Usher Beryllium 5" Mid & 1.25" Tweet Measurement OUT!

[Irwin AR]

Looks like it's not supposed to be ready for public view yet, as it's
not accessible directly via their driver section.

Anyway, for those who haven't seen it yet..

5" Midrange
1.25" tweeter

[Jed]

Cool. Wonder how much they'll cost and if PE will carry them. They appear to have low distortion.

[ThomasW]

Cool, highly toxic metals for in home use..... :B

[Irwin AR]

Is the PDF file accessible on your side?
well maybe they havent got it up yet..

Jed .. how do you find they're measurement based on their previous
drivers.Close match to our own?

[Jed]

Cool, highly toxic metals for in home use..... :B

Yeah, I guess I'll stick with ceramic units.

[Jed]

Is the PDF file accessible on your side?
well maybe they havent got it up yet..

Jed .. how do you find they're measurement based on their previous
drivers.Close match to our own?

I just clicked on the different measurment tabs from the links you provided. The distortion looks lower than most drivers I've seen or measured. THD less than .1-.2 % is very good.

[joecarrow]

Cool, highly toxic metals for in home use..... :B

You probably have more Beryllium in your microwave already. If their post-process cleaning is good enough that there's no dust or debris, I wouldn't worry too much.

Incidentally, I recently turned down a really attractive job offer because I was going to have to submit to a blood test for beryllium sensitivity, and there was a risk of lots of exposure to the stuff. It would have been fun to work on panels for the James Webb space telescope- but my wife would have been really unhappy with the risk involved, and I'm quite satisfied working on medical devices instead.

If this mid has any kind of excursion and stays pistonic beyond 2 khz... it could have potential.

[Jed]

Well if the tolerances are closer than Accuton and half the price it'll be a winner. Maybe. We'll have to see. So if anyone has any more info, let us in on it.

[Piotr]

The distortion measurements seems extremly impressive. However they don't state at what level the measurements are taken. Checking with the measurements that Klang + Ton made on some drivers it seems like the Usher measurements are done at low level.


/Peter

[Dennis H]

I've got some ancient Yamahas with beryllium drivers and I'm still kicking. The real risk is to the Usher employees making the drivers.

[TacoD]

Well if the tolerances are closer than Accuton and half the price it'll be a winner. Maybe. We'll have to see. So if anyone has any more info, let us in on it.

Overhere the price is much higher than Accuton (if I remembered correctly it was in the 550 euro/ piece range). I heard the new big Usher beryllium system (with 2x Eton 11" as bass) and I didn't liked it. So I will not buy these, also because if I want to use a stiff cone I would buy Seas Excel, Accuton or ATD.

[Irwin AR]

I heard the new big Usher beryllium system (with 2x Eton 11" as bass) and I didn't liked it. So I will not buy these, also because if I want to use a stiff cone I would buy Seas Excel, Accuton or ATD.

That would probably be the Usher Be-10 system that you heard.
The midrange was crossed at 550Hz to the Eton 11".
Seeing the distortion of the midrange, i would prefer it to crossed lower
than that (~175-250Hz) to a Seas Woofer.I bet it'll sound better/different.
But maybe the midrange cone is too light to handle that range.

We shall see once we have those drivers in our hands.

[Nemophyle]

looks cool ... kinda ... but i'd have preferred if they let go the "hype" effect, and did a drivers serie with good concave alu/mag cones and thoses outstanding usher motors, for a more decent price. I wonder if we will ever see that though.

It's a shame that the two companies doing the best motors, usher and scan are only doing soft floppy cones, and it's not a 550$ 5" beryllium driver that is gonna change the game for me ...

Excels are good but they're quite a big higher on nonlinear distortion, + they look plain ugly to me, + i don't like phase plugs.

i have good hopes for the new eton drivers ... if they ever show up, it has become quite a big vaporware since they were supposed to be out like 10 months ago.

Sp tech could have been cool but ... sloppy cones again it looks like.

So i will have to buy accutons :cry: 400 euros for a midrange driver, sigh ...

Maybe i should ask dylan matlow

[Hank]

Maybe i should ask dylan matlow

Do it - he's considering various cone materials now, so it's a chance for a potential customer to vote for a hard cone.

[TacoD]

You can already buy the new Eton 26HD1 ceramic tweeter for 140 euro's. So I think it can not be very long.

[Nemophyle]

great info ! thanks

[Paul Ebert]

Cone material

Since I first read about it (Discover magazine, I believe), I've thought that liquid (amorphous) metal might make for an ideal cone material. Its rigidity to mass ratio should be huge, especially if you cast it as a foam and it should not ring near as much as regular (crystaline) metal.

I actually enquired about it from the inventors but I never got a reply. Oh, well...

[joecarrow]

I agree, foamed aluminum could make a really interesting material for large cone woofer- but the manufacturing process is really difficult. I can't say that it's any more of a fringe material for construction than Be or diamonds, though, so maybe it's just a matter of time before we see it.

I'm with Nemophyle regarding the concave Al cones with good motors- it seems like it's a winning combo that could happen any time, but hasn't happened yet. The HiVi M8a is supposed to have a cone that's quite pistonic until breakup, but a motor that's nowhere near cutting edge. Other drivers in the same range of what I consider "reasonable" have motors that perform far beyond their cones' capabilities. I guess there's always a weakest link, but I think we're all just waiting for someone to get that super-stiff cone (which is available and affordable) matched up with a cutting-edge-ish motor (also available), and sell it for something at or less than Seas Excel pricing. It'd be a phenomenon with impact close to that of the Dayton RS series, assuming no hidden nasties show up.

[JonP]

I've got some ancient Yamahas with beryllium drivers and I'm still kicking. The real risk is to the Usher employees making the drivers.

Yep... Beryllium is very toxic, but not unless you get in close, long term contact with it. Dust is very bad, breath it, incurable lung disease, get it under your skin, bad ulcers, etc.

BeO (oxide) conducts heat very well, and is a good insulator, so it's used some in electronics, high power tubes, etc. It's hard like a ceramic, and grinding and machining make lots of dangerous dust. Just the metal sitting there wouldn't be bad, unless you rubbed against it daily. You'd have to make filings or shavings to really have problems.

I dont' know how stiff/strong it is as a metal, you hardly see it actually as metal. Being the lightest of metals (well, Lithium is lighter, but it catches on fire with a little moisture, and the consistancy of wax) it has great potential for low mass cones, but if it's not very stiff, it might not work so well...

I do remember (and they're still out there) a Shure phono cartridge that had a Beryllium tube stylus support. Low mass again...

[joecarrow]

As far as stiffness per mass goes, it's fairly extraordinary stuff. Another selling factor is its very low coefficient of thermal expansion- meaning that it holds a constant shape very well, even in widely varying temperatures and accelerations.

[Winter]

Beryllium Properties

For information on beryllium:

http://www.berylliumproducts.com/Acoustics.aspx

Note the "Acoustic Properties of Beryllium" (PDF file).

[Taifun]

THD saved from 2007 year, if someone search them.
Bad quality because then I have a bad monitor.

From Russia with love.