Tweeter Material, Silk, Alum, Tit, etc

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Steven Kephart

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 6:44 PM / IP Logged

mikew04 wrote:

what kind of effect does it have when the tweeters are placed further away from the midrange, like on the a-pillars or such?

You get huge lobing issues. This is due to phase issues between the midrange and tweeter around the crossover frequency.

Steven Kephart

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Steven Kephart

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 6:48 PM / IP Logged

As for tweeter selection, my boss actually answered this question in Momentum, an online magazine. Here's the link: http://forum.soundillusions.net/articles.php?action=viewarticle&artid=3

Steven Kephart

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Drewt

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 8:36 PM / IP Logged

ah, well folded ribbon tweeters are excelent, I heard some folded ribbon monitors being demoed a couple weeks ago. Near prefect. plain old ribon tweeters are excelent too. After that, silk all the way...

0h yeah, I wanna hear a plasma gas tweeter at some point. They are supposed to have near perfect tone and imaging, and they are omnidirectional, problem is they are expensive to make, plus they cannot get very loud. I need to read up on them some more.

-Drew

haemphyst

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 9:28 PM / IP Logged

Drew,

I think you are referring to ribbons (folded ribbons) vs. planar magnetics (plain old ribbon tweeters).

True ribbons are a ribbon of tempered (to make it soft, and less "tinny" sounding) aluminum foil, suspended at each end, and a MANDATORY impedance matching transformer. These ARE good drivers, and very fragile. For a GREAT, SPECTACULAR, AWESOME, SWEET, and did I mention a good ribbon, look no further than the Raven pure ribbon tweeters... Yes, that's up to 1600 bucks EACH!

A planar magnetic, on the other hand, is NOT a ribbon, it is mistakenly called a ribbon. A PM driver has the conductive element placed on a substrate, usually Kapton or nylon, and requires no matching transformer. They are very good drivers, but not remotely as good as a true ribbon. I have Bohlender-Graebner 50 inch drivers in my living room, with the original Dayton Titanic 12 mated to it. Tom Bohlender is a personal friend of mine, and I got them directly from him.

Plasma tweeters, eh? Wow, there's a walk down amnesia lane. I built a single one of these a few (like 10) years ago, when I was experimenting with wide-range PM drivers... Never happy, I was looking for more than I had. Yes, they are really cool, but the ozone production is a real hassle - most people don't like the smell of it - I don't care about the smell, but ozone is a VERY strong oxidizer (and they make BUNCHES of it), and everything around the driver starts to fade, or deteriorate... You are right, the efficiency is very poor. The high voltage DC required to make them is difficult and dangerous to achieve, and they do sound very good. With "perfect" transient response, (due to the fact that there is no moving mass - it's nothing but an arc) they are very natural sounding. Mine had a 120Hz buzz in it from the (relatively poorly) filtered AC, and while it was very quiet, relative to the rest of the output, it WAS there...

It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

geepherder

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 10:02 PM / IP Logged

Nismo, I think he was implying to avoid the Polks- at all costs. I'm glad you haven't heard them, and you should be too. The only reason my shop picked them up is to use them for marine applications. I'd say the majority of the time factory speakers sound better.

I almost told a customer once after doing a deck that it would sound better if he upgraded those factory speakers. Before I could speak, the owner told me about his recent "upgrade" to Polks. Hahaha.

My ex once told me I have a perfect face for radio.

04mdx4sq

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Posted: April 07, 2005 at 11:10 PM / IP Logged

Ouch, the polks are that bad? I haven't heard a set since the early 90's when I had the MM series, I liked them back then. Then again they weren't the mass market speaker they are today.

Speaking of tweeter materials, we have our new B&W Nautalus 802D speakers in. I love the new manufactured diamond tweeter.

04 MDX - Clarion DRZ9255 / MB Quart QAA4250 / MB Quart QSD216 / Orion Concept 97.2 / JL Audio 10w6v2

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mikew04

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Posted: April 08, 2005 at 9:35 AM / IP Logged

I know you get phase issues near the crossover point because of the way the components are situated and the fact that every component introduces a shift, and that speakers should be on the same plane because of timing issues, but what do you mean by lobing?

Steven Kephart

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Posted: April 08, 2005 at 11:22 AM / IP Logged

Lobing (also called comb filtering) happens when two speakers are playing the same frequency, but are not near each other. The further they are from each other, the worse it gets. Speakers are usually crossed over at close to the same frequency, rolling off at a set pace. However since they are playing some similar frequencies, lobing can occur. What happens is that you get dips in the frequency response around those frequencies, that get worse the further off axis you are to that speaker. So the response from the left speaker might have more lobing than the right speaker. You may be able to fix this with a really good eq. However if you move your head just a little bit the response will quickly change. Plus there is no way to fix it for both listening positions.

Steven Kephart

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kfr01

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Posted: April 08, 2005 at 11:49 AM / IP Logged

To use Steven's good technical explanation to make a point:

1) Problems from distance and axis related installation problems can affect even very expensive speakers;

2) EQing later is not a good / perfect band-aid.

Thus, get your installation right the first time.

New Project: 2003 Pathfinder

DYohn

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Posted: April 08, 2005 at 11:54 AM / IP Logged

Open plasma tweeters, huh? Can anyone say Tesla generator? Hey haemphyst can I come scrounge around in your garage? Tweeter Material, Silk, Alum, Tit, etc - Page 2 -- posted image.

Tweeter Material, Silk, Alum, Tit, etc - Page 2 -- posted image.

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