Generally I find tweeters with pronounced break up modes above 20k fatiguing.
I can't hear it but after an hour or two I just want to stop listening.
Good point. What would be the cause, IM distortion? Just a the frequency response peak? If the latter causes it, a DSP running at 48 kHz would solve it for dome resonances occurring at > 24 kHz, because the steep ADC and DAC low pass filters at just below the Nyquist frequency of 24 kHz would remove any sound above that frequency. Playing a cd sampled at 44.1 kHz would also work.
I've had the same experience of fatigue when a signal at about 25 kHz accidentally got injected into the signal path, due to a mistake in ground layout. It uncomfortable to be near the speakers for a prolonged period, even though you could hear nothing.
I've had the same experience of fatigue when a signal at about 25 kHz accidentally got injected into the signal path, due to a mistake in ground layout. It uncomfortable to be near the speakers for a prolonged period, even though you could hear nothing.
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I have yet not played with diamond tweeters nor beryllium, what are the advantages over less costly alternatives? [...] Please can you tell about the benefits of diamond and beryllium tweeters, thanks!
Beryllium got excellent stiffness at very low weight. I've heard several beryllium drivers and all were very detailed and crisp in sound. The downside is, they are brittle, you have definitively to protect them from touch. That usually implements some kind of perforated sheet which can have a negative effect (more or less, depends on the implementation/construction) on the sound, i.e. non-linearities (non-flat response), phase problems (also results in a non-flat response), bad impact on the radiation pattern or leave the sensitive dome vulnerable. If it's measuring great and if it's not too expensive, go for it.
Diamond as a top layer is very stiff but it's heavy compared to the alternatives. If you want to show off to others 'I got diamond tweeters', then that's what you want to get. Otherwise, there's not much (if at all) advantages you'll get from these. Way overpriced IMO.
If you want a cheaper alternative, go for ceramic tweeters. Excellent stiffness and low weight of the dome. They are usually build with an aluminium or aluminium-titanium dome which surface is treatet and the aluminium changes to ceramic (Al2O3). The underlaying material is still aluminium but the ceramic surface stiffens the structure drastically. These are a lot cheaper than diamond and beryllium and sound excellent too, great level of details/resolution and not as sensitive as beryllium.
There are full ceramic membrane drivers, excellent but very expensive too aand I would not recommend to use them in the bass. Why? well...
E: Maybe look for Air Motion Transformers or Ribbons too, there are tons of extremely good ones for reasonable prices.
E2: Added the picture.
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Sound enjoyment ultimately comes down to the individual, no matter what the plots say.
I think everyone has heard cheap tweeters that sound better than their price point and more often (my thought only) vice versa.
Expensive materials doth not necessarily make an improved sound, just an expensive construction. While R&D may say one thing, often your ears tell you otherwise.
If it's all about enjoyment, let your ears do the talking. The powers that be did not allow me to enjoy rule flat response and I keep that in mind for every one of my builds. Many persons 'struggle' with my speakers and I understand why. Mine are different and different for a reason. I only need to please the person who will be listening the most.
Cheers everyone, I hope you have a great weekend either dreaming, designing or maybe even building something for your future listening pleasure.
I think everyone has heard cheap tweeters that sound better than their price point and more often (my thought only) vice versa.
Expensive materials doth not necessarily make an improved sound, just an expensive construction. While R&D may say one thing, often your ears tell you otherwise.
If it's all about enjoyment, let your ears do the talking. The powers that be did not allow me to enjoy rule flat response and I keep that in mind for every one of my builds. Many persons 'struggle' with my speakers and I understand why. Mine are different and different for a reason. I only need to please the person who will be listening the most.
Cheers everyone, I hope you have a great weekend either dreaming, designing or maybe even building something for your future listening pleasure.
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There was an experiment, can't find it anymore, sry. Well, they tried what caused the fatigue and they found it's not the break up modes itself, it's the distortion of it, k3 and k5. k2 surprisingly did not add up to fatigue or exhaustion.
Don't forget, these modes often lead to IMD at lower frequencies too.
I myself often find little peaks at 5+7kHz very tiring.
I'm exactly with you there. You have to throw overboard that 'expensive = good'.
And there are so many categories that are important and not every category got the same 'weight' or importance for everyone. For some, linearity and upper and lower reached frequency in the plot is not the first and only criteria. Homogenity, livelyness are other ones, very important ones. Dynamics i.e. is one which is very important to me.
My 2 cents. For what its worth, what matter most is the distortion. Flat frequency response is nice and all but if the driver has a nasty distortion pattern or cone breakup, then its going to modulate the response, something you can't see on the frequency response. Dispersion is also very important and if it is less than desirable, a waveguide can aid in that but nothing can aid in distortion - unless you start to temper with the motor etc.
Regarding harmonic distortion, 2nd order or even order is always going to be more enjoyable than 3rd and odd order harmonics. I have included 3 tweeters in the attached picture. One SBA Beryllium, one Accuton diamond and one foil tweeter from Wiavave. While all of them can be considered to be expensive, the tweeter that really stand out is the diamond. One would not expect a $4800/pair tweeter to have such severe issues in the distortion as this one has - yes I did listen to one and while I consider it to be clear and detailed (airy) it comes off as harsh. I have listened to tweeters that sound better, has similar or better frequency response and better distortion figures than this diamond tweeter, which so happen to be would be my go to before choosing this diamond tweeter (SEAS 27TFF or 27TDC).
The reason Beryllium is considered a great material for tweeters is that it does not have the typical "nasty" cone breakup around 25kHz which aluminum tweeters have but is more pistonic than soft-domes and usually has lower distortion, making it almost ideal. One contender that is also doing things nicely is the Wiavave GRT145 which easily can compete against Beryllium and Diamond tweeters. Last but not least, Peerless seem to have gotten ceramic tweeters correct with their Corundum range. You can check out some measurements and user feedback via the provided link.
Hope that helps.
Peerless Corundum info: "Into The Abyss", Tweeters in low places -
Techtalk Speaker Building, Audio, Video Discussion Forum
Regarding harmonic distortion, 2nd order or even order is always going to be more enjoyable than 3rd and odd order harmonics. I have included 3 tweeters in the attached picture. One SBA Beryllium, one Accuton diamond and one foil tweeter from Wiavave. While all of them can be considered to be expensive, the tweeter that really stand out is the diamond. One would not expect a $4800/pair tweeter to have such severe issues in the distortion as this one has - yes I did listen to one and while I consider it to be clear and detailed (airy) it comes off as harsh. I have listened to tweeters that sound better, has similar or better frequency response and better distortion figures than this diamond tweeter, which so happen to be would be my go to before choosing this diamond tweeter (SEAS 27TFF or 27TDC).
The reason Beryllium is considered a great material for tweeters is that it does not have the typical "nasty" cone breakup around 25kHz which aluminum tweeters have but is more pistonic than soft-domes and usually has lower distortion, making it almost ideal. One contender that is also doing things nicely is the Wiavave GRT145 which easily can compete against Beryllium and Diamond tweeters. Last but not least, Peerless seem to have gotten ceramic tweeters correct with their Corundum range. You can check out some measurements and user feedback via the provided link.
Hope that helps.
Peerless Corundum info: "Into The Abyss", Tweeters in low places -
Techtalk Speaker Building, Audio, Video Discussion Forum
Attachments
That all makes good sense except that I find it not at all surprising that k2 does not add to fatigue as it is harmonically related to the clean signal.
I've had my hearing tested and it explains neatly why I hate NS10 so much:
Where they have peaks my hearing happens to be particularly sensitive.
May be your hearing has peaks at 5 and 7k.
I never tried it myself. The stuff they sell as studio monitors is silly. If the drivers and amps sound bad they just argue it will help your mix. If only musicians took as good as cared as much about sound quality as music listeners. When I tried to mix a few songs I needed to use headphones. Even cheap headphones are quite revealing.
A bit OT but I find headphones almost completely useless for mixing, for emergencies only. Useful to get the mic positioning right though.
The trick with monitors is never to use only one set. My mains are active Tannoy Volts which I obviously built myself. I've got them to within 2dB 25-20 000Hz at my listening position. Using the Klippel online test I can hear distortion down to 0.5% using them.
The Auratones are invaluable to check the midrange (that's all they really produce) for mud and to get the bass response right ie if it is audible on the 'tones but not bloated on the mains it is perfect. They also image like few others which makes the panning a joy. Once everything is great on the mains and the 'tones I still check the mix on everything else I come across like car stereos, boom boxes, home hifi etc.
With practice I could get decent mixes out of NS10s but I would always fight and second guess them making it all too much like hard, unpleasant work.
But to get back to expensive tweeters some good monitors (ATC, Quested) used surprisingly cheap ones but what their choices had in common was very clean waterfall plots. There are some very good tweeters at £50 and below. £200 jobs might be marginally better but it hardly seems worth the extra cost.
The trick with monitors is never to use only one set. My mains are active Tannoy Volts which I obviously built myself. I've got them to within 2dB 25-20 000Hz at my listening position. Using the Klippel online test I can hear distortion down to 0.5% using them.
The Auratones are invaluable to check the midrange (that's all they really produce) for mud and to get the bass response right ie if it is audible on the 'tones but not bloated on the mains it is perfect. They also image like few others which makes the panning a joy. Once everything is great on the mains and the 'tones I still check the mix on everything else I come across like car stereos, boom boxes, home hifi etc.
With practice I could get decent mixes out of NS10s but I would always fight and second guess them making it all too much like hard, unpleasant work.
But to get back to expensive tweeters some good monitors (ATC, Quested) used surprisingly cheap ones but what their choices had in common was very clean waterfall plots. There are some very good tweeters at £50 and below. £200 jobs might be marginally better but it hardly seems worth the extra cost.
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I have said this many times also. I am a retired Engineer and Technician and former musician; I ALWAYS do my final tweaks using well known recordings and trust my ears. I only need to please myself but others have told me they really like the end results of any current speakers I might be "final" tuning and tweaking. Many of these people are also technical and musicians so I know I'm doing right. (I have used ribbons, soft dome and hard dome tweeters all with good results). Trust your ears! Cheers!
I'm curious. Be midrange, are you using 2nd hand or new drivers and if so which one ?
You are literally the first person I've come across who has issues with ATC tweeters.
Never come across an aluminium diaphragmed compression driver + horn I really liked. The newer mylar or whatever diaphragms are much better IMO.
But hey everybody likes what they like.
The 1981 Yamaha JA6681B. Good year for music, and drivers apparently. Made before I was born, so yeah, used. I use it from 500Hz to 2000Hz. Then Raal in a horn. So above 2kHz the membrane is close to weightless.
Quick review by Hifiheroin blog: hifi heroin: Listening to the Yamaha JA6681B compression drivers...
Compression driver Shoot-out by the late Jean-Michel Le Cléac’h:
"N°14 : Stereolab tractrix horn + Yamaha JA6681B driver A flat frequency response curve between 600Hz and 10kHz. Very low distortion, both fH2dH3(tdi)for H2 and H3 (great driver).A very smooth group delay curve, smoothly rising over 10centimeters ( = 0.3ms) below 900Hz.Better to use that horn between 900Hz and 8kHz. A good Impulse response but with some breaking modes/HF resonances seen also on the spectrogram above 8kHz. Some reflected energy from mouth to throat due to the unbaffled truncated mouth of that small horn. Few diffraction between 1ms and 2ms above 1700Hz."
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