New distortion tests!

[Jonasz]

Troels Gravesen has done some distortion tests too... Interesting!

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Tweeters_dist-test.htm

[Spanky Ham]

Is there going to be a rush to ribbons now?

[tktran]

Well to Troels credit, the tests do replicate some of John Krutke / Mark K's findings, and reassuringly, don't really show any major disreprancies. Just for kicks, we have a few vintage drivers thrown in for comparison.

I suspect that what ribbons lack in non-linear distortion performance, particularly down low, they make up for in linear distortion performance.

I recall reading about Greg Givler's M130/JP3 design, hosted at Zaph's website. The XO point is 2.9Khz acoustic LR2, and showed me that with a suitable crossover, the non-linear distortion in in the low end of ribbons can be reduced.

People still like the sound of their OW1, or Milleniums, despite the relatively higher harmonic distortion performance.

People are still building, and enjoying, systems that utilise midwoofers that do not use faraday rings (SEAS standard range), that have much higher HD than their faraday ringed Excel counterparts.

So it's not a stretch of the imaginations that we can still enjoy the sound of our higher HD ribbons?

[JoshK]

I've heard the AC GS2i sound very different in a couple different speakers, so I think implementation has a lot to do with its sound.

[Dennis H]

I like the looks of the Neo3 PDR with the rear cup removed. Looks like a no-brainer for a 'low-cost' dipole.

[JonMarsh]

So it's not a stretch of the imaginations that we can still enjoy the sound of our higher HD ribbons?

Not at all, I expect. Just as there are many fans of older well voiced "vintage" systems that don't have the benefit of some more modern performing drivers.

But in the long run, it depends on listening styles (including average SPL and type of program material and sources) as well as expectations, and ability to compare with other newer systems. For example, an Avalon Eclipse sounds pretty good if you don't push it too hard and keep average SPL in the 80 dB range and peaks not much over the mid 90's- but it loses it's composure under conditions that don't stress an Avalon Eidolon or Wilson Sophia. And so it goes...

I think to have good flexibility with a ribbon, it needs to be mated with a midrange with an extended top end– I suspect the W4-1337 would work well with a JP2 or JP3 Fountek, for example, as well as with an RS52. Looking at the CSD plots as well as nonlinear distortion, most of these "true ribbons" of moderate size are not happy if asked to deliver much below 4 kHz. Stay out of that range, and there might be some "magic"... as many dome tweeters have rises in distortion due to the upper mechanical resonances, which occur at lower frequencies than for ribbons that go out to 40 kHz.