Bullet Tweeters

[kevmurray]

Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and have a few questions about my first project. I'm selecting drivers at the moment and came across "bullet" tweeters. They all seem to be rated for extremely high power and are fairly cheap. What's the story on these things? What technology drives them? Thanks for any help.

Here's an example of what I mean:

http://www.pyramidcaraudio.com/itempage.asp?model=TW46

[Dennis H]

"Model = TW46 1.5'' 400 Watt Die-Cast Aluminum Titainium Super Tweeter"

Super tweeters are normally meant to be used above the range where a normal tweeter can play. Few of them are any good below 5-6K. The one you linked claims it can go down to 2K but I'd take that with a huge grain of salt without seeing some curves.

[JonMarsh]

I'm with Dennis- you see, that unit is hornloaded for very high frequencies, but not much below about proabably 8~10 kHz. And when you say 400 W peak power without specifying a test condition or duration, well, it doesn't mean a lot.

Go look at real pro drivers like at JBL or BMS and see how they spec stuff including the conditions and duration. Also, I would be reluctant to buy something without a published FR curve. Consider, in the range a driver has 105 dB sensitivity, you don't need more than maybe 4-8 watts to be into ear bleed territory for home use.

And there are a number of "home" style tweeters that have clean response extending to beyond 25 kHz, but they do usually cost more than $50. The larger Fountek ribbons can be used from about 4 kHz up, and they reach about 40 kHz.

[kevmurray]

Thanks guys, you confirmed my suspicions. Only now I've been doing more searching and have more questions. What distinguishes a "home" tweeter vs. car audio? I mean what should I look for in a home theater tweeter?

[digital desire]

A proven design in the missions accomplished section, the link is on your upper left.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/forumdisplay.php4?f=39

[cotdt]

Thanks guys, you confirmed my suspicions. Only now I've been doing more searching and have more questions. What distinguishes a "home" tweeter vs. car audio? I mean what should I look for in a home theater tweeter?

car audio and home audio mainly use the same tweeters, so there is no difference.