I'm looking to learn about Air Motion Transformer technology

John,

That comment wasn't aimed at anyone. Sorry if it offended you.

I was just trying to express the thought that a driver can't be judged by the materials it's made of. Sure, high end or exotic materials are cool and sometimes are required to achieve a design goal. Sometimes very common materials perform just as good or better than exotic materials. We use some very interesting adhesives and some very common ones. What's important is the use of the correct materials for the job.

All I am saying is it would be unfortunate for someone to avoid a good product because they don't understand this.

BTW, Kapton is often used in PRO AMTs because of its properties where durability is just as important as sound quality.

We don't use Kapton in our AMTs and our membranes are easily replaced if need be.

Mike

I'm far from the last word on AMT's and agree that little if anything should ever be prejudged in audio. OTOH, I just think it also is at least of some benefit to have as broad of a technical discussion as one is willing to entertain in a forum with its members. 

It was just that it appeared from what you posted earlier that you might have been implying that, despite the OP's clearly technical question, we should not consider any of these things and only concern ourselves with what we hear firsthand. (And if we were to apply that to the OP here, then why not anyone's technical inquiry, and so on)...it was a bit like we should dispense with the whole idea of discussion and just rely on firsthand listening only.

John

mijostyn1 ,

I'm with Arion Audio and Analysis Audio USA. We have been building AMT drivers since about 2009 mostly for custom apps. We are currently launching a loudspeaker line based around our AMT drivers.

Mike

I have a DIY pair of 2-ways and used the "Great" Heil AMT (the big AMTs, almost certainly from an old pair of ESS speakers) along with Altec 416s. After a couple of years I switched to the Beyma TPL150 AMTs. The Heils are bipoles with an open back, and sound a bit more airy than the Beymas. The Beymas are closed back and have a bit more meat, more bite on sax and horns and such. I prefer the Beymas but could easily live with the Heils which I keep for backup.

I think AMTs sound great, but of course I’ve heard many other tweeters that sound fantastic as well. The advantage for me is that the AMTs can go down to where the Altecs drop off (1K-ish), so a pretty good combination in a 2-way.

As many are aware, ELAC purchased Oscar Heils' AMT tweeter patent
in 1993, and took it much further with design upgrades that has resulted
IMO the finest tweeter on the planet. Their current jet 5 tweeter is killer.
During the past six months, while recovering from a massive heart attack,
I spent well over a hundred hours listening to HD videos on Youtube of 
the best high end speakers using my Koss Pro headphones on my HP computer with the Altec Lansing processor. I came to the conclusion
after listening to the ELAC FS series with the jet 5 tweeter, that it is the smoothest, richest tweeter I have ever heard during the past thirty years.
I test a tweeter with three musical instruments only, the violin, the piano, and the trumpet. Especially the violin where the jet 5 really shines resulting in the richest, smoothest and most natural tonal character I have ever heard to date through a tweeter and true music lover's of Classical and Jazz who own ELAC's with the AMT jet 5 know exactly what I'm talking about and would agree with my conclusion.