Tweeter comparisons Millenium and Hiq OW or Morel Supreme?

[fredness]

I have heard the Seas Excel Millenium tweeter and it sounds very good. Has anyone compared it directly to the Hiquphon or Morel Supreme? I rarely have the time to sit directly in front of my speakers so I am attracted to the good off axis response of the OW1. Then again the Morel tweeter might sound best with a Morel mid.

I am a newbie/hack whatever you call it. I am thinking of asking someone design a ported 3 way with the Seas CA18 7" bass, Morel MDM55 2" dome mid. They say a 3 way design is supposed to have good dispersion. I understand that a 7" won't provide thundering bass, that is not a priority. I know phase and matching still need to be addressed. I'll leave that to whoever I pay to design the assembly. I am hoping to do this once well rather than undertaking multiple projects.

Thanks for your time.

[JonMarsh]

The Hiquphon has a strong following due to it's flat response, excellent off axis behavior, and relatively high Xmax (somewhat necessary for a 3/4" tweeter with response below 3 kHz.

I haven't given it a personal evaluation becuase I'm usually looking for tweeters which have a natural response down to about 1 kHz - this is becuase of my belief that midbass/cone midrange drivers rarely work well above about 1500, due to cone modes and beaming (narrowing of radiation pattern due to radiating diameter). Dome mids, or concave cone mids with small diamter radiators, may be another matter.

The only other drawback I've seen to their models is relatively low sensitivity. I think a 3/4" VC can handle an adequate amount of power with sensitivity in the 91 to 93 dB/watt range, but I'm a little more concerned when it's in the 87 to 89 dB range. I think it depends on what your expectations are for playback levels. It should work quite well in a three way, and all things being the same, I'd recommend it over a 1" unit for a good three way design. So, that might be your best choice, compared with the Morel or Millennium Excel. The Morel has often struck me as an interesting beast if one wanted to make a fairly high output system and wasn't too concerned with off axis behavior- being about 1-1/8" in diameter, it's going to have similar off axis issues as the new Seas tweeters and the NorthCreek D28. I'd be real curious to see distortion plots on it. There's an odd bobble in the published impednace curve about 12 kHz, and I'd be curious to see how their underhung gemetry works. This seems more like a high end tweeter for a two way, though, given the diaphragm size. I've never been curious enough to pop for a set, though. I've got too many expensive tweeters around, anyway!

~Jon

[fredness]

Actually this all evolved from demoing the BESL 5MT and 2MT. His products are sealed and crossover at 80Hz. www.bamberglab.com I am having trouble deciding between the two. They sound great with a sub.

I want to have a set of speakers in my family room (with no sub) that sound similar. I was thinking of the Rick Craig's Tanzanite with a dome instead of a ribbon tweeter. This would be the same as the Ellis Audio 1801s but possibly adding the dome midrange. I really don't know if adding the dome mid would muck it up or not. I got the impression from Rick's description that it would improve dispertion. Parts Express sells a .75 cu ft fininshed cabinet for $85 ea that looks nice and the dimensions are the same as the Tanzanite and 1.5" shorter than the 1801s.

http://www.selahaudio.com/id53.html

[JonMarsh]

Rick's right that the addition of a dome midrange will improve the dispersion, i.e., uniformity of power response. A 7" mid woofer with a 2.5 kHz crossover point is a problem- dispersion is narrowing above 1200 Hz. On the downside, the crossover cost is much higher, and a little tricky- ideally, the old rule of thumb is that a midrange should cover at least three octaves. So, from a dispersion viewpoint, a good crossover from a 7" might be 800 Hz? That would give an upper crossover point of 3.2 kHz minimum. That would work well with the Hiquhpons. I wouldn't take it higher becuase of the issues regarding driver spacing- "my" outside limit is 13768/Fx, which works out at 3200 Hz to 4-1/4 inches center to center, which is kind of hard to do, unless it's an integrated assembly, like some manufacturers supply. 3 kHz is an area where the human ear is quite sensitive, so variations in power response or pressure amplitude response are easily heard. With a wider spacing, the lobe in the crossover region get's messed up, and off axis response suffers.

Just my 0.02. That's why my own recent three way designs use relatively low crossover points, still. 1200 - 1400 Hz to the tweeter. That restricts you a bit in tweeter choices, to drivers like the Millenium Excel, or the 27TDFC, if you're on a budget. But you get easier driver placement, and good off axis behavior. Takes some work in the crossover, though.