I don’t know where you are in Asia, but SB has distributors in quite a lot of Asian countries (it is an Asian company anyway).
Yeah, I've looked into it. I'm from the Philippines, and they don't have a distributor here. Haven't really gotten a reply to my email to them either. Fountek, for example, was very responsive and helpful. The shipping costs tend to be the same anyway whether I get it from Asia or America (depending on vendor) and Madisound has great rates with Fedex. I almost ordered the aluminum tweeters actually. I still might.
Isn't the Usher DMD just a ceramic tweeter? I don't believe it's actually a vapor deposited diamond tweeter.
(Kind of like how the Usher beryllium tweeter was 99% titanium...)
http://usheraudio.us/?page_id=54
According to Usher's own marketing material, it is *not* vapor deposited diamond, but some sort of synthetic laminate which is a combination of metal alloy and carbon with a mix of sp3 (diamond) and sp2 (carbon) structures.
CVD is a very slow and expensive process, not something I imagine Usher would be involved in, especially since they decided to call the predecessor "beryllium" with a 99% titanium tweeter. Now I got nothing against Usher, I own a pair of 718 DMDs, but for the price IMO you are mostly you are paying for the build quality and the looks, not for cutting edge drivers.
Also you can simply guess what process they used with the pricing, they barely charged $200 for these in Taiwan for replacement parts, no way these are CVD diamond drivers when legit ones from Seas and Accuton are in the $3000-4000 range.
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The one big difference between the AMT's and the Be tweeter mentioned is dispersion. The SS top of the line Be drivers have a very wide dispersion. AMT's rather narrow.
Deisgn appropriately.
Me, I went with the Mundorf AMT's because they're a little different AND the controlled dispersion means they sound better in cramped spaces.
Best,
E
Deisgn appropriately.
Me, I went with the Mundorf AMT's because they're a little different AND the controlled dispersion means they sound better in cramped spaces.
Best,
E
The one big difference between the AMT's and the Be tweeter mentioned is dispersion. The SS top of the line Be drivers have a very wide dispersion. AMT's rather narrow.
Deisgn appropriately.
Me, I went with the Mundorf AMT's because they're a little different AND the controlled dispersion means they sound better in cramped spaces.
Best,
E
Thanks for the useful info! I'm really interested in these two drivers and wish I could hear them. Would you say the Mundorfs sound different from other AMTs, say the HiVi RT2C-A?
The HiVi RT2C-A is not an Air Motion Transformer. It is a planar (flat) ribbon with flat etched conductor traces on a thin film.
If you look closely....
you can see the traces, which are just like these planar ribbons that I have...
and here you can see the planar ribbon diaphragm on the right, and compare it to the AMT diaphragms on the left. AMT diaphragms of course have etched conductor traces on a thin film, but they are folded and the magnetic path is different.
Oh, right! Never saw them advertised as such, dunno why I said AMT. Nevertheless, I'm still interested in the comparison
IMO, all things held equal, AMT's have better transient performance due to the 4:1 velocity transformation, where as planars still operate in a 1:1 fashion similar to cone transducers. That's just my take on it though.
Cool, thanks for that!
Thought I'd update a bit with a pic of the new toys that arrived, together with the Ushers. The fun begins! 
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I haven't heard a lot of AMT's to be honest. I have read a few here say they preferred the Beyma's.
What I will say is this: They are efficient, not at all delicate, and my gods do they have dynamic range and low distortion.
They DO NOT COMPRESS.
Absolutely world class performance. Integrated well they are some of the most transparent tweeters I have ever listened to. They literally sound like they aren't there at all.
Best,
E
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Yup, couldn't have said it better. So far the AMT's I've tested and/or listened to include Hygeia, Beyma, Dayton, ELAC and very soon Aurum Cantus. The disappearing act is IMO due to the very low distortion when as you said, they are implemented properly.
The Be-718s only retail for $1300/pr in Taiwan ($2795 in the US market), that's why Brush Wellman (the supplier of the majority of the world's beryllium) hired a private investigator which led the to discovery that their "beryllium" tweeter was 99% titanium.
This time they are a lot more transparent, their own marketing material is says it's a metal-carbon alloy. What's more interesting is the retail price in Taiwan of the 718 DMD model, which replaced the BE-718 beryllium version, is only around $1165/pr, even cheaper than the launch price of the beryllium BE-718. The cheapest speaker in the entire planet that sells diamond with the vapor deposition is $5000 B&W 805D3. The pricing of the 718 DMDs should definitely raise some red flags for anyone who associates "diamond" in the marketing title here with vapor deposited diamond, especially with likely a large amount of the BOM budget invested in the extremely heavy and fancy wood cabinet.
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Hi, it would be great to share your subjective (objective?)
opinion about all AMTs you've listened so far. Not really a comparison between them but rather trying to describe their performance compared to classic ribbon drivers (and of course dome midranges for those who're interested). Maybe in a new topic ? I'm going to build a big 3-way soon with Aurum Cantus AST25120 AMTs so if you have ANY kind of experience with Aurum AMTs pls share that in a new thread with us
, it would be great to read that. What I found interesting so far is that AMTs might have a better power handling maybe.. ? (Closer to specs or they can do even slightly more without damage - unlike true ribbons). I'd cross them at 2k with 4th order 48dB/oct filter.
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Hi, it would be great to share your subjective (objective?)
I'm going to build a big 3-way soon with Aurum Cantus AST25120 AMTs so if you have ANY kind of experience with Aurum AMTs pls share that in a new thread with us
What I found interesting so far is that AMTs might have a better power handling maybe.. ? (Closer to specs or they can do even slightly more without damage - unlike true ribbons). I'd cross them at 2k with 4th order 48dB/oct filter.
I'll second this. Such insights are useful to a lot of people I think.
I want to point out, again, that motors and specific implementation, as well as integration matters a great deal. All the tech we are talking about (AMT, Be, Diamond) can be done well or poorly.
Slapping a Be diaphragm on a ****-poor motor yields mediocre results. I've also heard terrible AMT speaker designs (anything from Golden Ear).
The Scanspeak Be tweeter is fabulous, with an amazingly wide dispersion. It needs ROOM to breathe though. Cramp it at all and you'll loose all the benefits.
The Scanspeak ring radiators are also top of the line, fabulous performance in the very affordable range with controlled dispersion.
Best,
E
Slapping a Be diaphragm on a ****-poor motor yields mediocre results. I've also heard terrible AMT speaker designs (anything from Golden Ear).
The Scanspeak Be tweeter is fabulous, with an amazingly wide dispersion. It needs ROOM to breathe though. Cramp it at all and you'll loose all the benefits.
The Scanspeak ring radiators are also top of the line, fabulous performance in the very affordable range with controlled dispersion.
Best,
E