How good are DIY ribbons?

[Caleb Chia]

Hi,
I wonder if you guys could tell me how good a DIY ribbon tweeter can be made? (With reasonable cost, effort etc)
How would they compare to a cheap commercial ribbon or dome tweeter, for the same amount of money spent?

Im thinking of building a pair of ribbons to match to 3inch drivers so they will only need to go down to about 6000hz, and have about 90dB sensitivity. I want a 'normal' looking speaker so max length would be about 100mm. Is this possible?

Thanks

[moray james]

much about the efficiency other than it may be difficult to do short of multiple turns in the gap. I can say that you can build a simple ribbon that will slaughter a cheap or even expensive dome tweeter. You could buy something like the JAS tweeter and modify it for little and all the nasty work is done. Just a thought. Have not built anything worth talking about as far as ribbons go. Take a look at the Ambience as that is very simple works well and is diyable (larger but a good idea of multi turns. . There are patrons here who have built fine ribbons. For me the compromises are too many but that is just me so I like ESL rather than ribbons. Build away. You can get thin aluminum film from film/foil capacitors for almost nothing. 5 micron is good thinner is better but much more difficult to work with. Google is your friend so search.

[LineSource]

Originally posted by Caleb Chia
How would they compare to a cheap commercial ribbon or dome tweeter, for the same amount of money spent?

Your requirements can easily be covered by reasonable cost commercial ribbons, so the educational value of DIY ribbons would need to be important to you for make vs. buy. Most of the DIY ribbons discussed on this site are larger or more specialized (like dipole).

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http://www.madisound.com/catalog/pro...oducts_id=1389


Fountek NeoCD3.0 ribbon tweeter $90


110mm (4.33") Round Metal Flange, Black, Depth is 68mm (2.7")

Super strong Neodymium magnets
Build-in impedance conversion transformer
Effective from 1,400Hz upwards due to the large diaphragm area and low self-resonance.
Thin enforced sandwich ribbon diaphragm guarantees a high degree of signal fidelity and broad frequency response.
Low distortion factor, good power-handling capabilities, high linear impedance and amplitude frequency response and the broad frequency response range.
Flat impedance from 1,000 to 40,000Hz

Specifications
Ribbon material: Enforced sandwich
Ribbon mass: 18mg
Ribbon dimension: 8mmX60mmX0.02mm
Ribbon area: 480square millimeters
Gap flux: 0.6 Tesla
Gap height: 3mm
Impedance: 7 Ohm
DCR: 0.02 ohm
Sensitivity: 95dB/M/W
Frequency response: 1,400~40,000Hz
Resonance frequency: 400Hz
Power handling: 17W Normal, 40W Max
Recommended crossover frequency: 2,500Hz / 2nd-Order