Tech Talk 4: Adding a Super Tweeter

[@MichelLinschoten]

This channel deserve so much more subscriptions. It totally explains why Arnie nudell did it with most of his speakers

[@chrisbarnhart7944]

I was actually in Max Townshend's house in Hampton Court England listening to his gear when he brought his prototype supertweeter out to show me. Looks exactly the same as his production model. What a nice guy Max is....

[@veroman007]

i took your advice. it was amazing. opened up the space. made it feel like i was in a better room. i used an inexpensive jbl tweeter and got a cheap 2nr order x over pre made from parts express. whole kit was maybe 75$ including pentometors. really made my full range drivers open up. x over at 6 khz. i dont see why i needed really good tweeters for this application but i am sure better ones would be nicer. great explanations!

[@LeonZita1]

what kind of fullrange drivers you have?

[@veroman007]

@@LeonZita1Audio Nirvana

[@Projacked1]

I have learned so much from this one video, excellent tutorial Danny!

[@scottohta2192]

Thanks Danny, Your super tweeter advice worked well for my single driver horn speakers.

[@johnharrigan8770]

I first heard A mono voiced Quad ESL at the radio show Olympia London in 1956 (now called Quad 57's) I have owned Janszen /klh/Goodmans + others; since the early 1980's the aforesaid Quad ESL's currently One Thing Audio rebuilds with super tweeters out of phase as the 57's are phase inverting (tried in & out). I have just fitted the s/t's pointing upwards the result is superb, having tried every way but up over the years. Thank you it works in my 19' x 11 lounge I'm glad I took the advice on New Record Day to subscribe to your channel.

[@Filip-wo1pe]

Hi! Congradulation for the video (s)! That one made me realize why I had no soundstage at my listening position: I am sitting about 3 inches below the midrange driver and about 7 below the the tweeter. I have tilted the louspeakers forward, so now they point towards my ears and it's new world. I have never thought that 4000 eur loudspeakers have so poor vertical dispersion that one needs to sit exactly at tweeter level to experience any kind of soundstage!

[@juanmillaruelo7647]

Speaker makers tend to widen treble dispersion horizontally using wavegides and other solutions. Vertical dispersion is typically quite a bit more restricted than horizontal. Experimenting with speaker tilt is an old trick that works well. (Speakers won't sound the same when you stand up from your listening spot (armchair or whatever) because your ears will be above the ideal height.)

[@ronnieblomdahl3008]

Hi there. I like that u say abaut adding a tweeter pointing up to the ceeling. so me and my friend did a speaker that had 2x midrange and one at front and one up and this speaker sounds amazingly airy and wery big sound. :-) soo thanks for the idea

[@wallalo]

very interesting, but it would have been even more interesting to have carried out the measurements also with the two suggested solutions

[@brunorivademar5356]

Wow. I had no idea how much of a difference driver distance could have. I will start working on speaker rake angle

[@danashay]

Wow. That was fascinating. Though a dolt like myself can't understand all of it, your presentation really helped. Fascinating. Gonna keep an eye on you! Thank you so much! My Klipsch Cornwalls are in a room far too big to really pressurize, and I find myself looking for more. Very nicely done, looking forward to absorbing more from your posts. Bravo!

[@iscmiscm]

It seems that if one want to get a full range experience it may be better to chose a small full range that is better in the highs and then add a woofer at a nice low cross over point. I remember hearing a Bandor full range crossed over to a Leak 13 inch sandwich and that worked quite well while still keeping a lot of the advantage of a single unit.

[@HiFiGardener]

There’s a guy on KZbin who has a system with a pair of subs paired with ESS Heil tweeters. Sounded magical on the video.

[@IliyaOsnovikov]

Great video! Very helpful and educational. Thank you!

[@seancarroll8103]

Good video. What fun!

[@cartofgiant]

Danny ,, you’re the man.

[@vikassm]

Doesn't a capacitor in series with the tweeter also change its phase by 90°? How does that compare to a higher order filter? I'm no expert, only just started to build my first set of OB speakers, so far it's a huge minefield 😂

[@manamimnm]

Did you consider having the super tweeter firing at a diffuser to scatter-reflect back at the listener?

[@brucefairfull3403]

Hey Danny have you had a Hafler 300 speaker in your shop and how did it measure. Thanks Bruce

[@vettesweetnos]

A couple brands on my short list have more than 1 tweeter. Legacy Audio Signature has an additional AMT supertweeter and Perlisten R series has 3 soft domes but in a different type of array, is there anything wrong with either design? RBH and Paradigm are 2 others but only have 1 tweeter. Dali speakers come to mind having 2 tweeters, no midrange, and bass drivers.

[@dannyrichie9743]

Some of those are disasters. See what happens: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zni7dpykmpmdpsksi=XxeTyWr8woEShrqm

[@noone-cf2zo]

What value capacitor is required to crossover a tweeter at 2.5khz?

[@ARGBlackCloud]

Did you try reversing phase on tweeter. Not all manufactures get the poles the same.

[@MickeyMishra]

I used to be that person who said Imaging was nonsense and then I finally set up a proper system in my car because that's mainly where I listen to music and it's hard to ever go back. I used to think that having a large array of tweeters was the way to go and it still is for me but the problems in actually making it work properly is a whole other bowl of chili. I used to scoff when people said that a two-way system is best well it is best for a lot of reasons mainly for Simplicity reasons but I still prefer a technically 4-way System including the subwoofer for audio. especially if you like to hear your guns and roses a little bit loud or you like to basically jam out the music a little bit louder than most folks. it's hard to describe just how wonderful a good Center image really is and when you finally get there if it comes something that you chase in just about every system. before it was all about Clarity to me but then I realized just how much I was missing with a good Center image and then I realized just how important crossover design and especially having your system designed in a way that you eliminate things like crosstalk and especially comb filtering. it sounds nice like in a showroom or some place where you're impressed by The High Frequency output but believe me after a while it becomes really tiring and not really joyful to listen to. I used to be the guy that thought that having multiple drivers say in like those all Japanese speakers that have like 10 speakers inside of them was the way to go then I realized oh god what the hell was I doing! sometimes less is more and with better engineering it really does outshine just about anything you could do when you get really complicated to basically cover up problems with low quality driver's in bed placement

[@audioprotaro1338]

great vid

[@fabieneldridge3414]

I have a pair of Klipsch K- horns and would love to add a super tweeter. They roll off around 17 or so . Built in the early 80’s. Would I connect it to my crossover or direct from the receiver? Plus I crank my speakers and wouldn’t want to blow them. I’m running a Marantz 2325 at 125 minimum per channel and bumping above 250 watts . What can I do ? Have you ever experimented with them ? Thank you for your advice .

[@dannyrichie9743]

I have upgraded a lot of Klipsch speakers. They typically need the top end brought down. To add a super tweeter face it up or put it on the back of the box.

[@fabieneldridge3414]

@@dannyrichie9743 Thank you !

[@2247386]

Thank you for this info.

[@robinlindeberg]

Hi Danny! Big fan of these videos as I'm just getting into speaker building myself, so thanks for putting these out! Just a quick question regarding tweeter selection of the front fireing and up fireing tweeters. Is it important that the tweeters match in frequency response? Because I have found a good ribbon tweeter that I would like to use as my front fireing tweeter, but as you mention in the video, it would not be optimal to use a pair of those and mount the other as an up fireing tweeter. Are there any traps I should avoid in my case is my question! Sorry if my question is poorly described or unclear, but I'm still pretty new to all the technical terms that are involved in spekers. And English is still a second language even if I'm using it daily by now.

[@HiFiGardener]

So does that mean that stacking Original Large Advents, doesn’t actually make them sound better? I mean, when you stack them, you invert the top pair, putting the tweeters close to one another. Would they be close enough to cancel each other out? How far apart would tweeters have to be to keep them safe from cancellation?

[@dannyrichie9743]

This video will answer that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zni7dpykmpmdpsksi=tAtvF0cCCLKjoQKH

[@manFromPeterborough]

Dick Smith used to retail Arrow piezo super tweeters back in late 80's

[@faverodefavero]

What about ambience tweeters the are put up, behind or on sides of speakers? Seen many expensive, well regarded and awarded hi fi speakers with die pole tweeters for example (front and back playing the very exact same thing) and so forth. Or two tweeters playing the exact same thing at the same time but one in the front baffle and another on top shooting up.

[@davidkoenen6959]

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[@nicomodesto5282]

Gr research must do a tannoy st 300 version , I think that even with the best part the price will be human, also is not simple for a newbie to find that kind of component, for the enclosure everyone could do a 3 d printing. It will be a success.

[@alaskanadventures8124]

Hi Danny, I am trying to design a portable mono speaker with good sound quality, mostly for inside, and using a 4 channel amp with DSB and Bluetooth. I was inspired by the philharmonic BMR bookshelf with a 7" woofer, 2.5" BMR mid-range and ribbon tweeter crossed at 600 and 3.5K Hz, although ribbon may not be the right choice for a portable because of fragility. The BMR has a linear frequency response to 20K Hz, so after watching your video, I am tempted to think why add a tweeter in the first place? (I imagine because the quality of the highs is better). The philharmonic BMR does not seem to suffer from the issues you describe, is it because the crossover is low enough? Then what is the acceptable limit for crossover? An alternative would be to use a 2.1 setting in stereo mode, where 2 channels are combined for the woofer and have one BMR for each channel (no tweeter). The BMRs would be side by side. Would those 2 BMR be less susceptible to cancel each other as you describe in the high frequencies? because in stereo mode the signal is different for each, that may not be so bad. What about having the BMRs at a small outward angle from each other? Would it help? Sorry about so many questions😀.

[@dannyrichie9743]

There may actually be some cancellation in the vertical off axis response of that model due to the high tweeter crossover. Lowering that crossover point would help a lot. Side by side speakers are not as much of an issue as with most music the left and right signals are different. I'd still go with dual woofers though. A better alternative might be to incorporate our new LGK 2.1 speakers into that design concept. The LGK drivers will sound much better than the BMR's.

[@davidketley5359]

Why not a much higher cut off say 48 db LR?

[@Giblet535]

I did this with JBL pro speakers, saw the huge dropout, and switched to triamp with a 24db/ active crossover. It was expensive but it helped... A 5db dip at 16k. That's an annoying frequency anyway and I can correct it with DSP. It's good enough.

[@eug3nius]

Dali uses super-tweeters to add air to big tweeters and improve upper frequency dispersion. I've seen measurements and they don't have huge cancellations.

[@dannyrichie9743]

Watch what happens as the mic (or your ear) starts moving up. Then you'll see the cancellation effects.

[@eug3nius]

@@dannyrichie9743 I guess Dali crosses their super-tweeter higher, steeper and to a soft dome tweeter so the distance between the center of the tweeter and the super-tweeter is much smaller.

[@dannyrichie9743]

Those upper (higher) wavelengths are even shorter. So it takes even less distance change to cause cancellation. It's there.

[@eug3nius]

Danny Richie Look at the Dali Rubicon 8 and the JBL Array 1400 measurements on the Stereophile website, they both have dispersion plots. 8kHz crossover on the JBL due to the horn drivers and 14kHz on the Dali. There are visible suckouts and peaks near the crossover region in the JBL but on the Dali they are so small you might as well call them inconsequential. In the JBL the super tweeter is required and not that bad and in the Dali is a net benefit, right?

[@dannyrichie9743]

I can make any of them measure flat in the on axis. It is when you move up or down and the time arrivals change that the deep holes show up. And this also makes for an uneven room response.

[@photorealismstr]

What about implementing a super tweeter with high order crossover won't the cancellations be less noticeable ;

[@veroman007]

thats what i did. he explains it. the hi freq is beaming and dont overlap.

[@dedyvideo]

The idea is not bad , you just need to use the right cross over , by that I mean active cross over where you can go to 48bd for octave and all the problem disappear, but it will be more expensive and inconvenient, anyway good video , thanks

[@dannyrichie9743]

That doesn't make the problem go away. You still have to physically align the tweeter to the woofer below. And if the listening height moves up or down then it is out of phase again.

[@RobWhittlestone]

I have the Townshend ribbon supertweeters for my KEF Reference Three Fours with Kimber supertweeter cable. They add so much air and space. Here's how big a difference they make: my WIFE insisted I buy them. You have to align them in the same vertical plane as the existing tweeter (in my case about 3/4" from the front). They are gain-adjustable: keep turning them down until you can't hear them then that'll be about right. I use them on setting 3. Then turn them off. If the sound is suddenly dead and lifeless with no air, switch them back to the last setting. Done. The surprising thing is how bass is more musical. All the best, Rob PS. Townshend says they go up to about 90kHz from about 6kHz, I think.

[@dannyrichie9743]

The problem is that as soon as you move up or down then the time arrival changes and they cancel each other out. Try facing them up or to the rear and you may get better results that fill the room more.

[@RobWhittlestone]

@@dannyrichie9743 Thanks Danny, I'll give it a shot. ATB, Rob

[@BootJamesOut]

Hello folks. It is mind blow just how well a super tweeter improves your bass, also. Please do not stop playing around with your system. Your having fun. Trial-and-error the name in this hifi game. You'll never know until you do it. Point tweeters upward. You'll really be walking on sunshine not seating moving backwards Maxell tape guy. Become Tommy the Pinball Wizard. Sound that shines all within your head remembering you and Danny are a Trend of your own. Yep I'm still crazy. Don't lick any 9 volt battery just as bad tasting as a 12 volt. PH level issue too. Ride Easy

[@Enemji]

I got myself a Sony SS-CS3 and hooked it up to my Onkyo A9150. I did a A/B with the Elac Debut 2.0 FS6.2 and found no difference in the high end. 🤦‍♂️

[@antoniojoseandreomartinez9710]

🙋👍❤️ .Thank you. Desde España.

[@porkchopspapi5757]

What does GR stand for?

[@dannyrichie9743]

GR Research founders Glowacki and Richie.

[@AALavdas]

Using rear- or ceiling-firing tweeters is not a way to faithfully reproduce sound. What you need is to NOT fall into the trap of using a "wide range" driver, to begin with! :) But if you've had that accident, I guess you can add a tweeter properly, in the front baffle, using a 4th order crossover. Or, as you said, put a real crossover in the midwoofer, too, forget about "wide range" disasters, and have a properly designed speaker!

[@veroman007]

hmm. i have an audio nirvana 12 in. full range in large ported cabs. added a s tweeter 2n order 6 khz and place it atop facing upwards. it adds space, etc and i love the results. i love this design with my small set amp. dont judge if you havenet heard it done well. i never have to deal with phase issues, crossovers etc. to each his own in audio i say

[@TheZacharySutliff]

Awesome

[@steveaustin7306]

I use socks to mount my super tweeters. Need to be 100% cotton

[@marcsmithsonian9773]

You make this chart measurements into a key-hole microphone. Whould be better to average signal by using microphone array 4x4 ...

[@dannyrichie9743]

No, we want to know what is going at at a specific location and not over an average.

[@marcsmithsonian9773]

@@dannyrichie9743 but you ( speaker ) is not producing acoustic sound presure to the specific point but to the volumetric space, and bdw. Using array does not mean you have to average .. you could do convolution / deconcolution time base corected filter to have a specific point reading anywhere on the array surface.... Best regards!

[@bilguana11]

My ELAC Vela 409s don't need a supertweeter.

[@ar_xiv]

damn windows XP. respect haha

[@shanerorko8076]

Lol due to working in building and industrial/technical I can only hear to 12k any way. Most adults struggle to hear past 15k any way so using a tweeter is pointless.

[@mdrummond194]

Research this more, it’s all about harmonics.

[@garrinvr]

I'm still waiting for some marketing dude to run the quote "Nothin' takes you higher than a super-tweeter" xD

[@sandwaves5642]

Great stuff - only maybe 4 the pets 🐕🦆🐞 nd bugs... 'cose no human ear can benefit from these SUPER tweeters - especially NOT of a guy in the clip - his top hearing range ends at 12-13 KHz 🤣

[@wallalo]

by intermodulation a super tweeter also completes the mid frequencies that are audible to all

[@sandwaves5642]

@@wallalo and it has to be a super expensive supertweeter, to do that? I've built hi-end speakers, but never used one.

[@wallalo]

@@sandwaves5642 sorry but if you have never tried to use it how do you say it makes no difference?

[@sandwaves5642]

@@wallalo K never stuffed them in my builds, but have "listened" to - planty of times. But it's great that u nd some others can benefit of those

[@garretthead]

neat video, buuutttt when the audio guy's youtube audio is atrocious 🤣😅😅...