pros and cons: beryllium vs ribbon tweeters in sound and emotions terms

I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think ribbon and folded ribbon tweeters in general tend to be more "forgiving" of problems upstream than most any metal tweeter or the best soft dome tweeters, like the Esotar.

I’ve heard some cases where other soft dome tweeter designs may be more forgiving as well.

The soft dome tweeters in my OHM speakers for example are definitely somewhat more forgiving then the Esotars in my Dynaudios.   Again part of that is the overall design and target sound I think perhaps as much as the tweeter alone.

I believe my Triangle Titus XS speakers use a Titanium dome tweeter. These normally are somewhere between the Esotar and OHM soft dome tweets in terms of overall attack, but with a quality signal tend to be somewhat laid back and smooth as well.

At least to my 56 year old ears.

When I was younger I could hear clearly to 20khz. Only to 12khz or so these days like most people my age. An up side is that as you get older, your ears become less sensitive to anything nasty that might be happening at high frequencies, often a result of noise and distortion rather than music, which is mostly just "air" above 12Khz or so.

I had Heil AMT speakers in my late teens and midfi electronics. A decent first try but not one that stuck with me.

I can remember hearing very sweet music from older Infinity and Apogee Slant 8, models- both featured ribbon tweeters!

Actually, I think the earliest Infinitys - such as the QRS - did use the Strathearn ribbon. Later Infinitys, such as the IRS, RS1, Betas, etc. used EMITS and EMIM planar drivers, but they weren't ribbons.

I've never heard any of those old full range ribbon Apogees that owners (with proper amplification) tend to cherish and never give up.   Would like to.   I feel the same way about Walsh drivers.  Once you've been there and like it nothing else is quite the same.