Tweeter type and brightness


I presently own Martin Logan Odysseys that I purchased new in 2005. I've enjoyed them very much but I'm having to replace the power supply board in one of them as I did in the other one about 5 yrs ago and I'm thinking that it may be time to look into speakers using more recent technology.

I auditioned several new sets at Sound Advice including the Monitor Audio silver 2, 6, 8 and 10 plus a small pair of ML's. I thought all of them were very good. Additionally, I bought a pair of Jamo Concert Eights several months ago that were fantastic for my type music which is mostly solo guitar. I regret selling them but at least I learned how good quality bookshelf speakers can be.

Anyway, I've read in several posts that metal dome tweeters have a tendency toward exaggerated or tinny brightness which can be very uncomfortable for me because of a hearing issue that I have. I want to avoid this and am asking for advice regarding this experience of others and what tweeter construction, if any, is generally best to avoid what I call screechiness.

I've been told that the technologies that best avoid this are ribbon tweeters or domes of some softer material than the various metals used in many of them. In one of the forums here on Audiogon this subject was discussed in some detail and at least several participants seemed to minimize the relationship between tweeter design and this problem. They suggested that more likely potential causes would be such things as room acoustics, interconnect quality, rake, crossover problems, etc.

I agree that each of these considerations could lend to the issue but I'm looking for a good starting point to at least minimize the contribution of the speaker design to this problem.

I've heard the gold series Monitor Audio speakers which do incorporate ribbons and they seem to work perfectly with my music but they, like the larger new ESL's are substantially outside my current budget limits. I'm currently using some borrowed temporary speakers while I'm waiting for the new circuit board so I can sell my Odysseys. In the meantime I would appreciate any advice I could use to help with an approach to selecting a speaker best suited to my needs. My upstream equipment includes Shanling solid state CD player, CAL DAC and Rogue Audio Sphinx 100W hybrid amp.
broadstone

Showing 3 responses by audioconnection

Hey Eric, I’m no speaker engineer/designer but have read several articles over the years about this common knowledge but not seen any measurements since the Celestion campaign mentioned earlier. Do remember reading something on Genelec’s web site about the difference between soft and hard domes is that soft domes first break up at less then 10 k. Bad thing about age is the gray matter don’t work like it used to.  Best, JohnnyR

You should try any Vandersteen with the new Carbon Fiber tweeter. Pistonic, very low distortion, transparent and very low listener fatigue because the Carbon is very stiff but has great internal damping. Best sounding tweet I have heard with amazingly realistic musical texture.

   Best,

 JohnnyR

 

 


Greetings Eric, hey I agree with you on most of your observations and amp recommendations especially doing it with your own experience in the field of discovery. You may already know in this context pistonic means the first breakup mode is above 20K and that many soft domes break up at 8K or so and go into controlled Kaotic motion. This goes back 30+ years when Celestion campaigned their pistonic tweeter which was one of the first. Best, JohnnyR