DR: Nice post!
I've stumbled on a very interesting conversation on that RAAL ribbon, which, besides knowing of them as sort of the very expensive holy grail of ribbons before Ascend talked of them, ...
Ok let me just preface with this. For some reason, maybe it's a lack of golden ears or experience/exposure, I've always been 'fine' with ultra high end tweeters. For example, the tweets in the JMLabs Utopia, in the Dynaudio Confidence series, in the B&Ws Nautilus/800 series, in Wilson Audios, etc., all sound fine to me... They're most often the least of my complaints. I've read some complaints about such tweeters, but I guess I'm just not that sensitive to them, and find complaints about them a bit weird. That said, I've also heard a couple of ribbons in Verity audio, ProAcs, MBL, PSB, Aurum Camtus, etc... And as the metal/soft dome featured in the flagship products of most company, also found most of them very very good, and yeah sure in some case did definitely notice a significant difference between these tweeter types, it wasn't as I had been struck by lighting and thought I could never listen to a dome tweeter ever again... It was enough to intrigue me though, and I decided going for a ribbon in my next speakers
Having finally 'taken delivery' of the ribbon speaker, my dome vs ribbon experience didn't really translate to the Sierra NrT tweeter vs Fountek NeoCD3.0. Or maybe it did as I was satisfied with both tweeters, but didn't find these two sounded significantly different... Maybe the Fountek isn't that great for a ribbon, maybe the NrT is very good, maybe I simply suck at "the listening" but IMHO, they're both good tweeters and as such, don't sound that different...
The RAAL is a different beast though, and looking up more info on it, I stumbled on an interesting discussion. But before, even before David/Ascend ever talked about the RAAL ribbon, I had heard of that name and heard this was a special tweeter. Very expensive, but as I had heard, one of the best and almost in a class of its own. (Maybe I even heard it but I can't recall..) Now, finally, to the interesting RAAL discussion, discussing out of all things, David F.'s measurements of the said tweeter! http://techtalk.parts-express.com/sh...e-RAAL-70-20XR Very interesting discussion! Some quotes from it:
EMOriginally Posted by Ryan
This I think sums up my thoughts on the matter, after the NrT upgrade, another tweeter upgrade, this one probably more expensive than the NrT upgrade, just wouldn't rock my world... I'd most probably skip it as I'm perfectly fine with the top end performance of the NrTs, and wouldn't invest hundreds of $ at this time for a 'marginal' upgrade... But that's me, the 'tweeter sounds fine' guy! A woofer or 3 way upgrade, probably would be more tempting as a mid/bass improvement would imho be more doable or significant than improving the top end...
But reading the thread; RAAL vs Fountek:
Anyhow, I guess more reading and more listening in my case is required!This is like comparing an RS28F to an Aircirc. Both are fantastic but it's not just two versions of the same thing, even though it's similar technology, there's still differences that two or three graphs alone won't show but other graphs should. Or is an RS28F as good as a Beryllium Aircirc?
One such example i've seen is people who compare Dennis Murphy's Philharmonic 1s (fountek neocd3, SB 8") with his Phil 3s (RAAL 70-10d, SS Revelator 8") - so far they've all said that while the differences in bass/lower midrange are minimal, but the differences in tweeters are well worth it, and so they consider the Phil 2s (RAAL 70-10d, SB 8") to be the optimal choice dollar for dollar.
Not sure whether the Fountek '2' they're talking about is the Neo X or Neo CD models, but anyway, again, RAAL, costing about 3-4x as much as Founteks, are found to be betterto sum up, you and I both admit that the RAAL test better from a dispersion standpoint, and a linearity standpoint (response). From a non-linear standpoint, the RAAL 70-10 and 2.0 have a similar overall cutoff frequency before THD exceeds 1% (~2500Hz). However, above that frequency, the RAAL has lower overall distortion, even though both are predominantly 2nd order. The MUCH lower moving mass of the ribbon element in the 70-10 simply does more, with less, and exhibits a more realistic presentation to the ears. I don't care if both of them were $10 each. I'd still take the 70-10 over the 2.0 every time. They just sound better. It does suck that they are expensive due to being hand made and tested. But they are amazingly consistent.
But anyhow, it all depends on application too as they mention... To my ears, the Founteks sound great, and the NrTs surely don't sound like mushy jello or tin cans compared to them... Some random notes/quotes on the Fountek and it's selection criteria in the design I went with:
The extended range of the W4-1337SA's enabled a high tweeter crossover point, and an easy cross to a ribbon tweeter. The Fountek NeoCd3.0 seemed like a great choice. All the drivers exhibit high marks for value, which gives this design a high performance to cost ratio.The top end had to have realistic reproduction of triangles and cymbals while extracting the ambiance of the recording venue.
...
The only tweeter considered for the project was the Fountek NeoCD3.0. It fit perfectly in the over all design goals and the extended frequency response of the W4 allowed the ribbon to be crossed at a high enough frequency to minimize distortion. A perfect match!Treble: Cymbals sound like cymbals and the sound of triangles float in the air. Love or hate ribbons but they do a better job of realistically reproducing the highs to my ears than any other type of tweeter. The highs are open and airy with great off axis dispersion.IMHO, as stated, the Fountek is <100$ and probably not the best ribbon tweeter on earth, but it's definitely no slouch. As for the NrT, I don't know exactly how it would compare to an AirCirc, 7000, Crescendo, etc., but to my ears, it does a really good job, which in the end is quite similar to the Fountek NeoCD3.0...Treble, well, I love ribbons so it's a hands down winner in that respect for me.
But for tweeter upgrade, going from the quote of Dave's quotes on RAAL vs NrT, makes me doubt a little more the tweeter upgrade... Well I don't know, guess we'll just have to see!