Tweeter recommendation close to MDT33

This article may be a little long, but I just wanted to let you know how I stumbled upon Morel as a name, let alone the product that it sells. I now own a pair of the Morel Prelude speakers and they have the MDT33 tweeters and they sound fantastic. They are very smoothe, open and detailed and like Carl says , they can handle a lot of power. The Preludes also use the same woofer as the Eggleston Andras except in a treated paper cone. I don't know what your budget is, but the floor standing Prelude in a transmission-line enclosure is only 1700.00 retail. The tweeter I believe runs around 120.00 each. It has been compared to tweeters like the scanspeaks and the dynaaudio esotar and I don't know how much difference there is in sound because I haven't compared them, but I think I would take the mdt33 based on its price performance ratio over the esotar at over 400.00 a piece. It' a coincidence that I would even be commenting on this article if it weren't for the fact that I actually drove to Audio Studio to purchase a pair of used Spendor FL6's and trade my 1.5's Spendors in . I listened to the Spendors which I was familiar with because I had owned this set for 3 yrs. At this time I had never heard of Morel. I thought it was just a friend of mines last name. I listened to the fl6 and they sounded like Spendors which I liked. These speakers were on consignment and before I purchased the Spendors he suggested listening to a pair of Morel Preludes. It was like somene had forgotten to take the carton off the spendors before they wired them up. It was that dramatic. I was stunned because the only reason I took the 85 mile drive was to buy these Spendors. I could not believe the difference in the sound I heard in comparison. The Morels were superb in every aspect, especially in the high end in which they excelled. The stores owner and the distributer for Morel drivers said the difference you heard was that they used there top of the drivers in this speaker and he commented on how good the mdt33 tweeter was. I have owned these speakers for 10 months and there isn't a day that goes by that said I made a mistake in selecting the Morels . I also had a friend who is into designing his own speakers come over to my house to listen to my Morels, and he drove down to Boston to pick up the same drivers I have in the Preludes. Morels are great speakers and the MDT33 is a superb tweeter. Put it this way. The Merlin TSM uses all Morel drivers in its speaker. The tweeter in that unit sells for a little over 50.00 The TSM retails for over 2500.00 now. I know the design of the crossover is a large part of the money in that design, but this shows just how good a value the Preludes are, at least to me. Good luck in your search

Morel drivers are reasonably priced. They are generally copies of Dynaudio drivers, sometimes with a few twists(like double magnets). The fact that the Morel name doesn't carry the Dynaudio cache, means you get to pay less. Sometimes MUCH less. The information you were given about Vifa is quite correct. Actually Vifa and ScanSpeak are the same company. If you do not want to spring for the Morel MDT33, then go with the Vifa D27TG line. The exact model depends on what resonance frequency you need, presence of rear chamber and/or shielding or not, etc. These silk dome tweeters range from $18 - $25 over the net. I will not tell you they are better than Dynaudio, the Morel MDT33, or ScanSpeak, but they are much closer than anyone would expect. Very easy to listen to, yet extended and wonderfully detailed. Will easily handle all of your requirements. I am of the opinion that what is behind a driver is more important than the driver itself. The right crossover design/parts/construction will make that $20 tweeter sound better than a lot of people using the $120 tweeter. Please check out the Reliable(Rel)/MIT caps(same company now, I believe). Use the best capacitor that corresponds with the value you need. Teflon or polystyrene w/aluminum, tin, or copper foil if possible. Also use good wire inside the speaker. Teflon insulated high purity copper or silver is cheaper than you think(less than $15 to do both speakers with silver).

I disagree with Trelja, on the "what is behind a driver is MORE important than the driver itself". This is wrong, but the components upstream of the driver are nearly as important as the driver, they just aren't MORE important.....Also, to Chipster, the treated paper Morel woofers ARE the same ones used in the Eggleston Andra, and I own those woofers as well............Additionally, the MDT-33 is a TRIPLE magnet tweeter, and hence is surpassed in motor strength by only one other 1 inch dome tweeter (and it's NOT the Esotar): it's the Focal unit in the Utopia line. However, I don't consider ANY Focal tweeter to be comparable to any of the soft domes we are discussing here (even the affordable Vifa), because of the Focal's design being inherently undamped, and ringing at 17 kHz, well within the audible range. The motor and structure of the $2000 Focal tweeter is to be admired, however, and if they ever make an edge driven soft dome variant (not likely), I would suddenly get interested in JM Labs...

We have two areas of disagreement, Carl. First, the easy one. The Morel 6" midrange used by Eggleston is polypropylene, not paper. No room for argument on that one. The second point is more a matter of opinion. In my experience, a $25 tweeter(such as the aforementioned Vifa) can easily sound better than the $100+ models by using exotic quality parts behind it, coupled with good crossover design. Those parts would include film(polystyrene or teflon) and foil(aluminum, tin, copper, or silver) capacitors(haven't tried oil filled), silicone wire wound resistors, and reference quality wire. How many loudspeakers use these capacitors or resistors? I guarantee you it is an incredibly short list. And usually they will only use those caps to bypass a cheaper(but still good) one. That being said, the more expensive tweeter with those same exotic parts will be superior to the cheaper tweeter. No disagreement there.

I have owned the MDT33 and the Dynaudio Esotar and they are virtually constructed the same. Their technical info. sheets reveal them alost indistinguishable. Physically the Dynaudioa are much larger due to the mounting baffle which they claim acts as a heat sink. Though in my listening experience, the dynaudios infact sound better. I have no clue as to why they do.