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ribbons vs domes and sibilance

I came upon a thread from the DiyAudio site titled "Can you have sparkling treble but without sibilance?" from 2011. The discussion is very technical and as such, completely over my head but one participant asserted that ribbons are far less prone to sibilance than domes. 

Here's an excerpt for the technically minded: :

... the middle of the dome basically flops about doing it's own thing at high frequencies as it's only very loosely coupled to the edge because of it's own less than infinite stiffness. Thus any distortion or resonances that occur due to the middle of the dome bending and moving in non-piston ways are not reflected back to the amplifier via back EMF... when the ribbon is only 8mm wide compared to a 25mm dome, there is far less narrowing of dispersion with increasing frequency than a dome. The directivity control is achieved with a wave-guide instead. This is why a wave-guide loaded ribbon can achieve an almost constant 90 degree horizontal dispersion from 2Khz right up to 20Khz - the ribbon element itself is far less directional horizontally at high frequencies than a dome, with the wave-guide then adding in a constant directivity control.

I'm wondering whether any forum members have compared speakers with domes and ribbons in regard to sibilance and arrived at any conclusions. 

stuartk
stuartk OP
2,392 posts
 

@mike_in_nc 

Thanks for your comments.

erik_squires
15,812 posts
 

Like with any driver, implementation matters.  Modern dome tweeters are far far better than described there, and some ribbons are notoriously splashy.  That is, have a lot of distortion which makes them sound extra airy.  Also, not sure how many ribbons out there have wave-guides to begin with, most of the ribbons I can think of do not.  Among the most expensive, RAAL, for instance, I can't remember seeing one wiht a waveguide.

If that's what you are looking for I encourage you to look at the top-end Mundorf capacitors as IMHO they stand out because of this kind of coloration.

Also, a GOOD AMT beats them both for high frequency extension, low distortion, and power handling.  The Beyma horn loaded AMT is particularly interesting for wide dispersion.

erik_squires
15,812 posts
 

Also, there’s a new era of Textreme dome tweeters that have come out claiming exceptional resistance to the effects described in the OP’s quote. Will we actually hear it? I have no idea, modern domes are really good already.

PS - Like all other drivers, AMTs come in bad/cheap versions as well, so I don't want to imply that AMTs will always beat out a dome, ring, ribbon.  Implementation matters, both in terms of the individual driver and it's integration into a speaker system.

soix
8,771 posts
 

I’d imagine, as with most things in audio, that there are tradeoffs somewhere otherwise one technology would win out and become ubiquitous, which is clearly not the case.  Speaking with a well-known, high-end amp designer, when I asked him why he used bipolar versus MOSFET output devices he said he could use either and it usually comes down to which the designer is more comfortable using.  It’s probably something similar in deciding which type of tweeter design to use.

sounds_real_audio
955 posts
 

Ribbons make me crazy. way to etched. 

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