Oregon, USA · 1979 – c. 2001

Tekura

“Introduces controlled quantization error, for measurement and effect.”

Tekura was the oldest of the four houses and the least sentimental. It built precision instruments for measuring digital audio's flaws — signal analyzers, quantization and jitter meters, converter test sets — and its analyzers became the reference against which studios and broadcasters characterized their converters. If a Tekura scope showed it, it was true. Measurement went soft: PC-based analysis did the work of a rack for a hundredth of the price, and the audio-instruments division was sold off around 2001, ending without ceremony. Orrery bought the remaining reference units and the calibration archive at auction. Used as effects, these instruments are precision turned inside out.

The Tekura catalogue — 11 instruments

OR-0012 effect Ser. Type 4400 · Ser. No. 00417-A 1988

4400 — Quantization Analyzer

The bench standard for characterizing bit-depth error, reborn as the archive's cleanest destruction tool.

OR-0013 effect Ser. Type 2200 · Ser. No. 01138-B 1990

2200 — Signal Decimator

The sample-rate side of destruction, with the honesty an instrument demands: it lets you choose clean band-limited decimation or the aliased kind, deliberately.

OR-0014 effect Ser. Type 1601 · Ser. No. 00092-A 1992

1601 — Jitter Reference

An instrument for injecting clock jitter in measured amounts — as an effect, a subtle, frequency-dependent smear and shimmer that most tools can't make.

OR-0015 effect Ser. Type 3100 · Ser. No. 00461-C 1994

3100 — Perceptual Codec

The lab's generic perceptual coder, with the masking model exposed on the panel — a measurement framing of the "lossy compression" sound, tunable from transparent to obviously crushed.

OR-0016 effect Ser. Type 1050 · Ser. No. 02207-A 1986

1050 — Reconstruction Filter

A converter's output stage on its own: choose how the samples become sound.

OR-0017 effect Ser. Type 5150 · Ser. No. 00318-B 1991

5150 — DAT Reference

The clinical companion to Yumeo's consumer DAT: 16-bit that is almost, but not quite, clean.

OR-0018 effect Ser. Type 6100 · Ser. No. 00203-A 1995

6100 — Spectrum Analyzer

The real-time spectrum bench, turned into a spectral processor.

OR-0019 effect Ser. Type 6200 · Ser. No. 00147-A 1996

6200 — Correlation Analyzer

The goniometer and phase meter, plus the stereo tools that measurement implies.

OR-0020 effect Ser. Type 4200 · Ser. No. 00589-B 1985

4200 — Distortion Analyzer

A THD reference that adds exactly the harmonics you dial — measured distortion as a precise, clean harmonic generator.

OR-0021 effect Ser. Type 1200 · Ser. No. 03014-A 1982

1200 — Noise Reference

The lab's calibrated source: white, pink, and band-limited noise at exact levels, plus test tones and correct dither.

OR-0022 effect Ser. Type 1100 · Ser. No. 00776-A 1989

1100 — Response Analyzer

The swept-sine rig that measures a system's impulse response — and then lets you play through it.