SUPER TWEETERS-anybody heard them?

I have a pair of Rumata ES-103A supertweeters on top of my Wilson Watts3-Puppy 2 and they sound beautiful. The ultimate test in my view is when I dis-connected them from the main loudspeakers, I felt something is missing from the music; hence it justifies their existence, at least in my system.
Although the supertweeters don't really extend the frequency response as such as others had mentioned that our human ear is incapable of hearing beyond about 17kHz. But soncially they seem to make the mid-to-high frequencies just that little bit more tactile, a little more immediate (intimate ?). Someone descibe it as like the sparkles one gets with jewellery/gem stones under halogen light. You owe it to yourself to try a pair to see (hear) whether it works for you or not.
By the way supertweeters been around for a long time; apparently even before the existence of proper tweeters! A lot of them can still be found on those washing-machine sized JBL Studio monitors such as the 4300 series. The Japanese audiophiles love them till this date ever since they were launched in the 60s/70s or even earlier. Now, that said something....

I used to own the Tannoys, used them to add to some Lowther-based speakers I used.

They sounded great, and really did a nice smooth job extending the Lowthers. I crossed them over at around 16kHz, I can't remember the exact frequency. I used them for a while, then sold them. I found that, while they were very good, I didn't NEED them. I put up with the missing extra air and sparkle, but still enjoyed themusic immensely.

My recommendation: if you have a pretty good system now, it may not be worth the extra money. If you can find them used, go for it; you can always try and sell them later for little or no loss.

Good luck

I have a pair of Tannoy ST50 supertweeters on my Verity Parsifals and absoultely love them. Suprisingly, the imrovements are not so much in terms of added sparkle (although the treble does seem to extend higher up and seems more delicate and nuanced) but an overall sense of liquidity in the sound. The transients are also cleaner and quicker. A definite improvement, well worth the (steep) price.

Sean

The super tweeters I used were rated to 40kHz. But you are correct when feed with enough power they are very nice and obviously do not need the super tweeters. I still have them with no plans to part with them. I do need to buy new woofers for them though.

Chuck

I just checked out information on the Tannoy supertweeters, and was surprised by the high price. Considering that you can get a decent tweeter that goes to 20Kc for $100 or less, why should it cost so much more to extend to 30 or 40 Kc?

Seems to me that piezoelectric technology is perfectly suited to this application, and piezoelectric supertweeters are made. Their low cost may be an embarassment, but do they do the job?