I was blessed to meet Chris a few weeks ago at Ascot in London at the British HiFi Live Show. He gave me so much of his time, bless him. He had to listen to me sprouting about my own vintagy hifi system, and then gave me some great advice. Really appreciate that time he spent talking to me. Love you guys. Lee UK
Indeed. In the Netherlands there are two provincies with 'Holland' in it: South Holland and North Holland. The Netherlands are also called Holland, even if its officially The Netherlands. And no, Belgium is the neighbour country in the south.
@@MS-ug3gm most Dutch are not happy if you only call our country Holland despite the historical background. Guess the Polish people would not be happy to be called East Germany since most of it is in former Germany 😉
@@RudieVissenberg I have memories of the soccer team playing as Holland back when Gullit was playing, but can't find a reason unless the coverage or commentators were using the informal.
Now, that is an interesting discussion to have ! Since my very first day as an audio enthousiast, I was told the fundamentals of music must be right or it will never sound good. There is truth to that statement. Some loudspeakers have dips, bumps and phase anomalies that made every music played through 'weird'. But what Mr. Nuddell said is also true. If the harmonics are not in phase and are colored, even the purest midrange will be 'tainted' by this effect because our ears always sees it as a whole and not as separates elements of the music. Because most ribbons and planars do not have crossovers to pass through, the music reach your ears without phase anomalies. This is the same for a single driver speakers and why some people swear by them. Maybe one day, someone will create the perfect pulsing sphere which will solve all our audio problems, but for now we must make due with the technology we have.
Agree wholeheartedly that ribbon or electrostat's are the way to go....having lived with both I can't be without them!! As soon as I see a dome tweeter I know I am not going to hear the absolute clarity and realism that a ribbon or electrostat delivers. I'm fortunate enough to own a pretty rare pair of Jumetite CR610's....with a down facing ribbon that delivers from 19Kh right on down to 600 hz. Just phenomenal. Yes, ribbons, done correctly....nothing like them.
As an audiophile, speaker designer and builder, I largely agree with you Paul. Planer tweeters can be a very nice option. I believe domed tweeters can also be desirable, and depending on the listeners ear there are several different types of materials that can be used. From treated silk dome tweeters being the most mild and listenable, to the metal domes such as beryllium being very accurate but toward the harsher end of the scale. To my humble ears, any domes are better than horn speakers, which many find to be harsh and even offensive to the ears........ 6:12
I have a pair of Legacy Audio Valors (4 way active). I can switch the upper frequencies (AMT tweeters and waveguide compression driver for upper midrange) between an internal class-D module and external amplifier. I found that the internal class-D module to cause harshness from the compression driver. When I switched to a Raven Audio Blackhawk Tube integrated amp for the treble (above 800Hz) using NOS tubes, the sound became very satisfactory. I used an integrated tube amp instead of a power amp as a lot of the tube sound flavor can come from the signal tubes. The home theater use case (watching movies) provides a very dramatic difference. With the internal class-D amp, the vocals had very good positioning but it seemed to lack volume so was hard to hear clearly. To hear the vocals, I had to turn the volume up, which made the system overly loud. When I switched to tubes, the vocals had bloom with spatial volume and a great deal of clarity and holography, so didn't need to turn the volume up.
@@matthewbarrow3727 I'd love to hear the Valors, I've just never had the proper time with them to truly experience them. Your point about the signal path moderating harshness yet allowing them to sing sounds awesome. It'd be fascinating to know precisely what's at play there. Does that platform use the Böhmer instead of the Xilica?
@@FOH3663 Yes. I am using the Wavelet 2 processor. However, I am using firmware that was available when I first demoed it at the factory (which was an approvement on the original Wavelet 1 hardware). This was before the Wavelet 2 was officially released so . When my speakers were delivered, the Wavelet had the new firmware. I mentioned that it didn't sound like the demo, so they sent me another Wavelet 2 but with the older firmware. The new firmware had greater weight to the sound, but the old one had much better treatment of space. I enjoyed the more spatial aspects of this older version, given the ambient array drivers.
One of the reasons why good ribbons and electrostats sound better than dome tweeeters is because they have much lower harmonic distortion.A typical dome tweeter at a 96dB sound level at 1 metre will be exhibiting between 2/3% second harmonic distortion and 2/3% third harmonic distortion.When HiFi News tested the Apogee Duetta Sig back in 1988 they measured harmonic distortion figures at 96dB 1 metre as follows;from 1khz to 20khz second harmonic distortion between 0.1% and 0.03% with negligable third. But things get worse for the dome tweeter at the listening position due to higher fall off of sound level than a large planar speaker.At a 4 metre distance the planar will drop 6dB as opposed to 12dB for the dome tweeter which means the dome tweeter will have to output 102dB at 1 metre to equal the sound level of the planar resulting in even more distortion than already mentioned.
There are lots of excellent dome tweeters. Most sound systems that produce music, like a guitar amp for example, doesn’t even has a tweeter. I am listening to a Dynaudio Heritage Special with an Esotar 3 tweeter. Nothing wrong with that. Try a Kef Blade tweeter, sounds really great too. But it’s all about the definition of great sounding speakers. It’s personal, it’s depending on the type of music you are listening too, where you are listening.
There are also pistonic based balsa, carbon fiber drivers, that keep the voice coil in sync with the cone. Such drivers keep more sonic information in phase, providing more sonic information.
I've been happy with my JBL 2420 compression drivers. I replaced the original spiral surrounds with the diamond surrounds. I don't use horns and diffraction lenses to load them; I use Transylvania Power Company's "The Tube." These are Karlson couplers, which operate more like a continuous flute. They still load the drivers, but eliminate the nasal horn sound. They also allow the 2420s to go above 20 kHz. I've been tempted to add super tweeters, but my hearing doesn't go that high anymore. Sadly, I can no longer hear bats at night. Having the right amp is important. I tri-amp and use a Sony TAN-5550 V-FET for the tweeters.
I totally agree with Paul on ribbon and planar tweeters, my choice as well. A good soft dome tweeter can sound good as well, but not like a ribbon. I am curious to see what Chris does with the Sprout speaker and, what I am sure will be, a dome tweeter. Also....ask Paul about his 99% true Netherlands experiences.....
Indeed ... also; - British tweeters are typically quite polite. - Asian offerings are often quite bright. - German examples are rarely colored. - Most Russian tweeters aren't very bright. - Serbian tweeters are oftentimes the best (Raal, etc.)
Right now I'm trying to repair a VLD40-8 ribbon speaker and I can't find metallized kapton foil. Unfortunately, the manufacturer went bankrupt and there are no spare parts. Ribbon speakers sound the best of all, but these speakers also get damaged very easily.
In the 1970s… Infinity speakers used a Walsh tweeter in the WTLC…. In the 1990s, the best tweeter was Dynaudio Esotar… used by all the best speakers like Wilson, silverline etc… I will have to come and test you new speakers..
Planars, ribbons, and AMTs ... aren't saddled with the inductance characteristics of a coil. They're also uniformly driven ... whereas many dome platforms often exhibit corruptive anti-phase behavior across it's surface. That said, there's extraordinary high performance dome tweeters available. There's also solid, well performing inexpensive soft domes ... ie., the tiny dirt cheap oem tweets JBL uses in the $200 active 8" two-way.
Had Acoustat electrostatic back in the day. Loved the sound but lacked fullness and volume. Was good with Danny Wright type of music. Then had flagship klipschorns. Great with rock but a little harsh on other music types. More recent years had monitor audio with AMT tweeters. There were good but also had drawbacks. Have Sonus Faber Aida 2's now with silk dome tweeter. They employ special design and technology to give you the great sound but the silk dome also stays stable at higher volume levels which typically silk dome are easy to pop and not that stable but can sound beautiful. If your room is properly set up with the rest placement and the right acoustic treatment to tweeter dissapears in the music. It's still there not just front and center. Personally I do not like diamond, berillium and all of that because it can be harsh sounding and very fickle to dial end to roll off the harshness. Some people like that in your face tweeter but not me. I like soft and sweet. Ribbons are great too but take up alot of space with the design. Ribbons make me think of Bob Carver when he had those in hifi buys. I was amazed when I heard them way back.
Yes, you start with the tweeter, It will affect all the other decisions you make from cabinets to mid range drivers. 300 hz - 15,000 is where most of the info resides in music. Bass is important and much easier to Design for.
To my knowledge there has never been any real world blind testing of one tweeter type vs another, to determine if there is any preference, or for that matter, any perceptible difference. Consumer preference for one type vs another or one material vs another has always been all over the map with no real agreement on what is best. I think the implementation is probably even more important than the type of tweeter used. The most popular type for the past 50 years has been the dome tweeter in its various iterations. There's good reasons for this, as in most instances a dome tweeter offers the best tradeoff between performance and cost. And a top notch dome tweeter is pretty hard to beat on any level. In one case, there was a blind test done where the audibility of various dome materials was compared, after equalizing frequency response and level. But none of the test subjects was able to tell the difference between e.g. a soft dome and a beryllium dome in a blind test. Our ears are not that good at detecting timbral quality at such high frequencies. Just listen to a tweeter on its own. It sounds more like noise than music. Rather, at high frequencies, we are most adept at perceiving localization, and levels . This is why small tweaks in a tweeter's crossover can make such an audible difference. One of the biggest differences in tweeter types is their directivity, which again results in audible differences. Speakers, esp. 2 way designs with direct radiating dome tweeters do tend to have dispersion flares at their crossover point, causing the speaker to sound bright in this area. This is why you see a lot of newer speakers using dome tweeters with waveguides. My own systems use 2 domes in a dipole configuration. They produce some of the most natural sounding high frequencies I've ever heard. Again, the directivity plays a huge role.
In a way you are correct; The Netherlands/the Lowlands used to include part of Belgium. That's centuries ago though. Holland is just two provinces (aptly named North and South Holland) in the mid to northwest (a bit like NoCal and Oregon, if I were to translate it to a US map). When a Dutch person (we call ourselves 'nederlanders', we didn't come up with the "Dutch" either, that's just there to confuse others) is referring to "Holland" we mean specifically those two provinces. So calling the Netherlands Holland is honestly not quite right, even though most English speaking people do. Props on your pronounciation of Groningen by the way!
I use ribbon(beston) and dome mid. (2in) trying to decide between fabric an aluminum. Right one is fabric, left is aluminum. Daytons.. let you know , 600hz to 4800hz, both sound good
Have you spent time with planar magnetic speakers? I will never ever buy another box speaker. I hear the box even in very expensive box speakers. Transparency is bliss!
@@unclewilbur8976 Hard to get rid of boxes completely since they tend to suck at delivering bass so most planar owners would get a subwoofer anyway. Otherwise it's as it always is with speakers; choose which advantages you want and which disadvantages you can live with. All speakers are flawed.
First they were Phenolic ring cone, not dome. Some had dome shaped voice coil covers. But they were not dome tweeters. Gene Czerwinski was opposed to dome drivers. At the factory as a rep in the '70's Gene showed us a dome woofer he made as a joke. He cut a basketball in half and glued the halves to regular woofers.
@storkfletcher821 Magnepans get down to 40 hertz, and about half of Maggie owners agree that's plenty. Also, Maggie makes a plannar magnetic woofer called the DWM that supplements lower frequencies. For me, the sound of boxes is intolerable!
Strictly speaking Holland is part of The Netherlands which is the sovereign country and borders Belgium. People often use the term Holland referring to The Netherlands but Belgium is not part of either.
I don't see why not. My air motion transformers are horn-loaded, and AMTs are similarly shaped. Personally, I find those tiny planar drivers anemic, and I can see a horn giving them some much-needed dynamism.
@@alex_stanley I always wondered about the efficiency vs sonic accuracy and how compression drivers change the sound. Strange thing is many studio recordings are of horns and domed tweeters generating the very sound we complain about.
If infinity, bbc and cerwin Vega ever had made a speaker together, there wouldn’t be needed for any other speakers in the world…🤭 that would be a fact!! 🤔
Have an emotiva b1plus bookshelf w ribbon tweeter. The realism AUTHENTICITY--is incredible. Hard to imagine anything better. Have 35 watt cambridge a axa amp and marantz cd6006. Glorious sound. Tried b2 plus, marantz cd6007 and cd60 MORE MONEY NEW GENERATION and cambridge axr receivers and elac with some dome tweeter AND JBL HORN All garbage compared to my system ESPECIALLY THE JBL. Wires make a REAL REAL DIFFERENCE AND CABLES AND ESPECIALLY THE SURGE PROTECTOR. just goes to show you don't need alot of money to get a GREAT system. I imagine acoustics make a diff. My room is small carpeted.
Well, if Chris is the expert why didn't you have him on? Tell us something we don't already know. 😉 PS I had one of your first phono preamps for many years. Didn't quite know what I had at the time, being a young guy and budding audiophile needing a phono preamp. I gave it to my Dad who then used it for many more years. Another piece of 2-channel gear I wish I'd kept🙁
When I was a teenager in the 80s I bought a pair of piezo tweeter horns for my home-build speakers and I quickly learned how awful treble can sound. I then replaced them with some dome tweeters. Still it didn't come near the resolving qualities of my Stax headphones at the time. Main reason I am considering the Aspen speakers is about those planar ribbon drivers.
The ESS AMT-1 Is One of The Best Of Loud Speakers 🔊 That Came Out Of The 1970’s Muscle 💪 Wars of The 70’s For The Consumer This Speaker 🔈 Is Still Under The Radar Of Vintage HiFi 😮 Collectors Side Note: I Really Don’t See any New Current Speakers 🔊 That Will Stand The Test Of Time Except The Wilson Sasha V Line That Will Be Collectable In 40 Years Every Thing Else Well I’ll Be Dead 💀 By Then So and Beryllium Tweeters 🔊 Scream 😱 The Beauty Of These Kind Of Speaker 🔈 Is You Have To Try Very Hard To Kill Them and They Just Don’t Want To Die Easy So Those of You Explore Ribbon and Beryllium Tweeters Also Many Years Ago When JBL Moved From a Humble Factory in Los Angeles to Northridge In The San Fernando Valley I Took a Private Tour of The New JBL Facilities and The Big Shots Forgot I Was To Show Up and What I Saw 👀 Was JBL Was Assembling INFINITY and Realistic Speakers 🔊 So I Asked What is The Deal ? I Was Told That Realistic Which Was The Tandy Texas Instruments Radio Shack Line and Infinity Speakers 🔊 Do Not Have a Facility For Manufacturing Speakers So Infinity and Realistic Radio Shack Farmed Out To JBL So Oddly Enough JBL Made The infinity Speakers So Paul Ask Your Friend About That Because Even You Didn’t Know This That’s The Scoop Paul and Now Let Us Return To Paul and His ASMR Show as He Dose a Impression of Mr. Roger
Re: current speakers not standing the test of time. I would argue that the AMTs of today are far superior to the original ESS drivers due to the invention of high strength neodymium magnets. I would guess the polymer diaphragm materials have improved over the last 40 years as well.
Please don't make a low cost speaker with a dome. Double the price if you have half to work that ribbon in. I loved the Genesis speaker you made at around $1600 floorstander. Them and my dad's Quad ESL 57s were the reason I have had Magnepan for 20+ years.
All types of tweeters have a positive and negative issue. With permission..ill tell that ribbons and planars arent whats called minimum phase..and they also dont radiate equally radially..Yes again..All designs have issues..but the pros are flat..open ..response with little or no fs because of their low mass.. now ill give my opinion..WINSLOE BURHOES inverved dome is somewhat best..minimum phase tweeter..and focals replica ..replicas fail in many respects ..even though theyre expensive..haha..I do think that the modern genesis round tweeter. The latest is even better than the early ones..is really good..and fixed the dispersion pattern issue of the emit..and bob carver tweeter.. Yes.I still like the genesis physics inverted dome best.
Many differing approaches with respect to geometry ,materials all with certain pros and cons. The implementation is key as always and is what contributes most towards the "tweeter sound". It can be too easy to make broad generalisations.
Many Unsolicited Thank You’s Am at a Age Where I Just Don’t Give a Soggy Flying F@%# Am on Many of The Blogs and Vignettes of HiFi Mr. Carlson Lab I Give Him What For And All The Repair Shows From Old Vintage Guitar Amps To Making Your Own Gizmos And Noodling I Actually Treat Paul Nice I Give The Other Shows a Hard Time of It The Kids Like Lenny and Kevin on Sky Lab I Like Their Approach And Attitude I Gave a Nice Send Off To The Great Bob Carver and My Best Friend Who Passed Away The Great Stanley Goldstein Look 👀 Him Up 😮 Side Story In The Early 1960’s My Mother Had a Telephone 📞 Land Line She Wouldn’t Call Me From North Dakota To Pasadena Because it Was To Expensive So I Went Back Home For Summer Break And We Had a Telephone Pole in The Back Yard I Climbed Up The Pole and I Wired a Rotory Phone And Put it By The Pole I Said “” You Can Call Me For Free Now Mom Anytime To Cal Tech in Pasadena 😮“” Thank You Someone Finally Got It in The Mysterious World 🌎 Of UA-cam Finally Got It
@@stevenholquin2127 I have many doubts about all your claims. Your writing, thoughts and typing style is not what a person with a higher education background would do. It does not show the higher IQ of a person that is accepted to Cal Tech. Grow up son, you're not fooling anyone.
Oddly Enough I’ve Built The First 3 Wheels of Fortune and Was Asked By Dick Chaney and Halliburton To Build a Electrical Infrastructure For Desert Storm I Was At The BP Oil Spill The United States Has list Of The Electrical engineers During a Catastrophe That Keep Infrastructure Am Not a Audio File By No Means Am a Electrical Engineer I Find Audio Files as Silly People
Did I just hear a product announcement - a Sprout speaker? I always thought that in order to survive, PS Audio would have to ultimately embrace ‘lifestyle products’. You never know but one day we may see headphones or even earbuds from them. From a business perspective there are more individuals out there than rooms.
Sorry but planars are cheap. As is most everything else that goes in the overpriced cabinet. Now if you start selling speakers for $300 a set, I can't see a reason why you all would use a dome.
i guess Paul never looked on google maps before? Anyways, Holland is often referred to as the Netherlands. However it's the Netherlands which is a country (as is Belgium (Located South). And Holland comes from the old days where a couple of provinces (Noord/Zuid Holland) where called Holland! Very long story and all details can be found here nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland in case anyone is interested. Groetjes from the Netherlands Paul :D
I was blessed to meet Chris a few weeks ago at Ascot in London at the British HiFi Live Show. He gave me so much of his time, bless him. He had to listen to me sprouting about my own vintagy hifi system, and then gave me some great advice. Really appreciate that time he spent talking to me. Love you guys. Lee UK
Holland is a province of The Nehterlands. The country is called The Nehterlands. Belgium is a separate country south to the Netherlands.
Indeed. In the Netherlands there are two provincies with 'Holland' in it: South Holland and North Holland. The Netherlands are also called Holland, even if its officially The Netherlands. And no, Belgium is the neighbour country in the south.
In some languages, Holland is used as the formal name for the Netherlands. For example, in Denmark we use the name Holland as name for Netherlands.
@@ThinkingBetterIn Poland also
@@MS-ug3gm most Dutch are not happy if you only call our country Holland despite the historical background. Guess the Polish people would not be happy to be called East Germany since most of it is in former Germany 😉
@@RudieVissenberg I have memories of the soccer team playing as Holland back when Gullit was playing, but can't find a reason unless the coverage or commentators were using the informal.
Now, that is an interesting discussion to have ! Since my very first day as an audio enthousiast, I was told the fundamentals of music must be right or it will never sound good. There is truth to that statement. Some loudspeakers have dips, bumps and phase anomalies that made every music played through 'weird'. But what Mr. Nuddell said is also true. If the harmonics are not in phase and are colored, even the purest midrange will be 'tainted' by this effect because our ears always sees it as a whole and not as separates elements of the music. Because most ribbons and planars do not have crossovers to pass through, the music reach your ears without phase anomalies. This is the same for a single driver speakers and why some people swear by them. Maybe one day, someone will create the perfect pulsing sphere which will solve all our audio problems, but for now we must make due with the technology we have.
I really like the way you answer questions without going over my understanding
Agree wholeheartedly that ribbon or electrostat's are the way to go....having lived with both I can't be without them!! As soon as I see a dome tweeter I know I am not going to hear the absolute clarity and realism that a ribbon or electrostat delivers. I'm fortunate enough to own a pretty rare pair of Jumetite CR610's....with a down facing ribbon that delivers from 19Kh right on down to 600 hz. Just phenomenal. Yes, ribbons, done correctly....nothing like them.
The most important part of a speaker is how the whole of its design and construction creates its sound and the quality of that sound, I would think.
As an audiophile, speaker designer and builder, I largely agree with you Paul. Planer tweeters can be a very nice option. I believe domed tweeters can also be desirable, and depending on the listeners ear there are several different types of materials that can be used. From treated silk dome tweeters being the most mild and listenable, to the metal domes such as beryllium being very accurate but toward the harsher end of the scale. To my humble ears, any domes are better than horn speakers, which many find to be harsh and even offensive to the ears........ 6:12
Many horn platforms do exhibit harshness. However, it's worth noting the well executed examples do not.
I have a pair of Legacy Audio Valors (4 way active). I can switch the upper frequencies (AMT tweeters and waveguide compression driver for upper midrange) between an internal class-D module and external amplifier. I found that the internal class-D module to cause harshness from the compression driver. When I switched to a Raven Audio Blackhawk Tube integrated amp for the treble (above 800Hz) using NOS tubes, the sound became very satisfactory. I used an integrated tube amp instead of a power amp as a lot of the tube sound flavor can come from the signal tubes. The home theater use case (watching movies) provides a very dramatic difference. With the internal class-D amp, the vocals had very good positioning but it seemed to lack volume so was hard to hear clearly. To hear the vocals, I had to turn the volume up, which made the system overly loud. When I switched to tubes, the vocals had bloom with spatial volume and a great deal of clarity and holography, so didn't need to turn the volume up.
@@matthewbarrow3727
I'd love to hear the Valors, I've just never had the proper time with them to truly experience them.
Your point about the signal path moderating harshness yet allowing them to sing sounds awesome.
It'd be fascinating to know precisely what's at play there.
Does that platform use the Böhmer instead of the Xilica?
@@FOH3663 Yes. I am using the Wavelet 2 processor. However, I am using firmware that was available when I first demoed it at the factory (which was an approvement on the original Wavelet 1 hardware). This was before the Wavelet 2 was officially released so . When my speakers were delivered, the Wavelet had the new firmware. I mentioned that it didn't sound like the demo, so they sent me another Wavelet 2 but with the older firmware. The new firmware had greater weight to the sound, but the old one had much better treatment of space. I enjoyed the more spatial aspects of this older version, given the ambient array drivers.
@@FOH3663 the dispersion pattern is wrong in small rooms..but they work great in far field applications..
One of the reasons why good ribbons and electrostats sound better than dome tweeeters is because they have much lower harmonic distortion.A typical dome tweeter at a 96dB sound level at 1 metre will be exhibiting between 2/3% second harmonic distortion and 2/3% third harmonic distortion.When HiFi News tested the Apogee Duetta Sig back in 1988 they measured harmonic distortion figures at 96dB 1 metre as follows;from 1khz to 20khz second harmonic distortion between 0.1% and 0.03% with negligable third.
But things get worse for the dome tweeter at the listening position due to higher fall off of sound level than a large planar speaker.At a 4 metre distance the planar will drop 6dB as opposed to 12dB for the dome tweeter which means the dome tweeter will have to output 102dB at 1 metre to equal the sound level of the planar resulting in even more distortion than already mentioned.
Lol i cant stop laughing @ 3:40 “they have a sound that doesn’t have sound” even though it couldn’t have been explained better.
Thanks for answering my question Paul!
There are lots of excellent dome tweeters. Most sound systems that produce music, like a guitar amp for example, doesn’t even has a tweeter. I am listening to a Dynaudio Heritage Special with an Esotar 3 tweeter. Nothing wrong with that. Try a Kef Blade tweeter, sounds really great too. But it’s all about the definition of great sounding speakers. It’s personal, it’s depending on the type of music you are listening too, where you are listening.
Yes, imo he was right , tweeters are giving mostly the sound signature of the speaker.
There are also pistonic based balsa, carbon fiber drivers, that keep the voice coil in sync with the cone.
Such drivers keep more sonic information in phase, providing more sonic information.
I've been happy with my JBL 2420 compression drivers. I replaced the original spiral surrounds with the diamond surrounds. I don't use horns and diffraction lenses to load them; I use Transylvania Power Company's "The Tube." These are Karlson couplers, which operate more like a continuous flute. They still load the drivers, but eliminate the nasal horn sound. They also allow the 2420s to go above 20 kHz. I've been tempted to add super tweeters, but my hearing doesn't go that high anymore. Sadly, I can no longer hear bats at night. Having the right amp is important. I tri-amp and use a Sony TAN-5550 V-FET for the tweeters.
Excellent discussion, agree on planars 100%. I use BG Neo-8s and Visaton ribbons (as supertweeters) and they are really "airy" and not colored.
I totally agree with Paul on ribbon and planar tweeters, my choice as well. A good soft dome tweeter can sound good as well, but not like a ribbon. I am curious to see what Chris does with the Sprout speaker and, what I am sure will be, a dome tweeter. Also....ask Paul about his 99% true Netherlands experiences.....
The Netherlands is the planar tweeter of Europe. Flat, not much coloration. Belgium is an AMT. Then there's France. Etc.
Indeed ... also;
- British tweeters are typically quite polite.
- Asian offerings are often quite bright.
- German examples are rarely colored.
- Most Russian tweeters aren't very bright.
- Serbian tweeters are oftentimes the best (Raal, etc.)
Right now I'm trying to repair a VLD40-8 ribbon speaker and I can't find metallized kapton foil. Unfortunately, the manufacturer went bankrupt and there are no spare parts. Ribbon speakers sound the best of all, but these speakers also get damaged very easily.
In the 1970s… Infinity speakers used a Walsh tweeter in the WTLC…. In the 1990s, the best tweeter was Dynaudio Esotar… used by all the best speakers like Wilson, silverline etc… I will have to come and test you new speakers..
Planars, ribbons, and AMTs ... aren't saddled with the inductance characteristics of a coil.
They're also uniformly driven ... whereas many dome platforms often exhibit corruptive anti-phase behavior across it's surface.
That said, there's extraordinary high performance dome tweeters available.
There's also solid, well performing inexpensive soft domes ... ie., the tiny dirt cheap oem tweets JBL uses in the $200 active 8" two-way.
Had Acoustat electrostatic back in the day. Loved the sound but lacked fullness and volume. Was good with Danny Wright type of music. Then had flagship klipschorns. Great with rock but a little harsh on other music types. More recent years had monitor audio with AMT tweeters. There were good but also had drawbacks. Have Sonus Faber Aida 2's now with silk dome tweeter. They employ special design and technology to give you the great sound but the silk dome also stays stable at higher volume levels which typically silk dome are easy to pop and not that stable but can sound beautiful. If your room is properly set up with the rest placement and the right acoustic treatment to tweeter dissapears in the music. It's still there not just front and center. Personally I do not like diamond, berillium and all of that because it can be harsh sounding and very fickle to dial end to roll off the harshness. Some people like that in your face tweeter but not me. I like soft and sweet. Ribbons are great too but take up alot of space with the design. Ribbons make me think of Bob Carver when he had those in hifi buys. I was amazed when I heard them way back.
I would agree that the first thing you may be impressed with is the tweeter. BUT - after that a clean fast lower end will be very impressive.
I'd suggest a "clean fast lower end" is more a characteristic of the room's LF decay times.
Yes, you start with the tweeter, It will affect all the other decisions you make from cabinets to mid range drivers. 300 hz - 15,000 is where most of the info resides in music. Bass is important and much easier to Design for.
Thanks Paul
To my knowledge there has never been any real world blind testing of one tweeter type vs another, to determine if there is any preference, or for that matter, any perceptible difference. Consumer preference for one type vs another or one material vs another has always been all over the map with no real agreement on what is best. I think the implementation is probably even more important than the type of tweeter used. The most popular type for the past 50 years has been the dome tweeter in its various iterations. There's good reasons for this, as in most instances a dome tweeter offers the best tradeoff between performance and cost. And a top notch dome tweeter is pretty hard to beat on any level. In one case, there was a blind test done where the audibility of various dome materials was compared, after equalizing frequency response and level. But none of the test subjects was able to tell the difference between e.g. a soft dome and a beryllium dome in a blind test. Our ears are not that good at detecting timbral quality at such high frequencies. Just listen to a tweeter on its own. It sounds more like noise than music. Rather, at high frequencies, we are most adept at perceiving localization, and levels . This is why small tweaks in a tweeter's crossover can make such an audible difference. One of the biggest differences in tweeter types is their directivity, which again results in audible differences. Speakers, esp. 2 way designs with direct radiating dome tweeters do tend to have dispersion flares at their crossover point, causing the speaker to sound bright in this area. This is why you see a lot of newer speakers using dome tweeters with waveguides. My own systems use 2 domes in a dipole configuration. They produce some of the most natural sounding high frequencies I've ever heard. Again, the directivity plays a huge role.
In a way you are correct; The Netherlands/the Lowlands used to include part of Belgium. That's centuries ago though.
Holland is just two provinces (aptly named North and South Holland) in the mid to northwest (a bit like NoCal and Oregon, if I were to translate it to a US map).
When a Dutch person (we call ourselves 'nederlanders', we didn't come up with the "Dutch" either, that's just there to confuse others) is referring to "Holland" we mean specifically those two provinces. So calling the Netherlands Holland is honestly not quite right, even though most English speaking people do.
Props on your pronounciation of Groningen by the way!
Are Dutch pancakes still historically from old Belgium. What are cakes referred to in the Netherlands.😊
@@gg.6967 Do you mean cakes or pancakes? :D
@@rollingtroll,yes I meant pancakes. Sometimes my computer a.i changes my wording. Thanks rolling (pancakes).😊😊😊🥞🥞🥞🧈🧈🧈
@@rollingtroll,unsure if Dutch babies are German,Belgium or Nederland. I could be mistaken but German also used Dutch oven’s. 🥞.
@@rollingtroll, hello rolling.?..?😮 🥞 🥞 🧈
I use ribbon(beston) and dome mid. (2in) trying to decide between fabric an aluminum. Right one is fabric, left is aluminum. Daytons.. let you know , 600hz to 4800hz, both sound good
I liked the sound of the phenolec domes Cerwin Vega used in the 80s.
Have you spent time with planar magnetic speakers?
I will never ever buy another box speaker.
I hear the box even in very expensive box speakers.
Transparency is bliss!
@@unclewilbur8976 Hard to get rid of boxes completely since they tend to suck at delivering bass so most planar owners would get a subwoofer anyway. Otherwise it's as it always is with speakers; choose which advantages you want and which disadvantages you can live with. All speakers are flawed.
First they were Phenolic ring cone, not dome. Some had dome shaped voice coil covers. But they were not dome tweeters. Gene Czerwinski was opposed to dome drivers. At the factory as a rep in the '70's Gene showed us a dome woofer he made as a joke. He cut a basketball in half and glued the halves to regular woofers.
@storkfletcher821
Magnepans get down to 40 hertz, and about half of Maggie owners agree that's plenty. Also, Maggie makes a plannar magnetic woofer called the DWM that supplements lower frequencies.
For me, the sound of boxes is intolerable!
Apogee full range can go down to 25hz, plenty of low bass for most music.@@unclewilbur8976
Strictly speaking Holland is part of The Netherlands which is the sovereign country and borders Belgium. People often use the term Holland referring to The Netherlands but Belgium is not part of either.
Belgium used to be part of the Netherlands, That all changed in 1830 though.
All woofers and mids should be designed to work with the tweeter with the least amount of correction..
Yes planars! Love my full range planar Maggies! They just disappear!
Can a planar speaker element be turned into a horn
I don't see why not. My air motion transformers are horn-loaded, and AMTs are similarly shaped. Personally, I find those tiny planar drivers anemic, and I can see a horn giving them some much-needed dynamism.
@@alex_stanley I always wondered about the efficiency vs sonic accuracy and how compression drivers change the sound. Strange thing is many studio recordings are of horns and domed tweeters generating the very sound we complain about.
If infinity, bbc and cerwin Vega ever had made a speaker together, there wouldn’t be needed for any other speakers in the world…🤭 that would be a fact!! 🤔
They would never have agreed even on the approach!
Have an emotiva b1plus bookshelf w ribbon tweeter. The realism AUTHENTICITY--is incredible. Hard to imagine anything better. Have 35 watt cambridge a axa amp and marantz cd6006. Glorious sound. Tried b2 plus, marantz cd6007 and cd60 MORE MONEY NEW GENERATION and cambridge axr receivers and elac with some dome tweeter AND JBL HORN All garbage compared to my system ESPECIALLY THE JBL. Wires make a REAL REAL DIFFERENCE AND CABLES AND ESPECIALLY THE SURGE PROTECTOR. just goes to show you don't need alot of money to get a GREAT system. I imagine acoustics make a diff. My room is small carpeted.
Well, if Chris is the expert why didn't you have him on? Tell us something we don't already know. 😉
PS I had one of your first phono preamps for many years. Didn't quite know what I had at the time, being a young guy and budding audiophile needing a phono preamp. I gave it to my Dad who then used it for many more years. Another piece of 2-channel gear I wish I'd kept🙁
Agreed
When I was a teenager in the 80s I bought a pair of piezo tweeter horns for my home-build speakers and I quickly learned how awful treble can sound. I then replaced them with some dome tweeters. Still it didn't come near the resolving qualities of my Stax headphones at the time. Main reason I am considering the Aspen speakers is about those planar ribbon drivers.
The ESS AMT-1
Is One of The Best Of
Loud Speakers 🔊 That Came Out Of
The 1970’s Muscle 💪 Wars of The 70’s For The Consumer
This Speaker 🔈 Is Still Under The Radar Of
Vintage HiFi 😮 Collectors
Side Note: I Really Don’t See any New Current Speakers 🔊 That Will Stand The Test Of Time
Except
The Wilson Sasha V Line
That Will Be Collectable In
40 Years Every Thing Else
Well I’ll Be Dead 💀 By Then So and Beryllium Tweeters 🔊 Scream 😱
The Beauty Of These Kind Of Speaker 🔈 Is You
Have To Try Very Hard To
Kill Them and They Just
Don’t Want To Die Easy
So Those of You Explore
Ribbon and Beryllium Tweeters
Also Many Years Ago
When JBL Moved From a Humble Factory in
Los Angeles to Northridge
In The San Fernando Valley I Took a Private Tour of The New JBL
Facilities and The Big Shots Forgot I Was To Show Up and What I Saw 👀 Was JBL Was Assembling INFINITY and
Realistic Speakers 🔊
So I Asked What is The Deal ? I Was Told That Realistic Which Was The Tandy Texas Instruments
Radio Shack Line and
Infinity Speakers 🔊 Do Not Have a Facility For Manufacturing Speakers So Infinity and Realistic Radio Shack Farmed Out
To JBL
So Oddly Enough
JBL Made The infinity
Speakers So Paul
Ask Your Friend About That Because Even You
Didn’t Know This
That’s The Scoop
Paul and Now Let Us Return To Paul and His
ASMR Show as He Dose a Impression of
Mr. Roger
Re: current speakers not standing the test of time. I would argue that the AMTs of today are far superior to the original ESS drivers due to the invention of high strength neodymium magnets. I would guess the polymer diaphragm materials have improved over the last 40 years as well.
You really think Paul didn't know Infinity was being produced at the Northridge plant? He was a personal friend and worked along side of Arnie Nudell.
Please don't make a low cost speaker with a dome. Double the price if you have half to work that ribbon in. I loved the Genesis speaker you made at around $1600 floorstander. Them and my dad's Quad ESL 57s were the reason I have had Magnepan for 20+ years.
All types of tweeters have a positive and negative issue. With permission..ill tell that ribbons and planars arent whats called minimum phase..and they also dont radiate equally radially..Yes again..All designs have issues..but the pros are flat..open ..response with little or no fs because of their low mass.. now ill give my opinion..WINSLOE BURHOES inverved dome is somewhat best..minimum phase tweeter..and focals replica ..replicas fail in many respects ..even though theyre expensive..haha..I do think that the modern genesis round tweeter. The latest is even better than the early ones..is really good..and fixed the dispersion pattern issue of the emit..and bob carver tweeter.. Yes.I still like the genesis physics inverted dome best.
Many differing approaches with respect to geometry ,materials all with certain pros and cons. The implementation is key as always and is what contributes most towards the "tweeter sound". It can be too easy to make broad generalisations.
Which speakers have natural sounding tweeters with volume control and natural sound
Outstanding
I Agree
The New Generation of
Ribbon Tweeters Just
Scream You Just Can’t
Kill Them
I'm shocked! An actual statement without wondering into strange land. Congratulations.
Many Unsolicited
Thank You’s
Am at a Age Where I Just Don’t Give a Soggy Flying
F@%#
Am on Many of The Blogs and Vignettes of HiFi
Mr. Carlson Lab I Give Him What For And All The Repair Shows From Old Vintage Guitar Amps To
Making Your Own Gizmos And Noodling I Actually Treat Paul Nice I Give The Other Shows a Hard Time of It The Kids Like Lenny and Kevin on Sky Lab
I Like Their Approach And Attitude
I Gave a Nice Send Off
To The Great
Bob Carver and
My Best Friend Who
Passed Away
The Great
Stanley Goldstein
Look 👀 Him Up
😮 Side Story
In The Early 1960’s
My Mother
Had a Telephone 📞
Land Line She Wouldn’t Call Me From
North Dakota To
Pasadena Because it Was To Expensive So
I Went Back Home For
Summer Break And We Had a Telephone Pole in The Back Yard I Climbed Up The Pole and
I Wired a Rotory Phone
And Put it By The Pole
I Said “” You Can
Call Me For Free Now Mom Anytime
To Cal Tech in
Pasadena 😮“”
Thank You
Someone Finally Got
It in The Mysterious World 🌎 Of UA-cam
Finally Got It
@@stevenholquin2127I’m not sure what you’re smoking, but it’s pretty powerful stuff
@@craigaust3306
Apparently, the best of the best, lol.
@@stevenholquin2127
I have many doubts about all your claims. Your writing, thoughts and typing style is not what a person with a higher education background would do. It does not show the higher IQ of a person that is accepted to Cal Tech. Grow up son, you're not fooling anyone.
nice appaisal; I have Martin-Logans
Illuminator R3004/662000 is one of the best twitter ever made. Of course that ,,foils" are good but not every.
Colorado is of the the coast of New York, right?
Whaha Belguim does NOT belong to the Netherlands :-)
Belguim doesn't belong to anywhere :-)
@@ThinkingBetterBelgium shouldn’t even exist
@@DrRock2009 We are talking about Belguim and not Belgium hahaha 😂
Belgium is a country where in the north, they speak flemmish which is a dialect of dutch :)
The Hol from Holland has its origins in the word "Hohl" or "hollow". "Nether" and "hollow" mean the same here - basically beneath sea level.
There’s a Reason for
Everything
American geography. 😲
Hey lived in that small town for 2 years It's just outside of Ulrich You pronounce the G like it is an H 😅
Geog faceplant Paul
Oddly Enough
I’ve Built The First
3 Wheels of Fortune
and Was Asked By
Dick Chaney and Halliburton To Build a
Electrical Infrastructure For Desert Storm
I Was At The BP Oil Spill
The United States Has list Of The Electrical engineers During a Catastrophe That Keep Infrastructure
Am Not a Audio File By No Means
Am a Electrical Engineer I Find Audio Files as Silly People
You all have to understand everything about this guy telling you about audio,everyone and everything he incorporates is the best in the business
Did I just hear a product announcement - a Sprout speaker? I always thought that in order to survive, PS Audio would have to ultimately embrace ‘lifestyle products’. You never know but one day we may see headphones or even earbuds from them. From a business perspective there are more individuals out there than rooms.
Sorry but planars are cheap. As is most everything else that goes in the overpriced cabinet. Now if you start selling speakers for $300 a set, I can't see a reason why you all would use a dome.
Dork
You're not as smart as you think you are.
15 views bro fell off
i guess Paul never looked on google maps before? Anyways, Holland is often referred to as the Netherlands. However it's the Netherlands which is a country (as is Belgium (Located South). And Holland comes from the old days where a couple of provinces (Noord/Zuid Holland) where called Holland! Very long story and all details can be found here nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland in case anyone is interested. Groetjes from the Netherlands Paul :D
No the tweeter is not the most important in speaker on the system