Which Tweeter preferred- dome natural material, Beryllium/Metal or Planar Ribbon? Why?

@chorus , mass and surface area are minor issues in comparison to this. True ribbons are like ESLs, a force over area drive system. Every molecule of the ribbon is controlled by the electrical signal. Dynamic speakers use a voice coil to drive a diaphragm. The diaphragm is expected to follow the movement of the voice coil perfectly. It is not controlled directly by the signal. It adds an uncontrolled resonating mass to the drive. The end result is significantly more distortion. By making a long ribbon ala Magnepan you can form a line source which is very difficult to do with dynamic drivers. Many have tried and failed. Line source speakers have significant advantages over point source speakers. There is one problem with ribbons. They can be rather fragile. 

Although I have not personally heard them, I suspect the Voxative AC Xp Field Coil to be one of or perhaps is the best based upon reviews/reports.  Unfortunately they’re very expensive.  Hearing them is on my bucket list.  

@arion ,

Come to the Midwest. I would love to hear your dipoles!

All the best!

JD

Back in the day, I had a pair of DQ-10’s and I replaced the tweeters with Decca ribbons and they made the high end smooth as a Sows ear.😁 No really, there was no longer that sharp drilling sound that came out of those Piezoelectric ear shredder’s. Even after changing the tweeters, some caps on the crossovers and a few other things, I ended up trading them for a pair of Acoustat Model X’s, that I still have.

JD

Designer and manufacture of Arion Apollo (AMT) speakers.

JD,

We will be exhibiting at the Pacific Audio Fest show this year in late July. We also plan on being at the Capital Audio Fest show this year. We will likely show Apollo 9 speakers at the PAF show. Is there a show in the Midwest?

One of our design criteria is high efficiency. We feel it is worth the extra effort to build speakers that can be enjoyed by both low power SET tube amp enthusiasts (2 watts) and medium power SS amps enthusiasts (200 watts) and everything in-between. Apollos speakers let the amp's virtues (or deficiencies) shine through. Personally, I use 45 tube amps (1.5 watts) driving Apollo 12s. At last year's CAF show we used ARC Ref 160M amps (140 watts). Other uses class-D amps, another uses 300B amps.

Good AMTs work well with both SS amps and tube amps. SQ issues are more likely about poor implementation or sub-par equipment.