Transducer Lab tweeters / waveguide

[Caisa]

Hey guys,

although the TL tweeters are barely used here in Europe, they seem to be very good considering the rewievs from the US diy Hifi boards....

Does anybody of you did comparisons between the different versions made of ceramic, magnesium, composit or beryllium? Any listening impressions or recommendations?

I considered the ceramic N26CR2-G but can not really explain why, just intuitive. What is the main difference between that driver and the older square N26C?

Is there a waveguide existing that will match well with these tweeters? Pellegrene had something, but his website ist down...

Maybe the bigger Jantzen waveguide will fit? I am not sure about the whole diameter of the N26 incl. the surrounding of the dome, sure the voice coil is 26mm ;-)

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks and kind regards,
Stephan

[augerpro]

There was no difference between square and round, but there is difference between the original generation tweeters and now. From Cristian at T Labs: "The new "S" model has a smaller face plate, new magnet, new voice coil, new surround, new chamber, new lead wires and terminal posts and also different soft parts inside the chamber. Only part that is the identical to the older N26C-A version is the dome. I hope this helps."

Response is basically identical, and I would hope he didn't do anything to degrade the great non-linear distortion performance.

I have this 5" waveguide off at the printer, no idea on the performance, but you'r welcome to try it if you have access to a 3D printer. If so, I can remove the circular mounting flanges for an actual speaker, or you can just stay with the circular for easier mounting to test baffle for measurements.

[Caisa]

Hi Brandon, that waveguide looks interesting, PM sent....

What throat diameter is best for the N26CR2-G?


Thanks,
Stephan

[augerpro]

Email sent. I don't know what the "best" throat diameter is, usually smaller is better, but I just used the same 35mm that TLabs uses for their faceplate.

[Caisa]

Makes sense.... Did you by chance tested the Jantzen waveguide for the TL tweeter?
Reply to your mail sent ;-)

Cheers,
Stephan

[Caisa]

Hey guys,

Brandon was so kind to share his waveguide shape and I will try to CNC mill a Prototype to measure and modify( If necessary) the shape of the guide. Yesterday I also talked to Christian of Transducer Lab and he told me, that the N26CR2-G is very natural sounding but the MgO version hast even lower distortion and more air and bite in the upper range as well as higher SPL due to the lighter cone. However, reading between the lines it seems that his favourite ist the N26CR2-G.

Did maybe someone do a comparison of the sintered Aluminium and the Magnesium dome and would like to share the impressions? Any measureable differences in the frequency response on/off axis?

Kind regards,
Stephan

[JonMarsh]

Email sent. I don't know what the "best" throat diameter is, usually smaller is better, but I just used the same 35mm that TLabs uses for their faceplate.

That might be a little on the large side, IMO, after one experiment with the original ceramic ones.

Steve and I are going to do some detailed studies, but it's for our own design/construction waveguide, and what with the things that have been going on for me at work and at home, the time table is uncertain. Our initial effort with the RS28A were quite to our satisfaction, but then they go and discontinued that driver...




I have on hand the N28BER and the N26CR2 for testing. I've published basic SPL and distortion plots of the N26CR2 here before.

[5th element]

"The new "S" model has a smaller face plate, new magnet, new voice coil, new surround, new chamber, new lead wires and terminal posts and also different soft parts inside the chamber.

Are these listed on the TL website? I can see that they might possibly be, but the faceplates all look like the same ridiculous size that they've always been.

[JonMarsh]

You know, those ridiculous sizes and the accompanying weight are mighty satisfying to hold in your hand and look at....

Meniscus doesn't seem to be carrying the new ones, but Solen has some of the CS parts, but they're rectangular face plates. They seem to have smaller magnet assemblies, but face plates the same size, checking that on the TL web site.

[Caisa]

Dear Jon,

will you publish your experience with the N26C in a waveguide? If I remember it correctly you said at some point that you will also try the TL in the Jantzen waveguide...?

The waveguide designed by Brandon, seems to me very promising, why do you think 35mm throat diameter is too wide? As the faceplate ist not removeable it might be difficult to go smaller than the faceplate cutout of 35mm...

[JonMarsh]

I’m not very mobile at the moment due to hip joint replacement surgery a week ago, but i’ll Follow when when better able to physically with measuring mechanically the particulars.

I tried the TL ceramic tweeters with the Jantzen waveguide several years ago in the Arvo Part Picante project; the tweeter plus waveguide performance was not up to expectations, and I think this is due to the immediate/initial throat behavior; just contrast that result in the relevant thread with what is posted above for the RS28a with our own design.

[cochinada]

Hey guys,

although the TL tweeters are barely used here in Europe, they seem to be very good considering the rewievs from the US diy Hifi boards....

Does anybody of you did comparisons between the different versions made of ceramic, magnesium, composit or beryllium? Any listening impressions or recommendations?

I considered the ceramic N26CR2-G but can not really explain why, just intuitive. What is the main difference between that driver and the older square N26C?

Is there a waveguide existing that will match well with these tweeters? Pellegrene had something, but his website ist down...

Maybe the bigger Jantzen waveguide will fit? I am not sure about the whole diameter of the N26 incl. the surrounding of the dome, sure the voice coil is 26mm ;-)

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks and kind regards,
Stephan

Howdy Stephan,

I'm using the N26MGR-G myself but I didn't compare it with other tweeters except on 'paper' and reviews a bit all over. For me the big difference between the round and the square is that this one is plain ugly.
Indeed it's not easy to find them here in Europe. I was lucky as I bought mine here but I needed to replace them later and was only able to get them from Meniscus.

I've chosen the magnesium version because It looked like it has a bit more response around 2KHz than the ceramic, or in other words seems flatter. Also it copes with a bit more power and has a higher sensitivity. The berilium on the other hand beats both on these two parameters but it has a narrower response bandwidth requiring perhaps a higher crossover point with the medium and in my design I wanted to go as low as possible.

The total diameter is 120mm whereas the diameter of the plate around the dome is 35mm.