whats the best kind of tweeter?

Question

i like horn tweeters like the ones in my klipsch.

which do you think are the best

ribbons,plasma,Electrostatic,

Answer 1

They all have their benefits and their shortcomings. It will just depend upon what qualities you want.

Horn tweeters - lively, dynamic, highly efficient, low distortion, can lack proper tonal balance with an improper horn design

Electrostatic - smooth, great tonal balance, narrow sweet spot, must be plugged into an outlet

Ribbon - superb clarity and timbre, outstanding on-axis soundstaging and imaging, super high frequency performance, super quick transients

Plasma - similar to ribbon and stats

Diamond - high power handling and clarity, superb dynamics, very expensive

Soft (or silk) dome - good sound quality, relatively inexpensive for most models, good radiation pattern, smooth performance

Aluminum dome - extremely high frequency capabilities, crisp sound, quick transient response, can be bright sounding

Beryllium - high power handling, outstanding clarity and extension, excellent imaging and soundstaging, extremely expensive

Cone - almost non-existent in today's speaker systems, although they had good analog sound, and were quite efficient, but suffered from high frequency distortion (cone break-up) at high volume levels, could not handle much power

I hope this helps.

H a p p y
L i s t e n i n g !

Answer 2

Best is really a subjective term. Do you want to know the most accurate? Well take the "best" speaker and hook it up to an average CD player... its still the best speaker there is but it won't produce the best sound... Your system will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain. I personally have electrostatic speakers and I love them. Silk dome tweeters are excellent for rear channel systems.

Currently the most accurate tweeter out there is the Bowers and Wilkins Diamond tweeter. It may not have the highest frequency it can achieve, but it has the best linear range for a tweeter, up to 80kHz, 60kHz higher than what we can hear. Some tweeters claim to put out 100kHz, but we can't hear anywhere that high, but also the distortion levels at that point are high. The 802D's are $12,000 a pair.

Grande Utopia Be use inverted Beryllium tweeters, those are supposed to be the best, but once again its all personal preference. JM Labs (focal audio) makes these speakers. They are $80,000 each. Beryllium has a high modulus of elasticity which means its very rigid in a piston driver design.

Once again, diamond or beryllium are considered to be the best. Stiff, ridged and accurate.

Once again its all subjective, some think the diamond tweeter is to harsh because its so accurate. Electrostatic speakers create great high end sounds in a very linear region, but some people don't like the sound because they have to little mid and bass range.

Horn's are used to create a lot of noise and be inexpensive.

Answer 3

Hi. There are no "best" speakers .It's all subjective .It is the ones you like that are the best for you.When evaluating speakers the tweeters crossover frequency to the mid/bass units will have to be taken into consideration.Also their dispersion pattern affects their sound .Dome tweeters usually have a wide dispersion pattern with minimum "beaming".The other designs that you mention usually behave as a point source of sound.So i guess its the one you prefer.Keep in mind i am not saying one is better than the other only different.


The dipole tweeters in theory should be the best because of their extremely thin membrane and the ability to move as a piston thereby avoiding breakup.
But again we get back to the most important requirement ,namely can you live with the sound.

ps. I heard the original kalipsch 3 way horn speaker back in 1972 and it was truly amazing . It was a huge beast and had to put into a corner of the room to help develop the bass which was a folded horn inside the encloser.

Answer 4

I am using Pezio tweeters with inbuilt impedance machthing trasformer and crossover circuit.

This can sustain high wattage. But I cant compare this with other ones because I dont have much knowledge on other types. I find that this having better performance than cone tweeters.

Very Cheap but good performance.

I would like to thank you for questioning and XenonAudio for his informative answer.