I really like tweeters so I saved the best for last...
I think the tweeter is the most important part of good audio, for me they are the ones that add the final details to the sound.
It makes the sound more sculpted, so to speak.
And I couldn't help but notice and research a lot about the fact that there are several types of tweeters such as:
The silk dome tweeter, metal dome tweeter, ribbon tweeter, planar-magnetic tweeter, horn, electrostatic tweeter, super tweeter, piezoelectric tweeter and plasma tweeter.
Of these to my ear, what has the best possible quality (I know it's relative) is the silk dome... When I listen to a saxophone through this tweeter it seems so natural that it enchants the eyes.
Of all these, in your opinion, which is the best and why?
I also saw that there is a tweeter with silk edge and ceramic, I've never heard it play, does anyone know if it's even better?
Any answer, teaching or opinion is always welcome guys.
Thanks in advance.
Pedroga
I think the tweeter is the most important part of good audio, for me they are the ones that add the final details to the sound.
It makes the sound more sculpted, so to speak.
And I couldn't help but notice and research a lot about the fact that there are several types of tweeters such as:
The silk dome tweeter, metal dome tweeter, ribbon tweeter, planar-magnetic tweeter, horn, electrostatic tweeter, super tweeter, piezoelectric tweeter and plasma tweeter.
Of these to my ear, what has the best possible quality (I know it's relative) is the silk dome... When I listen to a saxophone through this tweeter it seems so natural that it enchants the eyes.
Of all these, in your opinion, which is the best and why?
I also saw that there is a tweeter with silk edge and ceramic, I've never heard it play, does anyone know if it's even better?
Any answer, teaching or opinion is always welcome guys.
Thanks in advance.
Pedroga
Ah! There's nothing quite like the pungent smell of ozone to keep you awake during late night listening sessions!
I remember the Ionofane, used by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in their monitoring loudspeakers back in the 1960s.
The air is coupled to an effectively massless plasma and not to a relatively massive dome or ribbon, making for unparalleled transient response.
The Ionofane is arguably the best tweeter ever produced.
There you go Pedroga, I've started the ball rolling on your incredibly wide-ranging question. Let's see who else will join in!
I've seen one of these before...Ah! There's nothing quite like the pungent smell of ozone to keep you awake during late night listening sessions!
I remember the Ionofane, used by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in their monitoring loudspeakers back in the 1960s.
View attachment 1313884
View attachment 1313879
The air is coupled to an effectively massless plasma and not to a relatively massive dome or ribbon, making for unparalleled transient response.
The Ionofane is arguably the best tweeter ever produced.
There you go Pedroga, I've started the ball rolling on your incredibly wide-ranging question. Let's see who else will join in!
My grandfather worked at a radio station in my city and I remember once I went to visit to see what was left of it as it had been deactivated for over 40 years I think.
But I didn't imagine it worked like that, I actually have no idea how it works LOL
Where was this connected?
If you put high power on them do they distort?Ah! There's nothing quite like the pungent smell of ozone to keep you awake during late night listening sessions!
I remember the Ionofane, used by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in their monitoring loudspeakers back in the 1960s.
View attachment 1313884
View attachment 1313879
The air is coupled to an effectively massless plasma and not to a relatively massive dome or ribbon, making for unparalleled transient response.
The Ionofane is arguably the best tweeter ever produced.
There you go Pedroga, I've started the ball rolling on your incredibly wide-ranging question. Let's see who else will join in!
For example 30w
@Pedroga Please note that there is no need to quote an entire previous post. In fact, doing so only serves to clutter up the thread.
If you highlight a particular word or sentence within the post, you will see a "Quote flag come up which, if you click on it, will enter that text into your reply box - like I have done below:
The Ionofane would have been connected to an amplifier via a high pass filter, just like any other tweeter.
A very high frequency (400 kHz) electrical discharge was used to ionise the air at the throat of the horn.
The signal from the amplifier modulated the electrical discharge at audio frequencies in order to produce sound.
It's similar to how an audio signal is used to modulate the high frequency electrical carrier wave in an AM radio transmitter.
The high frequencies that a tweeter handles only represent around 10% of the total power delivered to the speaker system.
For a 30 W input the tweeter would only have to handle around 3 W, well within the 5 W (?) rating of the Ionofane.
We need to remember that amplifier powers were much lower back in the early 1960s, even in the BBC studios where the Ionofanes were used for monitoring purposes.
If you highlight a particular word or sentence within the post, you will see a "Quote flag come up which, if you click on it, will enter that text into your reply box - like I have done below:
The Ionofane would have been connected to an amplifier via a high pass filter, just like any other tweeter.
A very high frequency (400 kHz) electrical discharge was used to ionise the air at the throat of the horn.
The signal from the amplifier modulated the electrical discharge at audio frequencies in order to produce sound.
It's similar to how an audio signal is used to modulate the high frequency electrical carrier wave in an AM radio transmitter.
The high frequencies that a tweeter handles only represent around 10% of the total power delivered to the speaker system.
For a 30 W input the tweeter would only have to handle around 3 W, well within the 5 W (?) rating of the Ionofane.
We need to remember that amplifier powers were much lower back in the early 1960s, even in the BBC studios where the Ionofanes were used for monitoring purposes.
Most of the power in music resides in the bass frequencies.
As a rough guide, 70% of the total power of the music signal goes to the woofer, 20% to the midrange and 10% to the tweeter.
Consequently a 100 W amplifier at full tilt would only supply around 10 W to the tweeter.
That allows a manufacturer to quote a 100 W power rating for a tweeter when, in fact, it is only capable of handling 10 W of high frequency power.
As a rough guide, 70% of the total power of the music signal goes to the woofer, 20% to the midrange and 10% to the tweeter.
Consequently a 100 W amplifier at full tilt would only supply around 10 W to the tweeter.
That allows a manufacturer to quote a 100 W power rating for a tweeter when, in fact, it is only capable of handling 10 W of high frequency power.
I am fascinated by the principle of a plasma tweeter and am certain that this, if well built, is one of the very best approaches for tweeters. Because there is no moving mass except for the mass of air itself. For an appealing report of a competent and mature diy plasma tweeter project:
https://www.plasmaspeaker.de/diy-mp-02-clone.html
The author points to the fact that O3 aka ozone is not stable at elevated temperatures. His approach resorts to a high-temperature quartzglass chamber in which the plasma flickers and tweedelidees at around 1200°C. Therefore, as the authors claims, any produced O3 will be at once thermically decomposed. And thus, emanation of O3 into the environment might not be a problem along with his design. The author also kindly reminds you not to touch these structures with your bare fingers while the tweeter is functional.
The author claims a total materials cost of some 400 Euro per tweeter (2020). A very competitive price indeed for any keen and technically educated diy-er, compared to all these overhyped (read: overpriced) beryllium and/or diamondium stuff.
There is a youtube teaser video playing this tweeter on this website also, but unfortunately no measurements.
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Thanks for the ozone decomposition information @Daihedz - the Ionofane also employed a quartz chamber.
The Ionofane was a licensed version of the Ionophone, a description of the operation of which is included in this article:
https://www.psaudio.com/blogs/copper/the-once-and-future-tweeter
The Ionofane was a licensed version of the Ionophone, a description of the operation of which is included in this article:
https://www.psaudio.com/blogs/copper/the-once-and-future-tweeter
I've only heard and used silk, paper (really a full range driver) aluminium and mylar; mostly silk. Mylar is probably the cheapest and least satisfactory, but that's only in the car so doesn't matter as much. In DIY projects I've used:
None of these sound 'bad', but the paper 'tweeter' doesn't have much detail, e.g. for cymbals and violin. The cleanest sound is from the aluminium dome Peerless but the sound I enjoy the most with all types of music is the Morel CAT378, which is unfortunately the most expensive.
You mentioned saxophone: when I play "Kind of Blue", I think it's a toss up between the Morel and Peerless as to which sounds 'better', I enjoy both but the Morel is in our main speakers so I listen to them the most. There's a cymbal crash at the beginning of "So What" on the album which sounds just a little fuzzy on the Daytons, compared to the Morels.
However, I prefer to listen to the music rather than pick faults in the speakers.
Some of the more 'exotic' dome materials such as beryllium tweeters are crazy expensive here, around A$500. No way could I afford or even consider using them.
As well as the dome material, a crucial part of the sound is how the tweeter is handled in the crossover.
Geoff
- Vifa XTSC90 - ring radiator; nice but needs more crossover parts than some others
- Dayton DC28F - silk dome, sounds good but dome very sticky and attracts fluff
- Vifa BC25TG - silk dome, very nice sound and better value than the Dayton these days
- Peerless DA25BG60 - aluminium dome, excellent sound, not expensive but can be hard to find
- Morel CAT378 - silk dome, will play loud, great detail, but costs four times as much as the BC25 here.
None of these sound 'bad', but the paper 'tweeter' doesn't have much detail, e.g. for cymbals and violin. The cleanest sound is from the aluminium dome Peerless but the sound I enjoy the most with all types of music is the Morel CAT378, which is unfortunately the most expensive.
You mentioned saxophone: when I play "Kind of Blue", I think it's a toss up between the Morel and Peerless as to which sounds 'better', I enjoy both but the Morel is in our main speakers so I listen to them the most. There's a cymbal crash at the beginning of "So What" on the album which sounds just a little fuzzy on the Daytons, compared to the Morels.
However, I prefer to listen to the music rather than pick faults in the speakers.
Some of the more 'exotic' dome materials such as beryllium tweeters are crazy expensive here, around A$500. No way could I afford or even consider using them.
As well as the dome material, a crucial part of the sound is how the tweeter is handled in the crossover.
Geoff
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I used to be set against ribbons when most were very high distortion noise makers, but RAAL drivers changed that past opinion. The distortion is acceptable and the rise and settling times are exemplary. Apparently Aurum Cantus makes a few good ones in the upper price ranges, too.
I have owned Quad electrostatics and I didn’t find the treble was standout. A friend had a set of 63s as well and they also left me feeling like the top end was missing.
I heard Adam’s air motion tweeter and it didn’t stand out as special.
In terms of domes, I found that older aluminum dome tweeters were pretty annoying. The newer offers have benefitted from decades of improvements but I’ve only heard commercial ones. I don’t mind soft domes from Dynaudio, but they sound like the finest details are masked. I have heard B&W latest 800 series diamond tweeters and they didn’t sound different than their (boron?) ones in the 700 series in casual listening, but were very good. In my listening, the highest resolution came from those and dome tweeters having the voice coils directly attached to the back of the dome, and they were beryllium domes.
I don’t believe the dome material should hold that much importance now with much better design capabilities, but harder materials pushing the breakup higher seem to still reign.
I have owned Quad electrostatics and I didn’t find the treble was standout. A friend had a set of 63s as well and they also left me feeling like the top end was missing.
I heard Adam’s air motion tweeter and it didn’t stand out as special.
In terms of domes, I found that older aluminum dome tweeters were pretty annoying. The newer offers have benefitted from decades of improvements but I’ve only heard commercial ones. I don’t mind soft domes from Dynaudio, but they sound like the finest details are masked. I have heard B&W latest 800 series diamond tweeters and they didn’t sound different than their (boron?) ones in the 700 series in casual listening, but were very good. In my listening, the highest resolution came from those and dome tweeters having the voice coils directly attached to the back of the dome, and they were beryllium domes.
I don’t believe the dome material should hold that much importance now with much better design capabilities, but harder materials pushing the breakup higher seem to still reign.
What I look for in a tweeter might differ from the audiophile that exclusively listens to albums and critiques their system. Like many, I grew up around musical instruments; piano, guitar, bass, violin and so forth.
However, I like other media as well as music, and my reference is what I hear out in the real world - ya know, everyday sounds. Natural sounds have a dynamic life, sparkle and space, so when I evaluate a driver the goal is to approximate that kind of experience.
However, I like other media as well as music, and my reference is what I hear out in the real world - ya know, everyday sounds. Natural sounds have a dynamic life, sparkle and space, so when I evaluate a driver the goal is to approximate that kind of experience.
If these were to modulate, wouldn't you need to detect the signal.. don't you want the envelope to represent the baseband instead?
They can extinguish, so it's dissimilar to the distortion you might expect from a regular tweeter.
This is part of the reason they are often found on horns. It's not that they can't get loud, it's just a challenge to make them that way. Otherwise people would make some pretty interesting fullrange completely omnidirectional plasma speakers, or baffle them purely for directional reasons.
I think a well designed large "waveguided"* dome tweeter will start carrying the day. I'm rather surprised they haven't already, since you can run them lower to have a much better match to the woofers, avoiding the wide-narrow-wide-narrow dispersion problem 2-ways generally have. All for the price of just a deeper plastic faceplate.
*artificially differentiating from a horn by no compression of the wave, like pretty open. That's not to say compression driven horns can't be great (though many aren't) however the cost is quite higher.
I'm a bit surprised that the old cone tweeters have never been brought back and refined. More cone area is certainly advantageous for going lower, and I'd think a lot of materials refinement and voice coil design work could yield dispersion at least equal to domes. I guess paper is too old and out of fashion.
But my best friend from college's husband had old speakers with cone tweeters, and the treble was quite good. As much detail as a newer more expensive dome, maybe not, but a really nice something about their sound.
A neighbour had a pair of DIY speakers with a Vifa TC-7, which sounded very good. The ones I have are a sort of generic thing in a Panasonic mini system.
The TC-7 has been used in many designs, including Dan Neubacker's "Obsidians" with a Dayton RS225 in a MLTL cabinet which won best under $200 category some years ago in a Parts Express design competition. The 'Vagrants Monitors' in Parts Express Project Gallery use them with a Peerless SDS160.
Geoff
The TC-7 has been used in many designs, including Dan Neubacker's "Obsidians" with a Dayton RS225 in a MLTL cabinet which won best under $200 category some years ago in a Parts Express design competition. The 'Vagrants Monitors' in Parts Express Project Gallery use them with a Peerless SDS160.
Geoff