Yamaha berylium tweeters

[Sjef]

Just out of curiosity and in my never ending search for the perfect tweeter I have bought some second hand Yamaha berylium that came out of the NS1000 loudspeakers.

They sound quite awfull in fact, very nasty agressive sound without any detail and real top end extension. Does anyone have any experience with tweaking these tweeters like damping behind the dome, adding or removing ferro fluid (don't think it has any), coating the domes, removing the dispersion plastic in front of the dome etc.

Any experience is very welcome



(nomatter at what cost, from cheap to very expensive, still haven't found a tweeter that's perfect, i'll keep on searching, any recommendations are welcome)

[Salas]

Here they say there are stressed second hand tweeters from 1000Ms that sound fizzy.

''Look for 'one careful owner' and avoid examples that sound fizzy * it's a sign of a distressed Beryllium driver just about to die. Replacements are readily available from Yamaha Electronics (tel: 01923 233166) but expensive.''

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/olde...hans1000m.html

[Sjef]

Hi Salas,

thanks for your reply. I've heard about the distressed berylium before and also have read the article you refering to. In this same article the autor mentioned that the NS1000 could sound very fizzy on transistor amps and very good on tube amps. I think that my tweeters would indeed be sounding better on a "old fashioned" tube amp in that way that it would soften the sound of them a lot. Unfortunatly I'm using them on a "modern" designed 300B se amp wich does not sound as rounded off at the highs as the "old fashioned" tube amps do.

Too bad I don't have the opportunity to compare them to a pair of very good conserved or reconed tweeters, so at the moment I can only guess that either the berylium is weared out or that the tweeters have a nasty characteristic on their own.

[anatech]

There is no former in the voice coil, just the flat wire and adhesive. It's a very low mass assembly. This also makes them very delicate where overpower is concerned (read clipping). Yes, they are expensive.
There is a good chance they are damaged. Run a low level oscillator tone up to see if it buzzes anywhere. They shouldn't.
-Chris

[Salas]

still haven't found a tweeter that's perfect, i'll keep on searching, any recommendations are welcome

Did you ever try a ribbon array? Its super clean and has body.
You probably got irritated by 3rd order dome artefacts in many tweeters.
Another suggestion is to use 5 good mini metal mid-tweeters packed closely in a horizontal Bessel array. You must invert the 2nd and 4th. There are cheap good ones from Tangband.
5 drivers will make THD drop very much and increase the dispersion to about 170 degrees. Power handling and excursion will be greatly improved.

[Sjef]

Anatech:

I have just checked the domes with a function generator, there's no rattling, at least not in the usefull frequency range, they start rattling at 500Hz but that's probably because they can't handle that anyway. Yamaha used the tweeters in combination with the berylium mid domes from 6kHz upwards, I'm trying to use them with a pair of PHL 1220's from 3kHz upwards, maybe that's part of the problem. Don't know if they where designed to handle that, they should be able to. I have measured the freq response and it has -3dB points at 2kHz and 18kHz !

Salas:

The bessel arry sound interesting but I have my preservations against those cheap maetal cone tweeters, what type are you referring to ?

And, yes you are wright about the dome tweeters, I haven't heard any dome tweeter in my entire life wich I really liked, there's just something "not real" from the sound of them, even from the most ridiculous expensive ones. they all have that very "artificial" sound around them, I like ribbons and horns more sofar.

At the moment I'm looking at some Goto horns but I would like to hear them before I buy because they are pretty expensive and I don't know if I can live with thos narrow dispersion (didn't like the Visaton TL16H because of that) I'm looking for something to combine with a Phy-Hp 20 cm midrange on an open baffle and like to cross them at max at 4kHz, don't like what they are doing above that. (still can't believe some people are actually listening to them without any tweeter, just horrible)

[Salas]

Hello

I am talking about W2-800SF. Have a look at the pdf I attach. They are sold in Europe for about 18 EUR each.

I use PHL 1220 myself. Its great. But because of the hi-mid breakout in spl, when you eq it, you are left with a 2500 crosspoint, else a void between 2-3K. So I understand your need to cross the Yamaha low. I guess it is not designed to get crossed low, hence fizzy.

[Scottmoose]

Don't forget the Yams (one of the best -some would argue the best speaker[s] ever built, and I'm not about to argue with that) had trim-pots for both treble and midrange. If you decide to play around with these things, take care over that berylium dome -it can be nasty stuff.
Best
Scott

[Scottmoose]

Blast! Double post. 'Net connection was mucking me about sorry about that.
S

[anatech]

Hi Sjef,
Crossing over too low may do that. They are not good at handling power either so you need a sharp slope on the crossover.

At least they are still good.

-Chris