Hi Doug.
I just read your comments about the Silverline Sonata with great interest. I am a Silverline dealer and am listening to a pair of Sonatas as I write this. At $6000, the Sonata is one of the very best values in loudspeakers today. They are very open, dynamic, detailed and sweet and play with great authority. I have never heard them sound harsh or edgy, unless there were problems else where in the system, the recording or in the room set up.
I was particularly interested in your comments about the tweeter reproducing 80% of the midrange and bass. I just went into my listening room and pulled off the grilles so that I could repeat your test. What I heard was a tweeter that produces sound down to approximately 4000 hz. I noticed that a fair amount of upper midrange does appear to come from the tweeter if your ear is more than a couple of inches from the driver. The reason for this is the dispersion pattern of the 3" Dynaudio dome midrange driver (and no, Dynaudio does not make a 3" dome midbass driver). It has a very wide dispersion and that is probably what you heard. When I placed my ear right up to the tweeter, I heard only high end, no midrange. Regardless of crossover design, it is physically impossible for a 1" soft domed tweeter to produce bass frequencies and I'm left with no possible explanation as to how you could have possibly have heard any midbass coming from this driver.
I just read your comments about the Silverline Sonata with great interest. I am a Silverline dealer and am listening to a pair of Sonatas as I write this. At $6000, the Sonata is one of the very best values in loudspeakers today. They are very open, dynamic, detailed and sweet and play with great authority. I have never heard them sound harsh or edgy, unless there were problems else where in the system, the recording or in the room set up.
I was particularly interested in your comments about the tweeter reproducing 80% of the midrange and bass. I just went into my listening room and pulled off the grilles so that I could repeat your test. What I heard was a tweeter that produces sound down to approximately 4000 hz. I noticed that a fair amount of upper midrange does appear to come from the tweeter if your ear is more than a couple of inches from the driver. The reason for this is the dispersion pattern of the 3" Dynaudio dome midrange driver (and no, Dynaudio does not make a 3" dome midbass driver). It has a very wide dispersion and that is probably what you heard. When I placed my ear right up to the tweeter, I heard only high end, no midrange. Regardless of crossover design, it is physically impossible for a 1" soft domed tweeter to produce bass frequencies and I'm left with no possible explanation as to how you could have possibly have heard any midbass coming from this driver.