All that I will be saying are the subject of my own experience with horns and my personal observations. You shouldn’t agree and most likely you will not. That is fine with me. I have lot of reasons behind what I will be saying and opened for some clarification, however I will leave behind myself the rights do not collaborate on some of my comments if I find it unnecessary. My comments will not be unconditional, although they will sound probably in my typically exclusive mode. If you have brain, own consciousness, creatively, own experience or just a common sense that you would know how approach and interpret what I will be saying. If you do not have them then good luck, and, please, do not send me those idiotic emails informing me that I insulted the speakers of you brother-in-low: get live, some brain and perhaps a deeper familiarity on the subject.

It probably will be ~15 short overviews of what is wrong with horns, each of them will cover a specific area; they will be written with no particular order… just as came to my head.

Let start with transducers…

THE PROBLEMS WITH HORNS: TWEETERS.

Ok, there are no good tweeters in the horns world. Bold statement, isn’t it?

Well, what I need form a tweeter? I need an ability to handle ~15kHz-16kHz, with sensitively of 110dB, with dissipation of ~180 degree, with geometrical size of at least ~ 3x3 feet, preferably not compression type and without any typically-excessive accentuation at HF. 

This tweeter just does not exist.  Let look:

*** handle ~15kHz-16kHz

Most of the good midrange phase-plug armed horns run to 11kHz-14kHz but none of them produce the frequency over 10kHz properly. They just generate acoustic pressure in there with necessary amplitude but thy do not have Sound there or the necessary property within the Dynamic Level  ”B” (Look at my Six-Leveled-Listening Benefits™.. when it will be done ...) Most of the time midranges require a tweeter with a duty in one or in other way to correct what midrange channel do. If a midranges PROPERLY reproduce ~13kHz then it is more then enough for music. Audio people need more, all the way to 20kHz but they need it just to acknowledge a language of audio reproduction, not music; beside most of the systems that I have heard DID NOT reproduce even the ~13kHz PROPERLY, not to mention anything higher. The very best tweeters that I heard were not “SACD ready” and roll somewhere at 16kHz. Using those tweeters at the bottom of the slope was always very effective.

*** with sensitively of 110dB

The threshold sensitivity where a tweeter might perform OK is ~ 111dB. Any more efficient tweeters (or any drivers at this mater) are junk. Even of you pump into a driver 3 Tesla into a gap, with very high coofficiency and use a Chernobyl-approved diaphragms then the compression of Sound in a driver/horn to higher degree will bleach Sound and make it sounds like many times washed t-shirt. Over 111dB-sensitivity drivers have a lot of obnoxious force with compromise of delicacy or discrimination. Generally I would question that the compression drivers are way to go for a tweeter but unfortunately everything else is even worth. The best drivers that I heard were somewhere under 110dB.

*** with dispersion of ~180 degree,

I hate the narrow radiated tweeters. Even if they accidentally perform OK then they have to be piled into the multi-dimensional line arrays or into the hemispheres. However, to use the tweeters in multiple sources this is VERY difficult to accomplish and very finicky to tune correct (particularly in room’s nearfield) Without a wide HF dissipation a sound reproduction is similar to eating of frozen sushi… The narrow dissipation is acceptable for jazz-like music only but who cares about a primitive complexity of jazz reproduction?

*** with geometrical size of ~ 3x3 feet

Did you ever try to reproduces large choruses?  Anyhow, the large size of souse is very helpful and particularly when it combined with wide dissipation. No mater what it should NOT be a small source: no 1” little hole that barks into room with it’s HF. Those narrow source should be calibrate to 0.1dB precession in order to perform properly, but it never happens in real world as the recordings, electricity, and hundred of other parameters wildly fluctuate. A 3x3 feet tweeter might run plus or minus .5dB with no large affect to listing experience. Certainly, it will no be 3x3 source that will be able to do handle HF (please do not mention for me any film panels or electrostatics) In past I have quite interesting result by introducing the large diffusers that tweeter were fired upon. It created an appealing randomanization of HF and the large no conflict cloud of HF in a room but it killed some other important things, including the wide dissipation, eaten sensitivity, screwed transient response and few others…

*** preferable not compression type

Oh!!!!!!!

*** and  without any excessive pronunciation at HF

Any metal diaphragms add the “glitz” and “sparkles” to HF, sort of a HF emphasis and I that it. The audio people consider emphasis as an “evidence of quality” and “presents of air” but I still can’t listen it. Even if you roll-off the “typical audio-tweeters” with minus 6-9dB then the damn “sparkles” are still there but the mid HF have already gone. Among very many reasons of the phenomena (I mean the audio-zombies’ love to HF-emphasized sound) is a fact that a typical high-end audio electronics can’t handle HF properly. What audio people looking is “13 kHz punch” but it is just their reaction (beside the corrupted taste and wrongful expectations) to the amplification that is falling apart at HF and completely loosing the ability to handle the “resonanses” that live at 5kHz-8kHz. If your amp and your mid-range driver can handle the necessary USEFUL RESONANSES at 5kHz-8kHz than it would be totally different expectation from a tweeter’s duty. The properly structured 5kHz-8kHz and a NUTRAL tweeter is a way to go.

Anyhow, finishing the accusation, the Horn World uses many different tweeters and all of them suck to more or less degree. I did not even mention that that horn’s tweeters, no meter how good or bad they are, mostly are NOT used in civilized way. But I will talk about it in the crossover, compensators, alignment section… when get there….

The caT

Well, I am not a big fan of plasma tweeters.

First, of all they generate a health hazardous gas while they operate. All contemporary plasma drivers have catalytic converters that presumably convert this gas into something neutral. The process of conversion does affect sound. So, should I trust to a hi-fi manufactures that they would sacrifices the sonic effectiveness of thier product, that generates non-detectable, cancer producing gas, in order to preserve the health of thier customers perspective? I do not think so. It is not really regulated field and I have very little trust to hi-fi companies.

Second, I would not say that plasma tweeters sound good - they sound “deferent” and thier sentimentals in thier “differences”. It is nice to sit and to hear how the tweeter works but audio is not about listing the sounds of the drivers. In fact, Steve, I feel that is you was able to notice and separately comment on the performance of the twitters than it is an indicative illustration that the tweeter were not as good as they should be. I personally do not find that plasma tweeters deliver an adequate result and I feel that that their Sound is very muck syntactic and “helped”. The sound they do really do not exists in relay world; at least I never was able to get similar sonic sensation anywhere. It more sounds to me like holding in my hand Teflon. It is pleasant, very different, very-very different but it certainly feels as a totally out of this world material.

Third, plasma tweeter inflicts design problems. Those plasma tweeters meant to be used in a very special optimum for itself way and it might not necessary fit within your design objectives. As the result - you need to design a system that would satisfy the requirements of the tweeters instead of picking a tweeter that would satisfy the requirement of your design objectives.

And the last, probably the most important: the plasma tweeters imposable to integrate with any another drivers, channels or topologies – they juts sound too different. I would not advocate which is better or worst  but I do insist that plasma tweeter and all known to me midranges are none-comparable.

Also, It is very expounding that the KIS, who presumably likes what Sound Labs do to sound, do find the plasma tweeters attractive. I feel the plasma tweeters take the sub-dynamic, deneuralized sound of electrostats to its washy-washy pinnacle…

Juts my opinion,
Romy the Cat

KIS wrote:

Your facts about Plasma Tweeters are incorrect. It is so far off that it is useless discussing it. "I feel that that their Sound is very muck syntactic" ..."I feel the plasma tweeters take the sub-dynamic, deneuralized sound of electrostats to its washy-washy pinnacle.." Well I will not comment on the choice words (above) you have for generalising all electrostatic speakers and plasma tweeters. Since I do use both, I'll let others have a go.

Yes, I am not a big fan of electrostatic speakers and consequentially the plasma drivers. I do not have a high esteem about electrostatic not become I do not have them (I think I’m well-familiar with all of them starting from the Martin’s Statement and ending with the SoundLabs) but because they all exhibit the well-defined negative qualities that I do not find acceptable. However, I do not think that your position: “I have electrostatic, you do not like them and therefore I let you go” is a constrictive attitude. I did not  (I least I do not) talk about “the ownership” or grading each other system but rather we take about the specific qualities that are typical for a given topology of loudspeakers (yes, generalizing). I have no idea how the fact that “you use both” (electrostatic speakers and plasma tweeters) changes the fact that the electrostats have huge dynamic compression, have sensitively less the 80, require 500W of stupid and mostly improperly implemented power, have totally unacceptable dipole bass and while they play piano they convert the piano into an harp… (I can go on and on….)

It is how I see it and certainly your vision might wary. However, I do not think that we exchange the Internet posts about audio because we need to “justify” what we have in out rooms. I think what we do it not to build a “rationalization of own ego” but rather for an education. I know that you have views about the electrostats, so do I, so we shared them. Somebody else, perhaps you, perhaps me might learn from it and to take some notes… It’s all… Nothing further…

The Cat

KIS wrote:

There is just not much point discussing anything with you when you take a hard and strong stance on something that is totally a case of personal taste. Your idea of charging up another person emotionally with off the cuff "stupid" remarks can't be healthy in any form of exchange.

1) The best tweeters that you have ever heard is a plasma tweeter
2) My facts about Plasma Tweeters are incorrect (Were they?)
3) There is just not much point discussing …  that is totally a case of personal taste

Quite recognizable wasn’t it?

Then when I asked a little more specific you informed me that I’m “charging you emotionally”. I have no idea where did you dig THAT but as I told you: this all just an opportunity for education.  For instance I have learned that when people express “incorrect” (from my point of view) opinions about the subjects that I‘m well-familiar and  am disagree then it worth to ask further questions and to see if behind thier “exuberance of ownership” there is anything else...

Furthermore, my friend, the given subject is absolutely NOT a case of a personal taste. However, your easily offensable manner (or a “comfortable mask of fragility”), and your incapacity to provide any constructivism of the subject really turn me off  and I will not explain to you further about the plasma tweeters. In a future be advised that I do not run my mouth spreading the hi-fi myths, but as you correctly pointed I have a “hard and strong stance” behind what I express. I anticipate the same form other people.

Anyhow, let live it as it. This thread is about tweeters and if you not intend to post about the subjects of this site then excuse yourself from further posting.

The Cat

Romy,

Point taken on the Ozone issue...do the catalytic converters in the units work effectively? I do not know. There are relatively inexpensive measuring devices for it.

I agree completely that they sound different. You can see in my language that I was awed by them. They sound so much different than any other I have heard. I did not feel that the rest of the Acapella speaker was quite acting in concert with them. Are they more musical? I found them interesting enough to consider buying to further explore their strentghs and weaknesses in my own home and with my own music.

And again I agree with you that this tweeter would most likely require a system built around it's needs. And what is the likelyhood of finding a midrange driver to integrate? Again, I was interested in trying for the sake of the knowledge. I would still like to explore it even as my vivid memory of it's *qualities* fades. Understand that I have never found a tweeter that I like, so when i hear something so qualitatively different and so seemingly natural, I was hopeful! You think possibly this is *supernatural*. I would have to listen further with this criticism in mind. I found them beautiful...

By the way...I cross the Raven Tweeters over at 40 kHz for just this reason...I really dont want to hear them...but just have them add some very top hf extension. It is a very pleasant addition.

Steve

Steve, I would encourage you to “get” the following.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=432

and to expose to this imperative rule your recent excitement about the plasma tweeters. The fact that you heard something that you enjoyed it is not a correct motivation to peruse this thing. You have FIRST to identify what is wrong with your current high frequency and THEN, when you see something presumably “better”, you have to consider how this “betters” addresses the thing that you have identified as the shortcoming of your current Sound.

Without those steps all bets are off and a peruse turns into a brainless and endless audio paranoia.