The midi range, not the tweeter, is the most important driver in a speaker.

The big differences in the TAD line of speakers is the midrange.

The reference series uses the vapor deposited beryllium midrange, whereas all the other series use the magnesium midrange.

The beryllium tweeters and aramid cone woofers seem to be very similar across the line.

As far as problems metallic drivers, though I have owned the TAD CR-1’s for close to 9 years, I feel I haven’t really heard them until recently. Between the latest firmwear of the DS Dac and the EtherRegen’s isolation (and other tricks) the speakers, now freed up from some of the flaws in ethernet digital playback has yielded spectacular results and any harshness (like massed strings or trumpets) vanishes and what I am now left with the metallic bite and resonance of the trumpets and individual violinists doing their own thing in time and space.

Then they require complex sharp slope crossovers to try and deal with their heavy break up modes. Which makes their problems...well... to keep it country simple..almost worse.

I think Joseph Audio's use of magnesium drivers shows this is possible. A combination of judicious low pass filter + notch filter can make these work, no?


Best,

E

It's more interesting to discuss in term of midrange driver size.  Some people prefer smaller size mid for speed and clarity.  Mine has to be at least 5in large so they can better integrated to the 8in. bass at the low frequencies for example.  

Also I prefer the mid not playing at high frequencies where the tweeter should be playing on its own.  I would say 7KHz is the cutt off where the mid shouldn't interfere with the tweeter playing after this.

Sure if you have a 3in. mid that can play at much higher than 7KHz but then it would compromise the low frequencies.  It's all a trade off.  

What can I say Erik, you are absolutely correct!