Personally my one encounter with Be tweets was reasonably positive. I've never heard the Scanspeak Be drivers themselves, but Lee Taylor of TaylorSpeakers thinks the tweeter in the famous NADA Klang-Tong two way kit is among the best, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so they say, but I found some ancient data on fake beryllium and various attempts to show improvement or lack thereof.
The Be fraud was thoroughly described by Steve Mowry's article, here, and Thread here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/145611-whole-truth-about-beryllium-diaphragms.html
The Be fraud was thoroughly described by Steve Mowry's article, here, and Thread here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/145611-whole-truth-about-beryllium-diaphragms.html
As far as I am aware it was those engineers that started SB Acoustics when Tymphany started to get up in the face of Danish-Sound-Tech.
If they have decided to leave since then so be it, but if they've moved on then they've definitely trained their replacements well as the new stuff coming out of SB is top notch.
The good old revelator has an astonishingly good motor as does its counterpart the D2905/97. These two devices have slight differences but the motor is very similar.
Both measurements can be found here.
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and here
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Scanspeaks newer devices, on the whole, appear to have ever so slightly better 3rd order distortion, but at the expense of 2nd order.
With regards to Be, Diamond or ceramics? Theoretically diamond outperforms Be and has the potential to shove the breakup even higher, to 100kHz or so. This keeps even the 5th harmonics amplified distortion due to that resonance pretty much out of the human hearing range. Perfect in other words, the ideal hard dome. Pistonic so high up in frequency that its breakup doesn't impinge on the audible range in any way.
As to ceramics...well they can be anything at all. Hundreds of different ceramics exist and new ones are being created even to this day. Ceramics are often crystalline in structure and diamond is also a crystal. From the point of view of perfecting a crystalline material for dome tweeters, I don't think you could do much better than diamond. The real challenge would be coming up with a material that's rigid enough to be pistonic over the audible range, but so well damped that it doesn't ring. A composite ceramic maybe? A graphene composite?
It'd be nice if it didn't deform or break/crack if poked.
For me the fundamental question is: would anyone recognize a Be tweeter, if you did not know you were listening to one. Sighted bias may play a strong role here.
But then again, maybe I am completely wrong here, although I would certainly like to know what magic effect would cause the audible improvement.
Properly used Alu-oxides and Ti in 25-28mm domes already have their resonances pushed up beyond the bandwidth of 16 bits/44kHz audio.
Regards,
Eelco
But then again, maybe I am completely wrong here, although I would certainly like to know what magic effect would cause the audible improvement.
Properly used Alu-oxides and Ti in 25-28mm domes already have their resonances pushed up beyond the bandwidth of 16 bits/44kHz audio.
Regards,
Eelco
SB Acoustics was formed to bring an alternative to the hi-end transducer market. Marrying the design talents of Danesian Audio( Denmark ), a company filled with industry veterans, responsible for many well known and revolutionary designs, and manufacturing partner Sinar Baja Electric ( Indonesia )
Danesian audio is to the best of my knowledge still a central part of the R&D.
thanks
always good to have more competition in the raw driver market as all manufacturing moves to Asia. As a user I value quality control /specs just as importantly as innovative products. who knows about Danesian Audio being sort of a consortium of consultants, or a one man band. I fear the Scandinavian talent will soon dry up & blow away.
Since we're not dealing with Chinese company (Usher, etc...), I'd be willing to bet they're 99% pure, but we won't know for sure until they are released.
I don't think 95 or 99% purity matters that much. What Steve Mowry's article was about mostly non-Beryllium dome's being marketted as such. From a 99% copper diaphram dipped in Be, to other types of Fraud. The PDF specifically mentioned Usher as suffering from this. Also, quite frankly, as Steve's article points out, it was an easy to detect type of fraud. The source isn't as important as the willingness of the driver maker to do proper quality control. Don't blame the Chinese when the buyers don't bother to check, and include QC as part of their purchasing price.
I haven't seen a Chinese company selling a $30 tweeter in a $125,000 speaker yet. Fraud is like love and intestinal gas. They transcends race and nationality.
Best,
Erik
I haven't seen a Chinese company selling a $30 tweeter in a $125,000 speaker yet. Fraud is like love and intestinal gas. They transcends race and nationality.
Best,
Erik
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I remember when I bought the complete front end L,R,C, Paradigm Signature1v.2 (year 2000). I read about how much time it wood take to break in the Be tweeter, minimum power to properly drive, etc,etc. People will be able to tell if SB Be is a good product by listening to it. Since SB makes quality drivers, I see no reason to doubt that it would be a good product. The important thing is that if you want to compare Be qualities, ensure that the products you are comparing are all in the same domain. Compare Be with Be, not, Be vs diamond, Be vs ribbon, vs....
By the way, Eva Cassidy singing "Songbird" thru the Be tweeters is quite remarkable. I still have the Sig1's.
Myles
By the way, Eva Cassidy singing "Songbird" thru the Be tweeters is quite remarkable. I still have the Sig1's.
Myles
Kokanee,
In my fantasy world I have made a two-way speaker system with interchangeable tweeters and can listen to each tweeter, calibrated as close to the others, and can make direct A/B comparisons. I do think however if we want to know about how a particular material alone changes things comparing Be with not Be with the same motor structure, or close to it, is a worthwhile experiment. It would ensure that the quality of the overall design is kept consistent. There are some crap tweeter motors out there sporting Be dome's. A comparison of that to say a ribbon would not tell us as much about Be itself.
I do think SB will use quality materials, and that it has to sound as good as their current line, if not better. I've also heard some very good Be demos, good ribbon Demo's and great AMT's, and electrostatics but the individual implementation is what matters.
I promise that if you give me the most expensive salmon in the world to cook it will be indistinguishable from frozen chicken when I am done with it. In the hands of a master though, it would be divine.
I think however that based on prior good experiences, good recommendations from people I trust that if SB can launch a Be line that is under $200 it would be game changing in terms of seeing the technology widespread, so I look forward to their and our success in that area. Wish I was in Munich!
Best,
Erik
In my fantasy world I have made a two-way speaker system with interchangeable tweeters and can listen to each tweeter, calibrated as close to the others, and can make direct A/B comparisons. I do think however if we want to know about how a particular material alone changes things comparing Be with not Be with the same motor structure, or close to it, is a worthwhile experiment. It would ensure that the quality of the overall design is kept consistent. There are some crap tweeter motors out there sporting Be dome's. A comparison of that to say a ribbon would not tell us as much about Be itself.
I do think SB will use quality materials, and that it has to sound as good as their current line, if not better. I've also heard some very good Be demos, good ribbon Demo's and great AMT's, and electrostatics but the individual implementation is what matters.
I promise that if you give me the most expensive salmon in the world to cook it will be indistinguishable from frozen chicken when I am done with it. In the hands of a master though, it would be divine.
I think however that based on prior good experiences, good recommendations from people I trust that if SB can launch a Be line that is under $200 it would be game changing in terms of seeing the technology widespread, so I look forward to their and our success in that area. Wish I was in Munich!
Best,
Erik
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eh metal domes all have significant breakups. Some will argue all that extra energy is beyond human hearing but i'd argue it cant be all good either, knowing how IMD products can work back in-band with complex signals E.g. music. They can sound edgy and exciting depending on taste, compared to smooth doped silks/fabrics.
If yer buying drivers based on marketing bullet points / E.g. exotic materials yer probably ripe for the overcharges.
If yer buying drivers based on marketing bullet points / E.g. exotic materials yer probably ripe for the overcharges.
phase shields and horn loading can improve sound on otherwise fragile metal domes. maybe some acrylic dots applied in patterns? metal fatigue improves with breaking in? who knows, get busy
That's the reason why one goes Be or Diamond though. VS other stiff materials they push the breakup higher in frequency and this pushes the amplified distortion products (that otherwise create the IMD products) higher up in frequency for them to be less of an issue.
yeah in theory, but Be coated on a base of some other alloy wont quite behave just like text book formulas. lets see the tweeter data!
sure, but a counter argument goes like this , pushing 'breakup' higher makes for wider bandwidths allowing more potential for IMD products to mix back inband.
speakers should have twin tone plots at different levels, instead of plain ol frequency sweeps.
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The difference between metal and soft domes is what happens to the centre of the dome above 5khz. Hence why ring radiators came about.
SB 'pin' the middle of their dome down, sonus Faber use a standard soft dome and place a device that touches the centre of the dome.
A few years back I thought using a graphene powder/shellac mix to coat a pair of Alpair 10p's. But after reading up on graphene, the best strength ratios are achieved using graphene leaf. So I'm slightly unconvinced about Magico's claims.
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