Let's talk Tweeters!

Tweeter Mythology isn't unlike Speaker Cone Material Mythology as "doped paper" seems kind of dopey, "nanotube sandwich" sounds kind of foody, and a good designer can make music happen with either. It's still kind of interesting that piles of all sorts of mids and woofers always combine with (generally) one good tweeter, so I do agree with the fact that the mid/woof generators are of primary import. I think there needs to be more research into using actual bird parts for tweeters…I think there's a lot to learn from natural beaks perhaps being grown in labs to save the actual birds, plus there are few tweeters made using feather damping.

I have discovered something:

The very best tweeter to reproduce a Kazoo is an AMT.

That is all.


E

The following isn’t a claim about some objective technical truth; it’s only my subjective assessment:

The best tweeter I’ve ever experienced (or my favorite) is the MBL (omni) tweeters. I remember the first time I encountered the MBL at a CES show many years ago. For every speaker that touted it’s exotic or expensive tweeter, I often ended up hearing the tweeter "look at me!"
Ribbons, domes hard and soft, whatever, some gained clarity and air and verisimilitude over others, but especially with drum cymbal there was always a sense of those sounds being reproduced by a tweeter.

One of the constant disappointments in hi fi reproduction of upper frequencies is how small and thin high frequency instruments become relative to real life - no matter how vivid they are through the system. You just have to tap a drum stick against a ride cymbal to see just how BIG and round that sound is, compared to the squeezed down version that comes out of most hi-fi rigs.  

Then I entered the MBL room and literally for the first time ever I heard drum cymbals sounding like they did in real life - big, rich, round, clean, timbrally bang on...it just didn’t sound like tweeters or mechanical reproduction, it just sounded like drum cymbals. To my ears it put every other speaker’s attempts at natural high frequencies to shame. (I know Jonathan Valin of TAS has made similar comments). This impression of the MBL upper frequencies has remained fairly constant over the years. And now having owned the smaller MBL 121 stand mounted speakers, with their omni mids and tweeters, the impression remains. I’ve never heard life like detail reproduced more effortlessly and naturally. (I also own other speakers, e.g Thiel 3.7s, Waveform, Hales, and have had many other speakers and none I’ve heard at my place, stores or shows do it better.
That said, I heard a demo of the Raidho small monitors that with vocals was mindblowing, and which suggested the MBLs were coming in for some competition in the high frequencies).

@prof


I’m glad you found a commercial speaker brand you like, but I need this thread to avoid devolving into brand flame wars. To avoid this in the future please:

• Stay focused on tweeters and their manufacturers (when known)
  
• Discuss the technology, materials, construction, and trade-offs
• Discuss comparisons to other similar and dissimilar tweeters
  

I really wanted to focus this thread on the tweeter drivers, their technology and trade offs. I really wanted to avoid discussing specific consumer speaker brands. I certainly did not mean to start a discussion about entire commercial speaker from top to bottom.

It would be interesting to know if anyone else has heard an omni tweeter they felt delivered outstanding dynamics and realism.

Best,

E