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Let's talk Tweeters!

Another thread which talked about specific speaker brands was taken over, so I’d like to start a new one.

Mind you, I do not believe in a "best" type of tweeter, nor do I believe in a best brand of speaker, so lets keep that type of conversation out, and use this instead to focus on learning about choices speaker designers make and what that may mean to the end user.

There is no such thing as a speaker driver without trade offs. Some choices must be forsworn in exchange for another.

In the end, the materials used, magnet and motor structure, and crossover choices as well as the listening room come together to make a great speaker, of which there are many. In addition, we all listen for different things. Imaging, sweetness, warmth, detail, dance-ability and even efficiency so there is no single way to measure a driver and rate it against all others.

Also, please keep ads for your 4th dimensional sound or whatever off this thread. Thanks.
erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,042 posts
 
Driver Quality

Lots of high tech labels may be ascribed to drivers. Such as:

  • Beryllium
  • Diamond
  • Ceramic
  • AMT
  • Ribbon
  • Ring Radiator
And that’s fine, but truth is that in all of these types of tweeters manufacturing quality varies a great deal. For instance, Accuton makes at least two different ceramic cone 6.5" midwoofers, with vastly different price points, both have a ceramic diaphragm. The prices for the same size AMT may be between $30 and $500 (from very diff. manufacturers), and yes, they are completely different. About the only thing they may share is dispersion, but frequency response, distortion and dynamic range are simply not the same.

One of my pet peeves is diamond or Be tweeters with micro drivers. Tiny motors barely larger than the diaphragm. They are never that smooth or have that much dynamic range.

Two of the most important measurements for me are Comulative Spectral Decay and compression. The first measures energy storage, or "blur" that a tweeter adds to the sound because it won’t stop fast enough. The second measures how a tweeter’s response changes at different volumes. Really outstanding drivers have very fast decay, and very little compression. Among the top-class Be/Ceramic/AMT/Ribbont tweets they all achieve this. Then there is everybody else! :)
erik_squires OP
16,042 posts
 
Please replace Roger Sander's "new" company, Sander's Sound where I typed InnerSound. Sorry Roger, I'm stuck in the past.

http://sanderssoundsystems.com/
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,911 posts
 
Pistonic motion critical
starts and stops both measured
impulse prrformance
breakup where does it occur and relative to crossover or in case of tweeters... how far above 20 k

i own and listen to two legendary tweeters every day - carbon fiber dome and a 24" true ribbon.....

ah.... 

asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,592 posts
 
I use and enjoy a pair of ESS AMT's (the 'big black blocks) as a reference for high end hilarity.  Fast and clean, and hard to find woofers to keep up with them.  Other ribbons can be in that range but the only way to improve is to 'line source' them, which can pretty pricey pretty quickly...

All of that, of course, IMHO....

I use them as a benchmark for the Walsh tweeters I'm fabricating.  Dipoles are nice, but if I can make an omni that follows That act...sweet. *S*

If I 'get there', y'all will hear of it second.  I'll obviously be the first. *L*
erik_squires OP
16,042 posts
 
Hey @asvjerry

Usually when I hear about issues integrating woofers with very light tweeters it's a frequency response issue, and integration with the room issue.

Below 400 Hz especially, woofers are going to have issues the tweets will never have, so it's kind of an unfair comparison in my mind.

I can make a lot of reasonably good 15" sub's sound as "fast" as any ESL/planar/magnetic. But it's a giant PITA. :)

Best,


E
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