The best tweeter design

a tweeter is only as good as the capacitor in front of it! a few years ago I have change the stock mundorf silver/gold caps in my avantgarde omega duos against teflon v-caps. the improvement was dramatic. a costly upgrade though.
really amazing how much music "gets lost" in even a good mundorf cap!!

duomike :

a tweeter is only as good as the capacitor in front of it!

I guarantee that if I were to swap your capacitors out and put in generic poly film capacitors you would not hear a difference - it is the knowing that changes your perception rather than the actual sound changing.

My friend did this experiment, a customer sent fancy "gold" capacitors to be used in multiple sets of speakers - he used those as requested except one pair of speakers was made with generic film capacitors.  If he could compare the speakers and hear which ones didn't have the gold capacitors he could have another pair of the speakers free, and the one set of gold capacitors would be installed in the next order regardless - the customer replied : don't bother using the gold capacitors anymore, there is no discernible difference no matter how try I hard to hear it (because he didn't know which one had the "regular" caps, and there was no actual difference in sound, he could not detect by listening).

The best tweeter design

Been giving some thought on the best tweeter design and I came up with the following list:

1) Plasma
2) Ribbon
3) Horn-loaded
4) Diamond dome
5) Ring radiator
6) Inverted dome

But since 1-3 are hard to implement or expensive most speakers start at #4, at best.

Thoughts?

1: Plasma way (out in front)
2: ESL (dedicated tweeter)
3: Planar (Mylar with voice coil etched into it)
4: Metalic Ribbon (Decca Kelly)
The rest are also ran's compared to the above.

Cheers George
  

@georgehifi  

In your opinion, where does an HVFR (High Velocity Folded Ribbon) rank in the pecking order? To my understanding, second (to the Plasma at #1).

In your opinion, where does an HVFR (High Velocity Folded Ribbon) rank in the pecking order? To my understanding, second (to the Plasma at #1).

Depending on lightness of the diaphragm, and the motor that drives it, I would perhaps rate it at No4.

Cheers George