Let's talk Tweeters!

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*

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

Hi, Eric, and back atcha'...*S*

No real argument from this mortal about that....room integration is everyone's devil, and freq. response I beat over the head with active eq.  And yes, it's unfair to try to get high mass to respond as quickly.  So I'll just be unfair about it and be the devil's advocate. *L*  Not likely to be my first foray into That territory. ;)

Smaller woofers with less mass seem to do better in that regard, 8" being the 'break point' to my ears.  I deal with the issue by 'high bass' going to a 6" with a passive, then to 12" for the lower end.  For the deep stuff, a small ported sub...

I'll bet getting a 15" to behave is a major pain.  Kudos for the ability to attain that niche.  I've got an old 18" driver in great shape that I'm looking to torture into being a sub, but I'll match it with things of it's era just in an attempt to 'be fair about it'.  Damn things' nearly as old as I am, and I wouldn't ask self to try to move quickly, either. *L*

I'm a sucker for 'antique audio'....maybe due for therapy over that...;)

I'm with Jerry on this one.
I can still remember the sound of my Heil ESS AMT  "rock monitors".
Cleanest, sharpest & fastest highs I've ever heard.
I bought them over 40 years ago & I kept them until the late '90's.
Nothing I've had since can ever make me forget them.
Only wish I knew now what I knew then!

Hi Guys,   Looking at the last few comments about mixing light mass drivers with heavy mass drivers,  speed and matching. I recently was on another thread where there was an argument going on about mass and speed.  A lot of folks out there just don't understand what it takes in drivers.... I guess I'm going to tackle it by comparing it to 2 cars...Lets take a 1970 Cadillac Deville with a 472 cubic inch engine and a 1970 Volkswagen bug with a 97 cubic inch engine...  Put the Volkswagen engine in caddy,  will it move?  it sure wouldn't move well, how would it accelerate?  what about if you down shifted and had to slow down? The engine could not properly power this automobile without some serious souping up.   Lets put the Cadillac engine in the bug.... Well, It'll be fast for sure,  but the bugs suspension would not handle the big engine, if you stomped on the accelerator the car would be all over the road.  You would have to seriously beef this automobiles suspension to have any chance of handling this engine.... Speaker Drivers aren't a whole lot different. A certain amount of mass requires enough motor to move it.  We can tune the suspension to help,  or turbo charge the engine (maybe neodymium) to improve performance but in every case matching mass & motor is what its all about.... On any driver,  add mass and sensitivity will drop, MMS/QMS/QTS  will rise,  as you add motor the driver moves easier,  get too much motor and the QMS/QTS get so low that the driver will no longer go down to its lower frequencies, a real problem on a woofer, but accurate for all traditional drivers.
Ribbons are a different beast, very light I have a pair of Founteks here at my house now as well as a pair of the old ESS Folded horns that were mentioned above... They are fast,  but with careful selection they can be matched....I also love how wonderful impedance and phase are on ribbons.  I'd love the Ess with a well matched 15. I really like ribbons, but you know,  I still love a good dome too.  
Tim