Ring radiator tweeters - the future?

Yo Lush,
Maybe you need to have your hearing checked? Perhaps you like "tizzy" sound & call it laid back? Is that also possible? Just because someone doesn't agree w/ your analysis of the Polk speaker sound, doesn't mean he/she needs a hearing check!
It is possible that the amp &/or CDP were not up-to-par in both my auditions. I auditioned them in 2 diff audio stores both times & not in my own system.
However, heard the ring tweeter in one other completely different speaker that exhibited the same sharpness from time-to-time, I'll say that, for me, some of the fault does lie in the ring radiator tweeter. If I can help it, I'd rather not have it in my speaker.

I used to own a 3 way floorstander with a tonegen ribbon tweeter (Heybrook sextets) and those ribbon tweeters were the sweetest treble I ever heard, and neither bulky nor inefficient.

I felt they sounded real nice on the Audio Physic Virgo III. Airy and detailed but no metallic bite that I could detect. Would love to hear the ML Kestrel II, which uses 'em also. Haven't heard the Polks but they seem like very nice products for the money.

I hope Ring radiator tweeters aren't the future. Since I don't use tweeters at all. LOL

Infact I never plan to use them again, unless my upper frequency hearing gets so bad to where I have no choice but to bump up the dBs in this area.

Look at where the heart of music is on this chart. I've discovered myself some tweeters add artificiality to the music in certain cases.

Musical Instrument Range Chart . If your speakers can't get this part of the frequency range right. Who cares about a tweeter?

If you listen for overtones even more than you listen for the actual notes, you begin to care about a good tweeter very quickly.

Gmood1...The frequency range chart that you cite is for the fundamental tones. Harmonics do go to 20KHz and even higher. But I do agree with you that the low and mid range is most important, and a bad tweeter is worse than none at all.