The strong opinions around ceramic speakers


OK, so this is a recurring theme for me, and if you’ve seen me post on this before, sorry. Your subscription doesn’t guarantee unique content here. I was reading the Munich High-End coverage over at DIYaudio.com and this topic came up again. Many there aren’t fond of ceramics, and neither am I.

I’ve gotten to hear a number of ceramic driver speakers and despite being very positively disposed to them based on the technology in both the cone/dome material as well as the motors themselves I’ve never liked a single speaker based on them. I mean, based on the specs I should love these things, but I don’t. Is this a type of speaker tuning that is applied, or something else?

I’m including diamond speakers here, BTW.

Now, companies like Kharma could care less what I like or don’t like, but I am seriously asking this question a different way, if you have liked ceramic speakers, which one’s and why, what did you pair with them? What is the closest non-ceramic speaker you DID like?

This is an interesting topic for me because it is a dimension where there's a broad divergence between measurements (very good) and experience (meh) and that difference can help tell us something about who an audiophile is.

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by verdantaudio

Best ceramic drivers I have heard are from Raidho.  The base X series is resolving and wonderful sounding.  I also quite like Marten speakers.  There are many others I am not big fans of.  

I personally use a ceramic and magnesium tweeter from Eton in my Blackthorn 1 speaker.  I find it to be highly resolving with the metallic edge of many beryllium tweeters I have heard.