Which Tweeter preferred- dome natural material, Beryllium/Metal or Planar Ribbon? Why?

[please excuse my poor English]

IMHO, the AMT (Air Motion Transformer) technology is unquestionably the best of all (when the manufacturer makes it right).

"AMT Air Motion Transformer" is an Oscar Heil patent, now in the public domain. But its quality indeed depends of the implementation that the manufacturer made of the patent. Some cheap AMT tweeters, made in China, weight 660gr and have an uneven frequency response. Other AMT tweeters are made by Mundorf (for instance), weight 1,8Kg, are very linear (and cost more than €1000/piece !!!). So, huge variations here, of course. As with ribbon.

But all technologies confounded, if you take the best of each one, the AMT wins hands down. I attend live acoustic performances, and I wish that my gear to sound like "the real thing". I did not dare to say to Peter Mc Graath (Wilson), while demonstrating a pair of Wilson Alexandria, that I heard just before a better right hand on the piano with an excellent AMT tweeter, powered by Gamut amplification. But I did dare to tell him that such great speakers as Wilsons fully deserved something better than those "nasty" tioxyd titane inverted dome made by Focal (that Wilson used at the time). Luckily, they stopped using them afterwards.

One brilliant use of AMT tweeter is for instance made by French speaker Jean-Marie Reynaud (JMR) Voce Grande ($9000 approx.). Please note that I am NOT French, neither have I any affiliation with JMR! The point is that I recently listen to them twice, and, for the price, I am gobsmacked. I know very few speaker that deliver such a value for the money, if you like speakers that sound very open, and non-fatiguing. And the AMT transducer used plays a big role here. I do not know the origin of the tweeter used in this case, but it is an extremely long model, made of one piece, which covers 1200hz-30000Hz.

Of course, like everyone here, I heard and know very well: soft domes, ribbon (I own a pair of true-ribbon planar ribbon speaker), beryllium, diamond, etc.

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One member said previously:

Tweeter type does not matter. //I respectfully, but emphatically disagree: Yes, it does matter, definitely.

[please excuse my poor English]

@toddalin

The ESS AMT will shine when played using a high current solid state amp, but they don’t do nearly as well on tubes.

In these videos, I went to extremes to match the volumes...

Thanks !! The difference is obvious: significantly more defined when powered by solid state.

But is this difference of "behaviour" (with SS vs tubes) specific to the ESS AMT tweeter? It seems the possible answer is YES: ESS 689-1108, for instance, has a 4 Ohm impedance. A 4 Ohms load will always require a lot more current to sing.

But, for instance, this Mundorf AMT tweeter (8 Ohms, 1,8Kg, and...$1145/piece!!) will need much less current, has a sensitivity of 100 dB => I guess any tube could deal with that. And then here, tube could be better through this transducer.

And, again, that speaker uses an AMT (unknown origin), and is a 8 Ohms load, min. 6,8 Ohms. Again, I am not affiliated to JMR in any way, but it is outstanding for the price.

My humble CONCLUSIONS

• the videos brilliantly demonstrate that high current SS are specifically preferable with the aforementioned ESS AMT tweeter, indeed.
• But to make a general assessment that SS are a better match, on the base of only one model, is maybe misleading, as the Mundorf’s specification suggest (maybe others would, too).
• It is possible that some other (high end? Expensive?) AMT tweeters easily accept tubes as well as SS, and does not favor the latter. So that their respective merits can more objectively shine through AMT’s. This could be the explanation of @danager ’s preference for tubes-with-AMT (cf. his very good experience with 12w SET tubes), who probably did his findings that with another AMT tweeter in use.

The price is totally pointless here.

I just wished to suggest that there are various specifications, that could explain the contradictory feedbacks.