Raven Ribbons and ESS Heil Driver

[VHF man]

Originally Posted by tuckers

I have two questions about ribbons drivers.

Can you run a Heil AMT driver without a crossover? Will it hurt the driver? It's an interesting idea to build a crossoverless two way with a Heil on top and a woofer that can do 800 hz to the bottom.

New ESS Heil Driver

I an interested in trying a ribbon as a super tweeter for a single driver system I am trying.

Audio Nirvana 15" Full Range Driver

I have heard that the Raven R1 is an ideal driver for this. But since I am interested in also in trying the above design, perhaps getting a Heil would kill two birds with one stone (cheaper too).

How would you compare a Heil AMT to a Raven for a supertweeter (with a 15Khz high pass filter)?

I found 10KHz worked ok crossing Infinity EMIT's to the R1. I had both tweeters in series and used an air core inductor across the R1 and a film cap across the EMIT. Values were selected for a 12db/octave slope and it worked well but with a slightly limited vertical beamwidth in the crossover region - which is the main problem when crossing over that high.

FWIW I didn't like the Raven's lack of dynamics below about 7kHz but they do have a nice smooth and sweet high treble. In the end I dumped them for a pair of Raal 140-15's which are in another league. They really do work down to 3kHz without limitations and present much more resolution - out to 100kHz. If you can justify the $$ they will give you a exactly what you're after- perfect treble with a super tweeter response

[WrineX]

i got some ravens R2.1 this week. only tested them, they sound pretty nice but the HEIL and the ravens need crossover, and the ravens even a verry steep one to, 2500hz 24dB oct. somthing in that order. or you wil smack ur ribbon from front to back, and maybe even burnout the transformer while your at it it can only handle 15 watt (oke they are verry verry efficient but ok)