Quote Originally Posted by sludgeogre View Post
The more I think of it, the more I am open to eventually upgrading to the Diamond tweeters after a few years with my RAAL setup, after I finally get my Sierra Sats. The only way I would consider it, though, is if vertical dispersion was vastly increased over the RAALs, and if everything else remained just as fantastic. Really the only thing I miss over the Aperion speakers I heard a couple years ago is the excellent veritcal dispersion they had, even though horizontally they were probably less wide than the Sierras, although that doesn't matter too much to me since I only deal with seating two people, max. The Sierra Towers beat the pants off of all of Aperion's products in every other way, especially extension, as the Aperion speakers sounded quite veiled by comparison.

Although, I haven't gotten my speakers in a good room yet, and I haven't done any room treatments, so this opinion may change based on how my RAAL towers and Horizon center sound in a dedicated, treated room.
Keep in mind that limited vertical directivity, especially in a tower speaker, has very significant sonic benefits by reducing both floor and ceiling reflections... The design of our towers, even the dome versions, have limited vertical directivity. It is one of the main reasons for the somewhat unusual design of placing the midrange driver above the tweeter. That and providing a more defined acoustic center for a 3-way.

When it comes down to comparing the vertical directivity of a 29mm dome versus the ribbon in the tower, we are really only talking about an increase of ~ +/- 5 degs, which isn't much... At 10 feet back, the vertical listening window expands by only ~ +/- 10 inches.

I see the major benefits of the diamond tweeter being the delicacy and transparency of our ribbon sound, combined with that more forward in-your-face type sound and edge that dome tweeter fans love. The dispersion of this tweeter is already exceptionally good, but until I am able to take polar measurements of a completed design - I can't really get too deep into any dispersion advantages (if any)...