That High Emotion unit sure looks interesting. I'd love to give those a listen. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but, aren't compression drivers limited in power handling?
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Much cricism has been made about the dispersion of ribbon tweeters. I have a pair of inexpensive 5" monitors with "isodynamic" ribbon tweeters. They are placed about 8' apart, with they're backs on the same plane as the widescreen that is between them. Listening to video in stereo, the sound stretches well the the outside of the speakers, but dialog is rock solid, sounds like it is coming from the TV. These hivi tweeters do have a sort of shallow waveguide(?) that is gently rounded to the sides, which may help. A well known DIYer tested ribbons and concluded that, at least on the bench, they didn't fair very well compared to good domes. I have had speakers with soft and metal domes, horns and these ribbons, and the inexpensive hivi ribbons have always been a favorite. |
So far one of the best I have seen is the new tweeter made by High Emotion Audio http://www.highemotionaudio.com. It is high efficiency, very fast but smooth without brightness and extremely wide dispersion angles (120 degrees). It is also rear-firing and crosses over at about 2KHz. It surpasses any ribbon I've heard (for example the Raal) and ESLs. They have at least two patents on it as far as I know. The only other tweeter that I have heard that is as fast (but much more limited dispersion angle) is the field-coil powered tweeter made by Classic Audio Loudspeakers. |
It is my own experience that implementation is at least as important as tweeter type. I have used Ionic, ribbon, and many different types of domes. The first two have many virtues but are hard to match with standard cone speakers. I have tried titanium domes and find I prefer soft domes to them; this is a personal choice, not "better" or "worse". As I like Scanspeak I decided to try some speakers with the "Revelator" tweeters, I have purchased some but not yet received them. |