Usher DMD tweeter upgrade: worth it?

Hi Hifi 223, Thanks for your advice but I am not of 'upgrade kind' of people. Well of the 'replacement kind'. This means 'occasionally resell' by which one get
50% (at best) of the 'old price' and 10% for the mod. price. When Usher produce BE-20 MK II with, say, DMD midrange you will better understand what I mean.

Regards,

I like mine just the way they are...I like the Ushers and they compare nicely to my Kef 201/2's.

I was working in Taiwan and taking the opportunity to get a pair of CP-777 DMD. I had the previous version compared with it side by side in the showroom. I picked the DMD version eventually is simply because DMD sounds nicer with better extension and integrity with the whole spectrum.

Vinylphile, You forget to mention the price of DMD in Taiwan. For such a price anyone would try I think. However by production of any driver there are deviations of, say,
3dB at least. Next to presellection of individual drivers
for a given speaker there is also the 'tuning' of the crossover to adjust the (mutual) irregualarites. Those facts are obviously overlooked by those who propose the
simple exchange of (whatever) drivers. Diamonds may be irresistable for the ladies but why should they be for the guys? Anyway I would never exchange my so called 'beryllium' tweeter for any diamond in my BE-20. One should think how difficult it is to produce good speakers not to mention exceptional kind. Every single part
is not only measured but also listened to. Even the wiring get the needed atention. And there come some amateur , looks to the wire inside and Heureka: 'cheap wire!'. And such an ameteur thinks to improve the design by putting some expensive wire (or capacitor) instead. If this 'art' of speaker production was so simple there would be no bad speakers but only exceptional kinds.

Regards,

I have the Mini Dancer 2's with BE tweeter. They sound very good. I am going to replace the crossover components with better ones, and possibly replace the internal wire.

Eugene, to answer your question, from my research, the DMD tweeter is:

On the positive side: smoother, and maybe more detailed.

On the negative side: less dynamic, and maybe less "musical".

This is all hearsay, from folks I trust. I haven't heard the DMD myself.

However, as you see in this thread, people obviously disagree as to whether the DMD is clearly an improvement over the BE.

Unlike the DMD, the crossover provided by GR Research (Danny Richie) should make a clear, substantial improvement to a pair of 718's. It was this crossover which convinced the folks at Usher America to really push the 718 bookshelf speaker in the first place, and it was this crossover that the reviewers all received (the 718's seem to have received unanimous praise in the audiophile press).

Your first step should be to determine whether your 718's have the Richie crossover. About the first 200 pairs of 718's sold in the U.S. had it. After that, they got the crossover from Taiwan (China?).

Cheers,
Hukk