New Seas Exotic drivers

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SunRa

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I really hoped to see something else when opened this thread. The tweeter seems nice, might sound nice and clip different but the woofer has a nasty break-up for a pape cone... Oh well..

I don't understand why nobody aplies tehniques used in widerange design (supravox, lowther, phy-hp, fostex) and make a nice, linear, well behaved and well controlled break-up midrange/woofer/ whatever...
 
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speakerdoctor

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And when are they going to put some effort on improving off-axis response? This 'exotic' tweeter isn't any better than a $15 one.

The blurb on the woofer's spider is a hoot - the epitomy of marketing hyperbole! Can anybody reading this REALLY be concerned about the sound of the spider threads rubbing against each other?????
 
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5th element

5th element

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Joined 2002
speakerdoctor said:
And when are they going to put some effort on improving off-axis response? This 'exotic' tweeter isn't any better than a $15 one.
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You're saying that as if SEAS care about it as a desirable thing. That isn't the case here and they describe it as a dome midrange-tweeter. From my eyes it looks like they've deliberately gone for a larger diameter so the tweeter can play down lower more easily.

speakerdoctor said:
The blurb on the woofer's spider is a hoot - the epitomy of marketing hyperbole! Can anybody reading this REALLY be concerned about the sound of the spider threads rubbing against each other?????
Click to expand...

Whether or not the words the marketing department came up with are accurate or not, does not alter the fact that spider resonances and behaviour are important when it comes to the overall performance. No doubt these are only minor performance changes, but that's not really the point, an improvement is an improvement. (Of course this is assuming that it brings about an improvement, but why assume that it doesn't? Most of SEAS marketing 'hype' included in their datasheets, even if exaggerated, is generally true to some extent.)

Quite clearly these drivers are aimed at a specific minority. The price automatically excludes them from most sane peoples reach. But even if money wasn't an issue, I can't see their performance being anything better then other comparable drivers on the market.

Of course I don't mind being corrected on that, if they do perform extremely well then there is at least some reason to pay the stupidly high costs. Which would actually be interesting to see.

If the tweeter could easily be crossed over at say 1khz there'd probably be a small market fort that.
 
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speakerdoctor

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Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-Seas. I think they do make good products. I've used a number of them.

I also know there is a market for a dome tweeter with good off-axis response. However, lower Fs seems more important these days. Oh well :(

Perhaps the exotic line is keeping true to the high-end manifesto; resulting in the typical exponentially diminishing benefit vs cost curve.
 
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speakerdoctor

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5th element

5th element

Member
Joined 2002
speakerdoctor said:
Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-Seas. I think they do make good products. I've used a number of them.
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Oh don't worry it didn't even cross my mind that you were bashing the company.

speakerdoctor said:
I also know there is a market for a dome tweeter with good off-axis response. However, lower Fs seems more important these days. Oh well :(
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As time goes on it does seem that people are pushing tweeters lower and lower. A few years ago 2khz was considered a low xover point. Now you have to get around 1500hz before you're into danger territory.

This does make sense however, as people do tend to try pushing the limits. Naturally most mid/bass units start having 'issues' higher up and the lower you can cross them, the better the end result can be. Of course you have to make sure your tweeter won't be the bottleneck.

I'm not totally convinced having good off axis behaviour is a good thing. I vastly prefer the XT25 over the XT19 in my room. The only thing I can attribute this to is the poorer off axis response.

Having very good off axis response requires a smaller diameter tweeter - this of course goes directly against mid/bass drivers working better lower down then higher up. My dislike for the XT19 aside, I think its of greater priority to get the 1-3khz area as good as possible, if that requires sacrificing the off axis performance of the tweeter, then so be it.

speakerdoctor said:
Perhaps the exotic line is keeping true to the high-end manifesto; resulting in the typical exponentially diminishing benefit vs cost curve.
Click to expand...

Well that depends where you draw the line. Generally people don't mind paying more money if the performance is there. Now whether or not you call it good value for money is another thing entirely.

Personally when drive units start approaching the £100 mark, they've crossed that line. This excludes larger drive units, which naturally cost more to make. But if we're considering tweeters/5-6" mid/basses, they'd have to do something special to warrant the extra expense.

Or should I put this another way. Paying over £100 for a drive unit will not happen, unless I absolutely have to, to get a certain level of performance.

The Seas Exotic line seems at odds with itself - who exactly are they expecting to buy them? The drivers don't seem to fit in anywhere - I mean I can think of uses for them but when you consider the price, you can do similar things for much less.
 
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