Beryllium Tweeters

01-09-15: Runnin
Speaker cable matters a lot at this level of quality, as do interconnects. I got all solid core, and it is much nicer/cleaner than fine strand. The difference here to my speaker cables was immediate and not subtle. It wasn't that I could tell that something was wrong and went on a cable search. I just experimented and discovered how good solid core is.

Same with interconnects. I ended up with solid core copper plated with silver by Morrow Audio. I can recommend without reservation. Imaging like crazy and a 3D soundstage I never knew my music had. My cables are MA3, and the speaker cable is Audioquest Type 4.

I also owned a full loom of solid core cables (Acoustic Revive) which use extremely pure oval-shaped copper conductors instead of plated copper. Using solid core conductors is one way to address skin effect amongst other design challenges, but there are other solutions which have equal merit.

I currently use Jorma Prime & Statement cables which use many extremely thin and extremely pure copper conductors wound exactly in parallel with ceramic glass fibres around a ceramic glass fibre core to form a tube, together with other natural materials like walnut. Jorma experimented with many other materials as well as copper alloys, but found copper delivers the most neutral, transparent, and natural musical signal.

Mind you what what Jorma or I might find sounds good may not be your cup of tea or suit your system. That's why there are a million cables out there to choose from!

01-10-15: Johnk
92db is not high efficiency

Depends on how you define it, but for most anything above 90db is easy to drive. If you are talking about bizarre Omegas and strange speakers that are 100-110 db and thrive on little teeny 3 watt flea amps then yes, 92db is not high efficiency. But for most normal people 92db is.

Acurus “Hofman’s Iron Law” and it offers you any two of the following: small cabinet size, deep bass and high sensitivity. No Omegas exist as you discribe and your idea that it depends how you define it is very wrong. Also would seem you feel that only adnormal people understand loudspeakers and with that I slightly agree.Normal people don't need science or physics interfering with what they feel is right.

Back on topic, I'm not actually looking to purchase anything right now, just adding ideas to the data base. For some reason I seem to really enjoy smaller speakers maybe because my listening rooms are on the smaller side.

Those Penn Audio's look nice! I really love Seas Excel drivers. I had a pair of Jamo Concert 8's and really enjoyed them.

Mainly, I was just curious as to what other speakers use beryllium tweeters...

Beryllium, as I understand it, is the second lightest metal we have, its very brittle (stiff) and I was thinking that it is probably one of the best materials, from an engineering standpoint, to make tweeters out of. I guess it must be expensive also because of how rare it is, so I figure if a manufacturer is using it for the dome then the rest of the parts making up the tweeter are of high quality also.

I used to be a hater of metal dome tweeters but I guess it's more about how it is implemented, what the corresponding parts are and the flavor of your associated equipment.

"I own Paradigm Signature 8s (v3). Yes ... they can sound bright, but I wonder how much is the fault of the source material."

That statement is probably correct.

You need to have components that filter the AC better. Very few manufacturers do this. I build my own components and hardness can come from tube voltage (driving the tubes to hard) and AC noise. I filter AC noise with capacitors and chokes. My power supply is probably costs more than your preamp. That is probably what you are hearing when you think things are bright sounding.

IMO Happy Listening.