The Whole Truth About Beryllium Diaphragms

[mowry]

After a year of research I uncovered and compiled an interesting story from within the loudspeaker industry. You can download my manuscript here, http://www.s-m-audio.com/truth.zip

Feel free to distribute this file.

[gianni]

Very interesting and well done.

[Johnloudb]

Very interesting article! I haven't heard a metal dome I liked, but I haven't heard any metal domes tweeter in years. When metal dome tweeters became all the rage in the early 90's, they all sounded bright to my ears. I know they've come along way since then, and I haven't heard a Beryllium tweeter, but then again who really has heard one anyway.

You might see if the moderators would move this thread to the Mission Possible DIY section of the forum. I think there would be more interest in this there.

Anyway, very well done! Thanks for posting!! :T

[Alaric]

I can't speak to beryllium tweets , but the metal domes in my Paradigms work for me. I think they're aluminum (!) , but they provide one of the missing links I spent 20 + years trying to recapture. (a/d/s L1530s). The mids and tweeters in the a/d/s towers were incredible.

[Johnloudb]

I've only auditioned speakers with metal dome tweets at Hi-Fi shops, and we all know how poorly speakers can be set up in those places. Athough, the first metal domes had a reputation for being bright sounding in comparison to soft domes. But, things have changed since then, and it seems metal domes are often the tweeter of choice.

[wolfgang]

How big and in what format is this document written with?

I can't open this with OpenOffice. Any chance of posting them in another format?

[Johnloudb]

That's strange. I just tried opening it with Open Office 2.2 and had no problem. Maybe you forgot to extact the word document first from the .zip format? Other than that, got me.

I also opened it with Neo Office which is Open Office for the Mac. And that worked good too.

[Alaric]

I've only auditioned speakers with metal dome tweets at Hi-Fi shops, and we all know how poorly speakers can be set up in those places. Athough, the first metal domes had a reputation for being bright sounding in comparison to soft domes. But, things have changed since then, and it seems metal domes are often the tweeter of choice.

My experience with "hi-fi" shops hasn't been too dissimilar! The last time I went to my local store , the speakers were underpowered and overdriven. You can imagine how nice that sounded with metal tweets! I'm also sure the speaker placement was crap. The underpowered comment doesn't apply to the Mac MC402 driving 91db speakers in a lousy room.
My old a/d/s/ had soft dome mids and tweets , and sounded lovely. I really like the sound of my Paradigms , but I may have just decided to love them because I can't afford new speakers...

[wolfgang]

Thanks for the suggestion. Managed to resolve the problem now.

[jbreezy5]

I think there are still alot of metal dome tweets that don't perform as well as I'd like.

I have heard some that have really come a long way. In particular the metal domes in the Energy Reference-Connoisseur (sp?) line are about as good as any tweeter I've heard. Very smooooooth; and excellent dispersion, much like your Paradigms, Lee. Not surprising since they are both part of the speaker undertaking in Canada.

The SEAS metal-domes used in Argon speakers are also very smooth and have good dispersion.