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

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.

dont like the myriad of soft tweeters speakers (of differing materials) I’ve heard as they dont get brass instruments and cymbals right with the proper metallic clang ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Problem w all dome tweeters is the fact , they are all being xover too low, Yeah I know Seas/Scan and SB Acoustics claim 2500hz-3khz is perfectly ok. But IMHO you are asking the T to do something that may add breakup/distortion. Especially w my classical/operas. I placea single 8uf cap which takes the T to 5k. Thats it. Now the T is very happy and sings beautifully. No stress, no breakups. Troels attempts to achieve this magical xover fq to 2k hz to meet his midwoofers. I can't stand fq's w T's below 5k hz. After lengthy experimentations and cash investments, I FINALLY figured out why my classical music was not LIVE sounding Now I have a front row seat in all my 1950's operas, , Corelli/Turnadot never sounded so powerfully dynamic and full of soul.

I have heard excellent examples in application of just about every type of tweeter.  The key is putting a given tweeter in the right application with the right electrical integration to its mating speaker and enclosure.  

I have also heard some terrible examples of applications of different tweeter types.  

My favorite sounding tweeter of all time is the Scan Speak aluminum dome tweeter in the Harbeth C7ES3 speaker.  What a gorgeous sounding tweeter.  

@mozartfan

dont like the myriad of soft tweeters speakers (of differing materials) I’ve heard as they dont get brass instruments and cymbals right with the proper metallic clang ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Problem w all dome tweeters is the fact , they are all being xover too low, Yeah I know Seas/Scan and SB Acoustics claim 2500hz-3khz is perfectly ok. But IMHO you are asking the T to do something that may add breakup/distortion. Especially w my classical/operas. I placea single 8uf cap which takes the T to 5k. Thats it. Now the T is very happy and sings beautifully. No stress, no breakups. Troels attempts to achieve this magical xover fq to 2k hz to meet his midwoofers. I can’t stand fq’s w T’s below 5k hz. After lengthy experimentations and cash investments, I FINALLY figured out why my classical music was not LIVE sounding Now I have a front row seat in all my 1950’s operas, , Corelli/Turnadot never sounded so powerfully dynamic and full of soul.

Not so fast. High-Pass XO with one cap gives you a 1st order slope (6db/octave). So for example, at 5KHz XO point, you are only 12 dB down at 1250Hz (2 octaves down from 5K). If you use a 4th order XO (24db/octave) at 2.5Hz XO point, you will be 24db down at 1250Hz. A much better, and less stressful configuration for the tweeter, even though it is crossed over lower. Your tweeter setup, which you brag about, is actually working a lot harder, and not sounding as good as it could (XOver too high for a good transition to a conventional midwoofer).