above 20 m2 and space on either side. With four woofers in a sealed box, a separate subwoofer is not needed.

Alternatives

The Tekton Design Polycell 15 is a tower with a Poly-Cell style array, using two 15-inch woofers with 103 dB sensitivity and 1,500 W handling at USD 4,670.