Domes & Ribbons Sharing


I have an original pair of the Legacy Classic's from 1985 that I have kept for all these years.  They are really my backup speakers that switch on and off when I want to hear them.   Needless to say, one of the original Leaf tweeters was blown, and the crossover stop working at that point. The existing Leaf was a pair of
 EAS-10TH400A which are very rare/expensive and hard to find I had to find.

Legacy directly me thankfully to a Beston RT002A ribbon which fit nicely in the hole. The problem was the really in the crossover and I could not find or isolate the reason why the both new ribbons would not work. I   I decided to wire in at the terminal where the dome which is an Audax TWO034XO which has a family low crossover point around 800HZ and the Beston are are at 2000HZ.  My question to those who might know or understand this better than me, can you really piggyback a dome and a ribbon with the same crossover points?  I ask Legacy and they said it would not damage the ribbon since its capable of 40 watts and the Audax is capable of 70 watts.  

After a couple weeks of listening I really like the sound and I am wondering if this has been done before and is there anything wrong with doing it this way?  I presume that the ribbon will go on at it's low point of 2000HZ but will shut off at whatever the dome was set at, so its never gets to 20HZ or more, which of course I cannot hear anyway.  Does anyone have any input for me on this subject or suggestions to make it better without really digging into the crossover to find whats wrong.  Let me know your thoughts. 


128x128buddy1234
Yes, these were Bill's first run.  I bought them and they were delivered in a couple of weeks for $1,500. I think the company was called "Real to Real" back then and not Legacy.  As I mentioned, I am still tinkering around trying to replace the original Leaf tweeters for Beston Ribbons and need help on the crossover points. Any help would be appreciated. Audax- TWO034X0               Beston-RT002A   Ribbon Tweeter
8 Ohm                                     6 Ohm
92db                                       92db
FS 800 HZ                             2000 to 40,000 HZ
70 Watts                               40 Watts
I have an original pair of the Legacy Classic’s from 1985 that I have kept for all these years.

Wow, must have been one of Bill’s first pairs. Wasn’t he calling them Legacy 1’s back then? I don’t think he changed the name to Legacy Classic until the mid 90’s. I bought a pair of Legacy 1’s in 1987, though they are long gone by now. That was my gateway into high end audio. First time I ever heard names like Vandersteen, Audio Research, and Stereophile.
Those were the days....

I seem to recall blowing out a dome tweeter. Bill did not have any replacements. He sent me two new dome tweeters with two resistors, and then walked me through the crossover changes that I needed to make over the phone. Basically just jumping a resistor into each crossover.


After a couple weeks of listening I really like the sound and I am wondering if this has been done before and is there anything wrong with doing it this way?

If it sounds good to you, don’t worry about it, just enjoy the music.
When you paralleled  the ribbon in with the tweeter, you changed the impedance at crossover point. Assuming that the original ribbon was 8 ohm, you now have from somewhere around 8 ohms to 5 ohms. Your crossover point nearly doubled in frequency from the original crossover point.  In theory, you should have a hole in your low treble region and a peak in the mid treble region.
You _can_ but it's extremely rare to be able to change ANY tweeter for any other and have them work out without modest to moderate crossover work.

The ribbon vs. dome part is not really the incredible part to me. :) Drivers differ a great deal by frequency response, impedance, and sensitivity. Randomly picking any other tweeter and having it work at all is pretty good luck.

Best,

E