Romy the Cat wrote:

I have to admit that I am not a huge fun of TAD drivers. They have a good bacterially clean sound but truly nothing really special. Rgs, Romy the Cat

Merlin wrote:

... I often note that you describe TAD compression drivers as being not to your taste. Could you tell us which of their range of drive units you have direct experience of and on what horns?

When I experimented with TADs I used 330Hz Tratrix. This subject was discussed somewhere below the following post….

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=6501

It is not that TADs are not to my taste. I am looking for the presents of specific things in the drivers and for an absence of other things. If you read my Macondo notes then you might understand where I am coming from:

http://www.romythecat.com/MacondoAcousticSystem.aspx

It has to be mentioned that when I experimented with drivers, including the TAD, I did not “worked” with most of them and was trying to get from them sound “as is”. Although I do not feel that the things that I am looking in the drivers might be obtained by the driver modification but you never know….  The reason I mention it because somewhere Cessaro said that they used drivers that cost 5000 Euros – TADs cost retail 1/3 of it and 1/6 of it wholesale. So, Cessaro nigh invested into custom TAD drivers, I see no reasons why they should not do it is they are willing to tag this speakers for $230K. If Cessaro use custom TAD drivers then it might means absolutely anything as it not necessary be an assurance then they more advanced then the stock TADs.

What also I have to note in context of the “absence of other things”. I noticed belong myself that I have very bad repulsive memory for drivers’ signature. If I listen a driver and was able to sniff of a specific idiosyncrasy of it’s sound that I feel should not there then in my mind that magnifies that idiosyncrasy and this characteristic screams on me from each recordings. So in many instances I look in the drivers the lack of recognizable announce….

el`Ol wrote:

If everything in a recording / playback chain was clean in the sense of not polluting at all what comes out would be the original (not in terms of soundfield reconstruction, of course) and since reality isn´t clean the result won´t be clean either. If something in the chain takes something away that we need to believe it´s real, then the result will be clean. And if a following component manages to substitute it more or less, then the result will be no longer original, but the non-cleanness makes us believe. Romy, what kind of cleanness does the TAD have in your eyes?

Romy the Cat wrote:

It does act “clean” but it a bug or a fly to enter that “clean” environment then it dies as there is nothing in there to support life. The problem also is that some bugs do not fly well in the fumes of penicillin… Rgs, Romy the Cat

Well, it is certainly not our objectives to define were one or another driver, in this case TADs, would punch up in regards to other drivers. I presume that any driver if a sufficient amount of time, effort and love invested might blossom with different sound then it does out of it’s box.

I hardly see point and take with a great grain of salt in internet collaborations on the subject what “driver is better”. Over internet we have no ability to objectively recognize each other reference points and the ability to recognize other objectives. Without it - many of our judgments not really useful for others. I pretty much abandoned my interest about compression drivers since 2002 when I stated to use S2. I would not necessary feel that it is “better” (it is better on my own scale that might be irrelevant to others) but I invested a lot of time and self-edition how to use this diver and what S2 does in my playback now it very different what it did in 2002. It is possible that if I spent 6 years with some kind of TADs then I would be able to take it what I would like it to do. If there are any serious S2 users out there then feel free to drop in – I am sure I can demonstrate some results with S2 that are fan from what expected from S2 diver.

Interesting that despite that I do not use any other drivers since 2002 but I am always looking for different drivers as some kind of inspiration. The sound of compression drivers is in many in instances is an accidental mystery – so in my imagination there is always some kind “more interesting driver”. Still, although I try to have very open mind to other drivers I most likely would not change anything in Macondo’s drivers until I experience the BLISS from other drivers or until I recognize some kind of fault of S2 driver. The bliss was something how I discovered the S2, thanks to David Karmely…

So, in the end it is not important what driver would it be if a person knows what he needs to accomplish with Sound. The demands for specific sonic attributes would naturally lead a person to one or another direction from one to another driver…. It very much might be the TADs. Until an experienced in TADs user with evolved reference objectives sit with me in the same room and demonstrate to me his evolved results I do not think I will change my opinion about the TAD compression drivers.  It is not the my opinion maters…

Merlin wrote:

Where Romy is wrong is the cost of TAD drive units.

coops wrote:

…. Avantgarde charge how much for their large Trios yet the modified conventional drivers they use cost only a few bucks each…

Avantgarde Trios were $38K retail, overprized but still conventional in the world where the Morons buy two-ways monitors for $20K. The street price for Avantgarde Trios was way lower. As you can see it is far away from $230K, though I do admit the since then the US Dolor went deep to drain.

Coops, what I am curios – what do you know about the “modified conventional drivers they use cost only a few bucks each” that Avantgarde used. Do you personally know those drivers that make you to demean them? Does the fact that Avantgarde’s drivers cost “few bucks each” made them worst then the Cressaro’s alleged “$5000 drivers”?

coops wrote:

Romy Hi, I didn't particularly set out to 'demean' Avantgarde, they have a good business model, I don't believe it is a secret that they modify conventional drivers, I simply mean that the constituent parts of a Cessaro horn , add up to a far higher percentage of the final  retail than any other 'hi-end' speaker I can think of . Keith.

Keith, I ask again: do you have ANY personal experience with Avantgarde drivers?  You said that it is “not secret that they modify conventional drivers” but it is a pure foolishness, sorry. If you wish then please explain yourself. If not then please stop to spread BS.

coops wrote:

Romy Hi, I didn't particularly set out to 'demean' Avantgarde, they have a good business model, I don't believe it is a secret that they modify conventional drivers, I simply mean that the constituent parts of a Cessaro horn , add up to a far higher percentage of the final  retail than any other 'hi-end' speaker I can think of . Keith.

Merlin wrote:

If they are modifying conventional drive units by hand, the labour costs alone can be prohibitively expensive. The fact that they are using heavy Alnico magnets and coating the diaphrams suggests that these units do not cost a "few bucks" each. It's also worth noting that with the likes of the Omega Duo you are also buying some fairly robust amplification and rather clever crossovers from what I can see. in short I think it's wrong to discount them - especially as the likes of the Duo are considerably less expensive than the base Cessaro

I did hear that Avantgarde went Alnico and it is very good – ceramic must not be used for HF drivers, unless the speaker is driver by SS PP transformer-less amplification.

In my time Trio used ceramics. It is not necessary to view Avantgarde’s Trio as some kind serious speaker manufacture from whom you might ask a lot. Avantgarde was happed what Avantgarde owner inherited plastic manufacturing shop after his father. For him it was absolutely irrelevant what plastic to press – tooth brushes or any other commercial molds. Somebody proposed to make bid ABS-made horn – why hot – and the Avantgarde Acoustic was born. Avantgarde people know absolutely nothing about sound or even audio and they outsource the entire speaker’s R&D to third party. It is a routine thing in Europe – many manufactures do it. So, there were found drivers for Avantgarde. Here what Trio used.

Bass channels: Trio came with 4 active twin woofer sealed enclosures – they were garbage and did not spent a lot of time to investigate the drivers and I got rid of the Avantgarde woofers…

Upperbass channels: Avantgarde used 8” Italian-made (I do not remember the company name), paper-cloth, 103dB sensitive cone driver with open back into 4” 115Hz horn. The driver was nice but de-tonal and with zero articulation. There are many reasons why it was so; one of the reasons was that Avantgarde did not high-bass the channel, there were other reasons …

MF channels: Avantgarde used aluminum cone 110dB driver from 600Hz to 5000Hz, with no phase plug. It was very interesting – it had no back chamber and the cone was damped with ferrofluid. It was very interesting performer but also very much tonally immuned. I mean it had “tone” but very “contemporary”, the high tech tone. Still, we never know when tone comes in audio. I would LOVE to have the same type of the driver with Alnico magnet and to see how it behaves, though I am not a big ferrofluid drivers fun. The idea was very lucrative and to my knowledge no one try it now.

HF channel: was off the time alignment reservation, 110dB, aluminum cone, ceramic with no back chamber. Again, the concept is very interesting – free suspended aluminum cone bouncing off the front chamber…

So, regardless how Avantgarde performed but they had many thoughts in their driver – not just buy out the ready to go TADs (if it was what Cessaro did)…