The following isn’t a claim about some objective technical truth; it’s only my subjective assessment:
The best tweeter I’ve ever experienced (or my favorite) is the MBL (omni) tweeters. I remember the first time I encountered the MBL at a CES show many years ago. For every speaker that touted it’s exotic or expensive tweeter, I often ended up hearing the tweeter "look at me!"
Ribbons, domes hard and soft, whatever, some gained clarity and air and verisimilitude over others, but especially with drum cymbal there was always a sense of those sounds being reproduced by a tweeter.
One of the constant disappointments in hi fi reproduction of upper frequencies is how small and thin high frequency instruments become relative to real life - no matter how vivid they are through the system. You just have to tap a drum stick against a ride cymbal to see just how BIG and round that sound is, compared to the squeezed down version that comes out of most hi-fi rigs.
Then I entered the MBL room and literally for the first time ever I heard drum cymbals sounding like they did in real life - big, rich, round, clean, timbrally bang on...it just didn’t sound like tweeters or mechanical reproduction, it just sounded like drum cymbals. To my ears it put every other speaker’s attempts at natural high frequencies to shame. (I know Jonathan Valin of TAS has made similar comments). This impression of the MBL upper frequencies has remained fairly constant over the years. And now having owned the smaller MBL 121 stand mounted speakers, with their omni mids and tweeters, the impression remains. I’ve never heard life like detail reproduced more effortlessly and naturally. (I also own other speakers, e.g Thiel 3.7s, Waveform, Hales, and have had many other speakers and none I’ve heard at my place, stores or shows do it better.
That said, I heard a demo of the Raidho small monitors that with vocals was mindblowing, and which suggested the MBLs were coming in for some competition in the high frequencies).
The best tweeter I’ve ever experienced (or my favorite) is the MBL (omni) tweeters. I remember the first time I encountered the MBL at a CES show many years ago. For every speaker that touted it’s exotic or expensive tweeter, I often ended up hearing the tweeter "look at me!"
Ribbons, domes hard and soft, whatever, some gained clarity and air and verisimilitude over others, but especially with drum cymbal there was always a sense of those sounds being reproduced by a tweeter.
One of the constant disappointments in hi fi reproduction of upper frequencies is how small and thin high frequency instruments become relative to real life - no matter how vivid they are through the system. You just have to tap a drum stick against a ride cymbal to see just how BIG and round that sound is, compared to the squeezed down version that comes out of most hi-fi rigs.
Then I entered the MBL room and literally for the first time ever I heard drum cymbals sounding like they did in real life - big, rich, round, clean, timbrally bang on...it just didn’t sound like tweeters or mechanical reproduction, it just sounded like drum cymbals. To my ears it put every other speaker’s attempts at natural high frequencies to shame. (I know Jonathan Valin of TAS has made similar comments). This impression of the MBL upper frequencies has remained fairly constant over the years. And now having owned the smaller MBL 121 stand mounted speakers, with their omni mids and tweeters, the impression remains. I’ve never heard life like detail reproduced more effortlessly and naturally. (I also own other speakers, e.g Thiel 3.7s, Waveform, Hales, and have had many other speakers and none I’ve heard at my place, stores or shows do it better.
That said, I heard a demo of the Raidho small monitors that with vocals was mindblowing, and which suggested the MBLs were coming in for some competition in the high frequencies).