What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

They can be nice with the right amp and setup but often that is not the case when you hear them. In general, I tend to prefer PSB, Focal and Totem when I hear them these days.

I owned B&W P6s for about 10 years which were a good value in their day.

How many manufacturers offer diamond tweeters? They are certainly at the fore front of technology.

Perhaps because it is not superior to Berrilum Tweeters. Steve Mowry says in the article "The Whole Truth About Beryllium Diaphragms: -

"For a given geometry the first bending (break-up) frequency is proportional to the material Speed Of Sound, where the speed of sound within a material is defined as the square root of the Young’s Modulus divided by the Mass Density, (m/s); the higher the better. However, the Mass of the diaphragm must also be considered. Then the ratio of the Speed Of Sound to the Mass Density can be used as the materials’ acoustic figure of merit, (m4/kg/s); the higher the better."

After that he shows values of "Acoustic Figure of Merit" for different material (higher the better)in m4/kg/s

Berillum - 6.97
Diamond - 4.92
Aluminum - 1.86
Titanium - 1.13
Steel - 0.63

"B&W has a "sound" but as to any of the speakers you mention blowing them away, including the phasey or defuse MBL I find hard to believe."

mbls phasey? Hmm, not sure about that. The large holographic presentation might resemble how some recordings made that way sound on more conventional setups, but do mbl speakers or eletronics really introduce phase issues otherwise?

Maybe relatively diffuse sounding compared to others, particularly more directional designs like horns, if not set up well or if the extremely wide and deep soundstage mbls set up right are capable of producing is described as diffused compared to the norm.

I wasn't attempting to profess the superiority of one type of tweeter over another, only to point out that B&W offer a diamond tweeter that they build themselves and that tweeter has a potential advantage over other types of construction.

Back to your analysis, so how does the ionic tweeter and the silk dome fare in the numbers game? My personal bias is for the silk dome.

Rhljazz,

The only ionic tweeter I have heard is the acapella. I know of no other tweeter to sound as good. It's so pure. Stunning clarity and extension. But the problem is mating it to the lower drivers.

IMHO the acapella fails because the tweeter is so good. The xover just shows up the difference in speed. Just like the subs on the old hybrid Martin Logan's failed at keeping up with the ESL upper panel.

A speaker is all about balance. So maybe as you say a silk dome sounds better in a speaker, but probably because it mates better with the other drivers.

But here we are again discussing the finer points of exotic tweeters when we have people saying "I wouldn't have em for free..."

For all we know these types of opinions are about the lowest budget B&W when we are talking about the diamond tweeters which are only found in the reference series. To post your opinion you must add which model you are discussing and what you are using it with.