Hello
im planning to build a speaker, but on my current presonus eris e8 with silk dome tweeter i kinda hate the highs, they never sound right, they sound different with different cables/dacs but im still unhappy
what is in your opinion the tweeter "topology" (AMT, planar, ribbon, electrostatic, soft dome, hard dome horn etc..) that sounds the best/smoothest or "most silky" in terms of smoothness but still representing the original signal faithfully?
im also specially curious what you guys think of full range driver in comparison to tweeters ?
im planning to build a speaker, but on my current presonus eris e8 with silk dome tweeter i kinda hate the highs, they never sound right, they sound different with different cables/dacs but im still unhappy
what is in your opinion the tweeter "topology" (AMT, planar, ribbon, electrostatic, soft dome, hard dome horn etc..) that sounds the best/smoothest or "most silky" in terms of smoothness but still representing the original signal faithfully?
im also specially curious what you guys think of full range driver in comparison to tweeters ?
Full range guys will hate me, but fullrange can not even come close to real tweeter when it comes to highs. Unless you like breakups and ringing.
Greets!
Being old/'old school', way back in my youth I preferred the pioneer's doped (hemp?) paper tweeters if not using CD horn EQ to flatten an alum. diaphragm wide range mid horn's (added damping) response out to its HF BW limit.
Auditioning many different speaker brands/types/retail price over the decades, electrostatics came closest to them and factoring in a typical female's superior HF hearing, every one I knew that auditioned various speakers all preferred them too.
Being old/'old school', way back in my youth I preferred the pioneer's doped (hemp?) paper tweeters if not using CD horn EQ to flatten an alum. diaphragm wide range mid horn's (added damping) response out to its HF BW limit.
Auditioning many different speaker brands/types/retail price over the decades, electrostatics came closest to them and factoring in a typical female's superior HF hearing, every one I knew that auditioned various speakers all preferred them too.
I love 'FR' drivers, but from long experience it became increasingly obvious that W.E.'s mechanically XO'd tri-ax 755 was/is as good as it gets IME and even then it's only nominally flat from 300-10 kHz.
i read this too about cone materials, this would suggest that its mostly frequency response, right? (well, and breakups, crossover execution etc)
would you say they sound generally "inaccurate/distorted" or just different (or even harsh etc?)?
Yes, that's a part of it. It's necessary to take control.
Many run them 'as is', and then judge them that way... If a resonance is hard to find but easy to fix, it becomes a whole different story when you find it.
AMT...i have few, even big original ess amt, plus many small dayton amt...my HT uses them, very nice.
Try mundorf.
Planars, yes, i am very fond of planars, my main speaker use planars, 8" slim with tiny fostex planar. Very nice, perhaps even better.
Got some nice beston and hivi. Cheap but good.
Ribbons, have few, while i never tried raal, i build some full range with ribbon speakers, not bad.
Electrostatic, no experience.
Domes, soft, hard...well, got tons. I am very fond of soft domes, especially soft dome mid plus soft dome supertweeter. Hivi, philips, all good.
I hate metal hard dome tweeters, especially with nasty breakup around 20kHz.
Hiquphon i linked is exceptional. Flat, low distortion.
If you want silky smooth, this one delivers. Plus it has great disperion, unlike other domes which beam severely.
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Not got a lot of experience but I have Morel ET448 soft domes and they are very non fatiguing. They also have a profiles faceplate that helps a little with dispersion. Not cheap, the CAT378 or CAT308 May also do the job.
For a cheaper alternative the D2608/913000 is used in many of Troels Gravesen design and is reported as give neutral highs and is easy to work with.
For a cheaper alternative the D2608/913000 is used in many of Troels Gravesen design and is reported as give neutral highs and is easy to work with.
There could be also other besides the driver itself:
Directivity is important in a way, and how the system is toed-in. In general, if the setup is wrong the high can be in your face and feel separate from the rest of the sound, fatiquing in that way. Edge diffraction could also cause bad sound, Geddes suggests linear distortion like edge diffraction is highly audible on louder listening levels and distorting sound could be linear distortion and not non-linear distortion! Diffraction among other acoustical features can either enable or limit possibilities for speaker positioning and toe-in, which affects how well you can tune the sound. If too bad, there is no single good position and the sound could be fatiguing even though you had ideal perfect tweeter with as silky sound as you can imagine.
Anyway, something to consider if you start hunting for perfect sound 🙂
- directivity of the speaker
- edge diffraction
- toe-in so that frequency balance / room sound is nice
Directivity is important in a way, and how the system is toed-in. In general, if the setup is wrong the high can be in your face and feel separate from the rest of the sound, fatiquing in that way. Edge diffraction could also cause bad sound, Geddes suggests linear distortion like edge diffraction is highly audible on louder listening levels and distorting sound could be linear distortion and not non-linear distortion! Diffraction among other acoustical features can either enable or limit possibilities for speaker positioning and toe-in, which affects how well you can tune the sound. If too bad, there is no single good position and the sound could be fatiguing even though you had ideal perfect tweeter with as silky sound as you can imagine.
Anyway, something to consider if you start hunting for perfect sound 🙂
good points, to tame the harshness of my dome tweeters i use a slight house curve ... high shelf slope 500hz to 20khz -3db, which has a similar effect of toe in (its just more consistent if you found the right house curve for you)
maybe im just sensitive to high frequencys but it sounds way better (more realistic imo) instead of completely flat, i kinda with this thread to find a other solution than eq for this... tho the only way for sure is to try stuff out myself i guess but its good to hear some opinions
I think square edges on baffles could be a source of H2. Probably quite low in level, but not zero. As the sound vibrations diffract around a tight radius, the air mass is forced to accelerate around a corner. Not only creating a virtual sound source but also frequency doubling because there are TWO acceleration peaks, one for each half of a cycle.
yea i read its best to keep the edges different distances from the tweeter for best distribution of the added "distortion", if all edges are same distance than this adds up at one specific frequency
also rounded edges seem to help greatly tho im curious what radius is the "best" (or where diminishing return come into play)
also many report that the tweeter (and midrange sometimes) "in free space" like on B&W speakers seem to give a nice soundstage
https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/HillAuctionGallery/89/702789/H19846-L256594449_original.jpg
i guess because some of the soundwaves can wrap around the driver and move behind the speaker for some "atmosphere" like effect ?
Do you use these speakers for nearfield listening?
If not the probable energy peak above crossover frequency, 2,2 kHz will sound fatiguing. The woofer is probably beaming already at 2,2 kHz but the tweeter is not.
Maybe that's also the reason why the new version comes with a waveguide for the tweeter.
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As mentioned baffle edge diffraction adds high frequency noise to the sound making treble edgy and diffuse.round overs way better alllows treble harmonics to be clear and natural decay. Also tweeters never work in isolation they form part of a system whole. Nothing is every so clear cut.many factors influence sound.
yes, its definitely the highs above around 4khz... a house curve starting from 500hz just sounds "smoother" imo (main reason is you already down a little bit if the high shelf reaches 4khz)
there is even a new new revamp released recently, not sure what its called but its still the eris series
kinda curious how they compare but if i would buy studio monitors again i would probably go for something like the hedd monitors, tho i have to say i use the eris e8 now 5 years or so and im not "unhappy" i just hope there is more to gain
Interesting idea, but this acceleration is in line with the sound pressure. It is related to and proportional to the direct sound. It has been said that the only situation in a domestic system that has velocity high enough to cause a problem, is a reflex port.
The SB acoustics dimple textile ring domes tweeters-especially the Satori ones are nicely detailed and airy but also sweet and smooth.Troels Gravesen has commented on them just sounding "right".
Not sure how reliable this measurement is, but you can see the effect of wider response of tweeter here (pink = 20° horizontal):
https://hotproducts.top/ProductDetail.aspx?iid=342014086&pr=72.88