Suggestions for supertweeter above fullranger?

[Racket Scientist]

I have a pair of Tang Band 1808s that I've been playing with in open baffle. I'm using a pair of pro audio sealed 18" woofers to supply the bottom end. I'll probably just keep tweaking that 2 way setup, but I've also toyed with the idea of adding a supertweeter to go from about 12 KHz up. Many inexpensive tweeters don't go any higher than 20 KHz anyway, and the tweeters that do are either expensive or are producing mostly distortion.

So the question is, are there any tweeters you can recommend that are fairly flat and low distortion above 12 KHz and go pretty high and are fairly inexpensive?

 

[bigaudioscotto]

Jeff
at zillaaudio.com has what you need.
give him a call.

 

[sdclc126]

For above 12k you don't need much

I'd recommend one of the small neo tweeters from Dayton Audio at Parts Express.

Zaph|Audio - ZDT3.5

Zaph|Audio

 

[otto88]

What sensitivity and XO are you after?

Look into the Eminence APT-80

 

[bigaudioscotto]

This is your best bet Eminence asd1001s.
I would use an L pad and a simple cap.
jeff at zilla uses this unit with L pad.
it is the same unit that is used in the Hawthorne Audio Silver Iris.
It sounds great.

 

[PeteMcK]

supertweeter is the best use for piezos (properly crossed over), & they're cheap

 

[Charles Darwin]

I use Fountek JP3.0 ribbons from about 10k up. They are their cheapest, smallest and lightest ribbon (plain foil rather than sandwich type ribbon) which has the side effect of having the flattest and most extended FR of their range according to the data Fountek publishes.

 

[sreten]

Hi,

Apex Jr. do dirt cheap $1 Audax made "supertweeters" that would do just fine.
That they are made by Audax is very important, some nasty "clones" around.
P10 is a big fan.

rgds, sreten.

 

[otto88]

I think most piezos aren’t at all smooth

What sensitivity and XO are you after?

 

[LineSource]

I cut the whizzer cone off of my Tang Band W8-1808 and now use it as a midbass in my 3-way designs. Yes, some wine was involved. As a midbass, the W8-1808 provides good efficiency and detail. I only build 3-way speakers.

The SB29RDCN-C004 is a small 94 db/watt tweeter that I use with my butchered W8-1808 on a sealed speaker crossed LR4 at 1400 Hz. I also use a DIY dipole ribbon that is 0.7" wide and 4" long, also crossed LR4 at 1400Hz, with the W8 plus two Lambda TD15 dipole woofers in an H-frame.

For your current design, the Fountek JP3.0 ribbon mentioned earliler would be a good choice for a 12K+ Hz crossover point. Ribbons add a nice level of fast, light high frequency detail. At 8K+ Hz, I favor ribbons over small domes. I would not use a horn super tweeter like the Fostex unless you had a horn tweeter.

 

[JLH]

I would say go with a B&C Speakers DE35.

Rgs, JLH

 

[Racket Scientist]

Sensitivity will need to be compatible with that of the Tang Band 1808, but I'll probably mount the tweeter firing upward, especially if I use a piezo. I hadn't considered a piezo before, but that might be just the ticket. One other aspect that needs to be considered is impedence - the TB is 8 ohm, and I had been using an active crossover and running those directly from the amp - if I add a tweeter I'd have to either add a passive crossover or use a piezo, which is another point in favor of a piezo. If you wanted to minimize any effect of the added tweeter on the relationship between the fullranger and amp, would you just use a piezo and add a series capacitor to roll off lows below 12 KHz?

 

[sreten]

Hi,

FWIW adding a series capacitor to a piezo will simply act as an attenuator.
Read the wiki on piezo's on this site. Some might say the best thing you
can do with piezo's is point them upwards, , but getting the c/o
wrong is one reason for their bad reputation, the other probably the
very cheap poor knock off copies of the half decent Motorola's.

rgds, sreten.

 

[Pano]

Just to add another opinion to the confusion - I'd go with one of the Hi-Vi planar tweeters. I've heard them in several rigs, most notably mated to a paper cone mid. Blended very well indeed.

 

[Norris Wilson]

Hi JLH and others,

I too have a fullrange driver, EV SP12B in an OB that I would like to add a tweeter to.

All of the above suggestions could work with my OB system. But, I have a pair of the B&C DE-35's at present. And I would like to know what would be the best method of including them to the EV drivers being driven by the same amplifier?

Any and all suggestions will be very appreciated and helpful.

Also, I feel they would be helpful to this thread as well, staying on subject.

Thanks

NW