I have berylium tweeters in my Usher Be-718 bookshelf speakers.
The folks who’ve said it’s all about the presentation are correct. I have two pairs of large floor standers that are both unique and outstanding speakers for different reasons. My other two pair are Martin Logan, Summit and Ohm Walsh LE-5.
My electrostatics are outstanding as far as both higher and mid frequencies are concerned, they sort of excel in that area.
Not kidding, or even exaggerating, the Be-718’s actually do violins better than my electrostatics. It has everything in the world to do with how that sexy berylium tweeter is married to the woofer, which is apparently the same model they put in their big daddy floorstander model. And a few other things about the speaker in general, but the point is that an exotic feature like that, of course, isn’t going to really shine if it’s not in the right company, including what’s driving them. Because all the reviews said the BE-718 is an exceptionally good speaker, but when you drive them with the right electronics that that’s when you will go Wow. I definitely concur.
They’re able to create such a deep and also solid bass response with some pretty amazing dynamics for such a small speaker, that I've never even bought a sub for them, which is hard to believe but completely true. I never intended to run them full range only without a sub, but apparently they’re that good.
The sexy berylium tweete kind of accentuates everything else that’s there, kind of like icing on the cake, imo. This review corroborates:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/revequip/usheraudio_be718.htm
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Excursion is distortion. With that knowledge one wants a rigid driver that oscillates very little. Hence the proliferation of dome midranges, like on TAD and Yamaha speakers. That said they aren't particularly efficient or cheap. Beryllium's difficulties drove Yamaha to develop aramid drivers coated in Monel. There other "exotic" tweeter materials because of the aggravation of beryllium. Many have made peace with it.
Study your options. Do not be ashamed of your budget. Price is a criterion of degree of difficulty. If you speak another language look the model up on foreign sites you understand or can translate. Biases are hidden in adjectives. Also think about your listening space for sizing.
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It’s all in the implementation. The crossover plays a most important role in determining how the tweeter will be utilized in the context of the design (in crossover frequency, rate of roll-off, and shape of slope). The speaker enclosure also plays a role (in diffraction, dispersion, frequency support, and back-wave control). Just when you think you have the sound of different types of tweeters figured out, a design comes along that changes your perception. A safe recommendation would be to judge the high frequency fidelity of speakers you are interested in by how they sound to you rather than based on the type of tweeter being used.
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This question is exactly why the recent controversy about measurements matters so much! The goal of the speaker designer is a flat anechoic response and then they shape to taste from there (with the crossover, not necessarily the drivers). Most modern tweeters are capable of producing the same frequency response regardless of the material used. The reason metal domes are used is because the tend to stay pistonic within a given frequency range allowing the designer to create steeper crossover slopes that match the midrange slope without any dips in the response or introducing distortion or beeming. Any tweeter can be ‘padded’ to reduce its output at a given frequency which to our ears will be interpreted as a ‘softer’ sound. A fabric dome can be boosted in these same regions to sound more sharp/edgy. All this happens in the crossover, not the tweeter driver material. With all that said, metal domes can offer greater detail retrieval because they don’t break up as quickly (staying pistonic longer) as fabric. IMO, most give too much credit for a speakers sound characteristic to the drivers and not enough to the crossover which btw is what the other posters mean when they say ‘implementation’.
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I just went from an speaker with all aluminum drivers (KEF) to one with all nonmetal drivers (Sonus Farber Amati G5) and the difference is huge and all in a good way.
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I want to repeat myself a little though. Tweeters don’t matter. They are the sprinkles on top of the doughnut.
Midranges matter.
I’m saying this a little funny, tongue in cheek, but honestly we pay far too much attention to a device that may not even be working in some speakers, and we overspend based on the tweeter.
Over here in Tannoy land, tweeters extend far into the midrange - crossovers are typically ~ 2kHz (tuplip DC) or 1.1 kHz (pepperpot DC, with compression driver tweet). Fyne, in their continuation of the DC design, has pushed crossovers even lower on some models, as low as 900 Hz (!!).
Now the supertweeters (crossover varies from 14kHz - 22kHz) - those are definitely "just" the sprinkles on top, but they certainly have output into audible range, and you can hear their effect at your listening position. So I imagine a 4kHz crossover tweeter is crucially important to midrange, still.
About beryllium domes - perhaps their durability / brittleness is a limiting factor for alternate implementations? We’ve only seen them used as direct radiating domes. Perhaps they cannot withstand the forces in a horn / compression chamber? The Focal Utopia headphones are interesting becasue there have *definitely* been higher reports of driver failures with that model, versus other headphones. This is an application where the beryllium dome is asked to produce full-spectrum frequencies, 20Hz and up. In fact, with a vinyl source, you could send some very large-amplitude subsonics; I always wondered if that was a high risk factor.
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Curious fingers are incompatible with hard dome tweeters.
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I want to repeat myself a little though. Tweeters don’t matter. They are the sprinkles on top of the doughnut.
Midranges matter.
I’m saying this a little funny, tongue in cheek, but honestly we pay far too much attention to a device that may not even be working in some speakers, and we overspend based on the tweeter.
The midrange is where it’s at. In this respect ATC speakers have the right approach. I’ve never heard them BTW, so I don’t mean to push them, but the balance of manufacturing costs in them is better than a lot of other speakers.
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I love my Carbon Dome Tweeters. Was really enjoying them last night.
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I have beryllium tweeters on my Revels and soft dome on my Arendals. I prefer the sound on the Revels. Great top end without being sibilant or too rolled off in my listening room. Beryllium was suggested by a local dealer and they sound great to me.
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The reason they go beryllium they are light fast responsive.the distortion is pushed way past 20 k hz above what humans hear.the diamond dust is hard and added as a stiffener svs just did a diamond tweeter. Beryllium causes lung problems in humans and is hard to manufacture. Having it in your speaker is not a problem bought some satori be tweets and they had 2 warning labels inside in case you missed one.enjoy the search and music
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There are many drivers of all sorts of design, soft dome, hard dome, compression drivers, ribbon, heil, etc. that sound good. One of my favorites is ancient—the Western Electric 597 fieldcoil compression tweeter. I heard the souped up G.I.P. Laboratories currently manufactured version of that driver in killer systems; that driver costs $60k per pair and require a power supply (and good ones don’t come cheap).
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horn loaded titanium compression driver Klipsch Forte, RPM 160. also have a pair of vintage Infinity CS with EMIT tweeter. The Vienna Acoustics are the “warmest” with very sweet clear treble. Focals are neutral midrange, tight warm base and clear, clean, crisp twinkling treble. Not harsh or fatiguing. Infinity have surprisingly good treble extension and sparkle driven by a vintage Crown DC300A. All other speakers are driven by various tube amps, KT-88, 300b, EL34 and 845. The Klipsch are least “warm” but have incredible dynamic presence, soundstage, less base thump than Focals, with detailed, slightly forward midrange and treble extension to past 20kHz. Klipsch are my #1 go-to for immersive sound.
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I own several speakers, silk dome Vienna Acoustics Bach and Haydn, aluminum- magnesium inverted dome Focal Aria and 716S, and
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Agree with what @knotscott has posted here. I have some possibly unique additional input.
My favorite speakers are Scientific Fidelity Teslas (I also own Von Schweikert, PSB, Maggneplanar, and B&W, and I’ve heard several others in my listening space). But the Teslas date from the late 1980s, and I’ve had to have the 6.5 inch mid-woofers rebuilt by Millersound. The tweeters are aluminum dome by Vifa that employ waveguides.
Since I had to mess around with the other drivers, I consulted with some knowledgable folks I trust, and acquired a pair of Seas textile dome tweeters that closely matched the Vifas w/r/t crossover point, efficiency and frequency response to see if the Teslas might sound even better so equipped. (The only issue I had with the Vifas was a slight stridency in the high midrange: certain female voices and a part of the violin’s range was a bit harsh to my ears.)
Well, as @knotscott put it, the textile dome was "less revealing," and maybe a little less strident...but also less exciting, and instrumental timbre seemed to me slightly less accurate. Of course, that’s just comparing two specific incarnations of aluminum vs. textile dome tweeters. I wouldn’t claim this observation must apply to all such comparisons that are possible. Still, it’s a direct comparison of these two technologies in the very same speaker, matched as closely as possible.
BTW, although I’ve never had problems with the Vifa aluminum domes, they were as old as the speakers, and ferro fluid filled (which can degrade over time), so when I found an unused pair for sale on eBay with a more recent date code, I snatched them up and installed them. The Teslas sound like new now.
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It's not the meat, it's the motion.
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The Be tweeters in Revel speakers sound pretty great to me.
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@knotscott excellent post..i would also add pairing DC to light amplification with a metal tweeter can also contribute to the bad pairings / reputation / poor execution / system synergy…. conflagration
best to you..i enjoy your contributions
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pistonic motion, energy storage and release and where are the breakup modes. = implementation…Yes soft domes have improved somewhat over the years… imo they are still lossy..soft, romantic, lush…. etc….
And yes, i own some..but the TAD and Vandersteen carbon runs circles around them… there are of course many others… pistonic motion isn’t a fad ..imo…
Well executed and cohesive with the other drivers would be my first consideration…
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I think @mulveling nailed it like everything it is about implementation though I generally prefer soft domes I've heard metal tweeters that sounded just fine.
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...Soft domes tend to be easier to work with, are more forgiving of "smaller implementation issues,"
@immatthewj when you guys refer to "smaller implementation" are you referring to the size of the speaker or the size of the room the speaker is to be played in or the size of something else?
No, I was referring to some of the smaller issues of a given implementation of using a given soft dome tweeter...for example: less than ideal crossover points and slopes, cheap inductive resistors with steel leads vs non-inductive wire wound types with copper leads , iron core vs air core/heptalitz/or foil chokes, cheap polyester or electrolytic caps vs really nice metalize polypropylene caps, too much treble output, etc. Nothing is perfect, plus what we think sounds wonderful is subjective, but these are all what I consider fairly common examples of "small implementation issues" of speaker design in general. My meaning is that soft domes just tend to be little bit less critical and more forgiving of many smaller contributors in the sound chain in my experience. That same level of cheaper parts and/or minor design flaws on a metal dome are more likely to sound horrible, while they might sound acceptable with the right soft dome.
Audio terminology for describing the sound of things is always difficult. I’d be more inclined to call soft domes in general as a bit "less revealing", more than "warm sounding", but agree that they’re also less likely to saw your ears off if the design is less than ideal.
I realize that’s there’s plenty of controversy over whether many of those parts differences matter at all, but IME they do, and they’re more likely to show up in a well executed design with any tweeter, but perhaps more so with something like an AL/Mg dome matched to a highly resolving system.
Some may even disagree, but that’s been my experience.
As for the ringing, it's hard to say. Different materials have different break characteristics, and if a poorly implemented metal tweeter were crossed over too low, driven too hard, or underdamped near the resonant frequency, I suppose it's possible.
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Thanks @everybody for all of the interesting and informed feedback.
@knotscott
Soft domes tend to be easier to work with, are more forgiving of smaller implementation issues,
when you guys refer to "smaller implementation" are you referring to the size of the speaker or the size of the room the speaker is to be played in or the size of something else?
It almost sounds as if it might be fair to say that a soft dome speaker is "warmer" sounding?
Is the "ringing" that I have read about related to hard dome speakers an actual true ringing sound?
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It’s difficult to be accurate with general statements about any tweeter type, but keeping a potentially long post short, there’s never a free lunch, and every option has pros and cons. Choosing becomes an exercise in identifying your objectives, and managing the potential outcomes....."pick your poison"!
Soft domes tend to be easier to work with, are more forgiving of smaller implementation issues, lesser quality parts, and are generally easier to get pleasant results from, but don’t offer the last word in resolution that metal domes can. I’ve had lots of good results from Audax, Vifa, Morel, Seas, and Dynaudio soft domes.
I’ve never worked with Beryllium (Be) domes, but have lots of experience with Aluminum/Mg domes from Seas and some from Vifa. Metal domes tend to be more revealing on everything in the signal path, from the quality of the caps, resistors, inductors, wire, crossover frequency, crossover slope, phase shift, the source, cables, amplification....just about any contributor you can think of that’s in the path can rear it’s ugly head and come through. But....if you can clean up the entire signal path and get it right, some metal domes can be absolutely extraordinary, and result in next level performance.
Ditto the comments about the Magico Be tweeters. Granted they were hooked up to Convergent amp and preamp, with some superb play back gear, but they sound really good even at fairly high levels.
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Yes, implementation matters a great deal. It's impossible to "perfectly" isolate all other variables to do a "fair" comparison to these 2 tweeter types. I do have one experience that sticks out - I've heard all the Acora spekears at my local dealer (who sadly is now retiring). The most musical, enjoyable experience I've had is with the smaller SRC-1 tower. That's their ONLY model with a soft dome tweeter - all the others use beryllium!
I specifically listened to SRC-2 (extra woofer, and beryllium tweet) and SRC-1 on the same day. The SRC-2 had the advantage of higher-end VAC gear (much more $$$$), while the SRC-1 was on older (but still very, very high end) VAC. SRC-1 had the advantage of a smaller room, which frankly I probably prefer to the larger room in this shop where the SRC-2 were situated (so that's a big factor).
Anyways, I really enjoyed the SRC-1 with its non-exotic textile tweet. I'm a die-hard Tannoy fan, but this was one of those moments that had me thinking I could be happy with a non-Tannoy. I still "like" the sound of beryllium (also on some Focals, like Sopra 3), but certainly there's a certain "hardness" to it that I suspect would not fare well for me in the long-run. This character even pervades into the Focal Utopia and Stellia headphones. I've owned the Utopia headphones twice, and sold them. Certainly, the best headphones in my experience all use "soft" diaphragm materials. The issue of ear fatigue is much more severe with headphones.
And that brings me back to my Tannoys, which use very non-exotic (aluminum or aluminum & magnesium alloy) "hard" tweeters. However, the implementation is quite different than most - with either the tulip wave guide or pepperpot horn / compression driver. Careful gear matching is required so the tweeters don't "bite" my ears - more so with the pepperpots. But when properly accommodated, they don't have the hardness of beryllium. And the end result is well worth it, to me :)
In short, I'm skeptical of exotic "hard" tweeter materials, as far as their contribution to musicality and value to long-term enjoyment.
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Man, the implementation matters a great deal.
Generally speaking, I’ve lost interest in Be tweeters and certainly the B&W diamond tweeters, however the Magico Be based tweeters are really exceptions.
Among the top performers in my mind are soft domes, AMTs and ring radiators, but implementation matters so much. There are garbage AMTs and really amazing ones. Ring radiators have probably the most consistent performance I’ve heard at the cost of narrow dispersion.
Since the beginning of the Be tweeter craze the performance of soft dome's has really gotten superb, flat way past 20 kHz and extremely low energy storage and wide dispersion. Of course now we also have things like TexTreme which I believe is technically also a soft dome looking to lower the distortion profile even further.
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@kennymacc +1 for beryllium. I think some people think they are bright, but mine are not. Von Schweikert uses the same tweeter in their higher end models.
With less expensive systems (office system, etc), I generally avoid metal dome tweeters. Cheaper speakers with metal domes paired with less expensive electronics can sound harsh.
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Over the years, I've had just about all the different types of tweeters including: diamond, beryllium, horn, ribbon, ceramic, aluminum, soft dome, titanium and electrostatic. All the aforementioned tweeter technologies have their redeeming qualities. In the end, my end-game tweeter......."Beryllium." Why? Because ultimately, to my ears, the beryllium tweeter was more pleasing overall to my ears than the others. Happy listening.
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Following with interest. I have heard the same things about metal tweeters, yet I like the aluminum ones that I have. It has always confounded me when a speaker manufacturer crows about diamond tweeters. I understand beryllium and other exotics, but how does diamond dust make a tweeter any better, other than the marketing glitz of diamonds.
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My Dad has Electa Amator III and they sound great with that special tweeter.
I just picked up a pair of speakers for my second system. I bought a pair of Studio Electric M4. They use a silk dome. I am really loving these speakers.
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FWIW, and bear in mind that this is one person with two pairs of speakers which - by the standards of some here - are probably classed as "not good", I would agree that hard-dome tweeters are 'harder-sounding' than soft-dome ones, but I would not go as far as saying that they are harsh or fatiguing. Over my 45+ years in the hobby I have listened to many speakers using both technologies, and the general character of both types of transducers remains fairly consistent in my memory.
There are good engineering reasons for using both hard- and soft-domes, but they do come with trade-offs in how they present music; the designer has to make a choice based on multiple factors, of which timbre is only one.
Ultimately, as in many cases, your ears are the only reliable instrument of what you are going to like.
(My speakers: Sonus Faber Electa Amator; Focal Solo 6 Be)
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