Beryllium Tweeter

[WALTER BURKHARD]

If you are particularly interested in experimenting with beryllium drivers, don't forget GOTO from Japan.
regards Walter

[sbolin]

Originally posted by ScottG

1. The price will be exhorbitant.

2. The neo magnet they are using is probably less than an n45 (i.e. there are better magnets being produced by others).

3. Because the mass of BE is so low the VC wire must weigh quite a bit for such a low eff. and/or the diaphram is overly "thick".

4. The high fs will limit its use for mid driver pairing.

5. The high freq. off-axis response (if I'm reading it correctly) is rather good at only 5db 30 degrees at 20kHz, (less good if that's 5db at 15kHz).

#'s 4 and 5 essentially mandate that this driver be used ONLY as a tweeter and combined with a mid that has good off-axis response well above 4kHz.

1. Definitely. The Audiom line is very expensive - $500 for the titanium tweeter. I can't imagine how expensive the Berillium will be.

2. The sensitivity is rated at 93 Db/W/m, which is good. The magnet shouldn't be much of an issue here.

3. See above. 93dB/W/m is not 'such a low efficiency'. And the 'high' fs is probably due to the light weight of the dome. If anything, I would rather they increase the mass a little to lower the fs with an associated lowering of efficiency, but that certainly isn't for me to decide

4. Why? Or maybe I should ask, what do you mean? I don't see a problem using this driver crossed over at 2.5kHz, which would be a good two-way.

5. Good off axis response is normally a good thing. Based on your assumption, just about any tweeter would need to be a three way (at least), so I don't really think that is related to the this tweet.


Very nice looking, exceptionally small faceplate - and the faceplate is thicker than the magnet! Now, kevinlomax, where can you get this tweeter anyway? And the price? (Or is it one of those cases where if you have to ask, you can't afford it!)

[ScottG]

Magnets are VERY important to sound quality.

93db isn't very good for such a low mass diaphram, if anything it should be considerably better than a titanium version.

near fs the driver becomes increasingly distorted (i.e. your CSD will look like crap), ultimatly this means you will need a very steep crossover to get anywhere near the driver's fs while maintaining quality output. Additionally, to maintain good dispersion you will likely need a mid driver with a fairly small diameter. This isn't to say though that you couldn't use a driver with a larger diameter and less off-axis output (in the crossover region), but the freq. balance will suffer as a result (though this could be advantageous - i.e. the BBC "dip").

(note: I was just assesing the driver from the specs provided..)