The Whole Truth About Beryllium Diaphragms

[doug20]

Originally posted by soongsc

Earl, you make it sound like there is no hope. I think this is an opportunity to differentiate and focus on specific consumers that are willing to pay for what others cannot provide.

Problem though is that people want bling...I have posted links to Geddes speakers trying to explain the benefits of their designs and the three most common answers

1. They are ugly
2. They have to sit 45 degree angles
3. They are horns....no way.

SQ has its price.

I think there are lots of incredible choices out there still Danley, Seaton, JTR, Salk come to mind for Commercial choices. B&M is dead to me but the online world is surviving.....Don't know how long though small margins, supply/demand tells me many will not survive.


Anyways, If Usher was serious about this and spent less time worry about what emails the OP has sent them maybe they would realize that they should just remove the Be part of the marketing spin.

[gedlee]

Originally posted by doug20

I have posted links to Geddes speakers trying to explain the benefits of their designs and the three most common answers

1. They are ugly
2. They have to sit 45 degree angles
3. They are horns....no way.

SQ has its price.

A truely important statement. Things have come down to this simple fact. You can not improve the status quo in SQ if you do not accept the "costs" involved. And those costs are not in $. Either pay the price or accept what you get. Its really quite simple.

[mowry]

Well folks about 5-years ago my colleague, Mike Klasco wrote an article for Voice Coil magazine entitled "Bogus Beryllium". Unfortunately, it had little impact on the situation. The parts tested came from Sonic Electronics with offices in Taiwan. The test results at that time were "Painted Titanium".

http://www.audioxpress.com/magsdirx/...sBeryllium.pdf

I have not even had my discussion article published yet; however, it will appear in a few publication I assure you and based on its merit, but companies of interest seem to be scrambling already to explain how they used a material with 6.1 grams of Be for every kilogram of material and marketed that as a beryllium speaker and even inscribed Beryllium right on the tweeter's faceplate and as a prefix to the model number, Be-616, Be-718, Be-10, Be-20 etc. The entire dome mass is about 0.100 grams (~100 mg), then there is approximately 0.00061 grams (0.61 mg) of beryllium per tweeter dome. Now remember in spite of the material analysis, the color of Usher's domes are a close match to beryllium's steel gray color. I have discussed this with material scientists and they say it's either painted on on vapor deposited.

Now if it is perceived as unprofessional to refer to this material from Sonic as Bogusium with its known history going back to 2004 as "Bogus Beryllium", then so be it. However, satire does have its place, while arrogance really does not. There is a difference.


Hi Earl,

Do you accept the "Be placebo" as a phychoacoustic phenomenon? Could you comment on this point?

[Andy G]

I wonder what percentage of a diamond ring, is actually diamond ?

If sure there are also many other instances where objects are named for their (perceived) most important constituent.

[mowry]

Originally posted by DcibeL
I'm surprised this hasn't been posted in this thread yet:

Zaph's measurements of an Usher Be tweeter here.

I'm not surprised. If you look at the material properties listed in table 1., you will see that Bogusium is similar to aluminum in properties and especially the specific stiffness or speed of sound property. So in the limit the first bending mode that we see in the magnitude response at about 14 kHz is typical; however, if beryllium were to be substituted, than that first diaphragm bending mode would be at (12,500/5000 = 2.5 : 2.5(14 kHz)= 35kHz). In practice, unless the vice coil bobbin is also beryllium, it will bend well below 35 kHz and there are adhesive and surround interfaces that can induce vibration modes.


A good background for my "Truth" discussion but 2 Part and dry reading are below.

http://www.audioxpress.com/magsdirx/.../mowry1208.pdf
http://www.audioxpress.com/magsdirx/...a/mowry109.pdf

[bear]

As someone who has been watching and in the audio scene for more than 4 decades now, I can reassure anyone reading that sound quality has never ever been truly a major factor in the business. Quite to the contrary.

While there have been some products that (perhaps inadvertently?) were of superior sound quality along the way, the marketing and perceived quality have always been the dominant factors.

Let's not kid anyone, the business of audio (be it high-end or mid-fi) is and is always likely to be one of marketing and perceived quality first and foremost.

It is important to note that very very few companies have survived for more than a decade in the audio business. The big conglomerates (Harmon being the biggest?) are really in the consumer commodity business because of the sheer scale of sales required to just stay afloat. Very few smaller companies seem to manage to stay afloat for very long compared to the ones that fall by the wayside. It's a tough tough competetive business that requires significant sales volume to turn a profit or to manufacture anything inexpensively. And you have to make it inexpensively because the margins are not nearly as large as the consumer would believe based on the retail price.

What it takes to get a product into a showroom is another story for another time...

The DIY community can be excepted from this - although it is not immune to the effect either.

_-_-bear

[gedlee]

Originally posted by mowry

Hi Earl,

Do you accept the "Be placebo" as a phychoacoustic phenomenon? Could you comment on this point?

Absolutely agree, as long it it says Be somewhere it will "sound better". SO there is a great marketing incentive to do this and a huge profit incentive to minimize the actual Be content because it is so expensive and doesn't actually improve anything.

This is precisely what happens when the market is ruled by marketing, as audio clearly is.

But I completely concur with you that companies that do not use a Be alloy (Be > 50%) must not state that they have "Be diaphragms". This is unethical and I suspect illegal (thats the next step that you should take). I appluad your efforts to resolve this.

[gedlee]

Originally posted by bear
As someone who has been watching and in the audio scene for more than 4 decades now, I can reassure anyone reading that sound quality has never ever been truly a major factor in the business. Quite to the contrary.

_-_-bear

Hi Bear

Completely agree.

But one thing that I have noticed is that while sound qualty plays a very small role in success, it does play a role in longevity. The more a new company makes marketing a key ingredient to its success the faster they go out of business - out of vogue. Marketing has no longevity, but real capability to make good sound quality does.

Thats still makes for a very slippery slope. One cannot become successful based on sound quality, but yet, without it one is doomed to a short term existance.

I'm betting on SQ holding at least a small attraction in the marketplace and counting on it for enough longevity to sustain a market position. There is no point in my competing on anything but SQ as a product attribute because the big guys own everything else. But simply because they recognize SQ is such a small factor to success it is almost inevitable that they de-emphasize it in their organizations and loose the ability to do it over time. I have seen this happen to almost every loudspeaker company that I know.

[angeloitacare]

Hi Steve

could you explain the correlation of speed of sound property, and sound quality ? Why should Beryllium , in regard of this argument, just because sound propagates faster, sound better ?

[gedlee]

Not to steal Steve's response (he can still respond) but the idea is a simple one.

Breakup is bad. Basically once a diaphrgam begins to break up it will start to color the sound - it can no longer be flat and smooth. This is very tru I think, but is most true in the frequency range of say 800 Hz - 8 kHz. Above about 8 kHz it seems to me to be a highly suspect argument.

I would never use a driver in the 800 - 8 k range if it had cone breakup there. Thats what crossovers are for.

The higher the speed of sound in the material the higher the breakup region will begin. But damping is more important than the frequency location. A well damped breakup will be much less audible than a underdamped one, even when a crossover is used. So a material with a high internal damping is best because add on damping lowers the breakup frequencies due to added mass. Paper and some plastics excell here.