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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
deep_333
856 posts
 

I hear sibilance in pretty much any ribbon design I’ve heard, PS Audio, Quad, etc being the more recent offenders. You will get fooled at shows because it is a careful choice of safe cherry picked recordings.

You can play with positioning and reduce some perception of sibilance, but, will start negating other benefits of the tweeter. You can tactfully tame it if you have front end electronics that give you some PEQ, however (i.e., when you're a straight wire w/gain purist kinda guy, sibilance can stroke you ssssweetly, lol)

akgwhiz
176 posts
 

@roxy54 what speakers (tweeters) have you owned and what current Be speakers are you referring to?  Might DIY something soon and will be making that choice.  

stuartk OP
2,384 posts
 

@audioman58

Thanks for pointing out a speaker utilizing a ribbon with waveguide.

@bigkidz

You mean in my amp? So far, I haven’t heard that Hegel H390 is deficient in this regard.

@deep_333

Playing with positioning hasn’t helped in my case, although I’m constrained due to system being located in living room. For example, I can pull speakers no further out than 3.5 feet (from front baffle). I’ve played with toe-in extensively and noticed changes in soundstage but not sibi

@arnold_h 

Unfortunately, I cannot treat room.  Sibilance has only recently become an issue for me, however. With previous systems, I never heard it. 

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,839 posts
 

Imagine a pistonic dome tweeter w no breakup mode until 35 k…. no edge clamping distortion, Scanspeak drive, bespoke carbon fiber ( Satt grade ) balsa diaphragm…. Granted availability is limited to floorstanders in the line at $10 k and North. But of course i also own or have owned various ribbons, AMT, electrostatics… nothing is perfect… yet.

There is a decent review of the speaker i refer to in this months AS rag. You can stop by my place in Seattle to hear that…. or the less expensive model in Sunny California…..

Best to those chasing musical Nirvana….

erik_squires
15,788 posts
 

By the way, whether or not a dome tweeter is pistonic in audible frequencies is not a very esoteric question requiring laser diffraction measurements or anything like that. Just look at the distortion plots to compare tweeter A to B and that will tell you most of what you want to know.

I also just want to point out that modern "normal" domes (post 2000) are just sooooooo soo much better than the domes available in the 1980’s. Flat to past 20 kHz, go down to 2kHz? ,no problem!! And ring radiators? Amazing. This argument feels a little as if it were stuck back in the 80’s.

Worth keeping it all in perspective, that some users tweeter’s die and they barely notice it. 😁Why? Most of the music is in the midrange. It’s always fun to talk tech and possibilities of advanced motors, but audiophiles do sometimes get obsessive over the part of the speaker that produces the least sound. Want a really excellent speakers? You want a fantastic midrange.

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