RAAL vs. Beryllium Dome

[parimento1]

I agree with you 100%. I recently had a chance to hear the Paradigm S1 V.3 (with the Beryllium tweeter) and S2 V.1(with the Alum tweeter). Let me tell you, the Be tweeter was so much sweeter than the aluminum it was like night and day. No harshness, no annoying sibilance, and not get nasty when you turned them up. The Be tweeter was head and shoulders above the alum dome in my opinion, but it still does not match the speed, precision, and incisiveness of the RAAL.

Dave,

I read the Ascend Board even though I own a competing brand of speaker (Selah Audio Verita, which has the RAAL 70-20XR ribbon). This is the first time I've seen the RAAL ribbon compared to the Scanspeak Beryllium dome. It was a very enlightening comparison and confirms my thinking that the RAAL ribbon is simply the best tweeter I've heard. You hear very extended, natural highs without the aggressiveness, resonances or artifacts that most Domes typically have. Thank you for providing the analysis-

pawsman

[GirgleMirt]

I agree with you 100%. I recently had a chance to hear the Paradigm S1 V.3 (with the Beryllium tweeter) and S2 V.1(with the Alum tweeter). Let me tell you, the Be tweeter was so much sweeter than the aluminum it was like night and day. No harshness, no annoying sibilance, and not get nasty when you turned them up. The Be tweeter was head and shoulders above the alum dome in my opinion, but it still does not match the speed, precision, and incisiveness of the RAAL.

Probably so, but you can't compare two tweeters and make general conclusions on which tweeter type is superior. What is true for those two tweeters might not be true for others. So while this one Be tweeter was better than this other Alu tweeter, you can't really generalize and say that Be is better than Alu... It might well be that Be is better than Alu for a speaker designer who knows what he's doing for example, but that doesn't make Be tweeters 'better' than Alu or any other... It just comes down to individual tweeters

But yeah some technologies/designs have inherent weaknesses and strengths so there is a general point, or advantage/disadvantage of going a certain way, but essentially it works on a per tweeter basis.

[curtis]

I agree with you 100%. I recently had a chance to hear the Paradigm S1 V.3 (with the Beryllium tweeter) and S2 V.1(with the Alum tweeter). Let me tell you, the Be tweeter was so much sweeter than the aluminum it was like night and day. No harshness, no annoying sibilance, and not get nasty when you turned them up. The Be tweeter was head and shoulders above the alum dome in my opinion, but it still does not match the speed, precision, and incisiveness of the RAAL.

Sibilance always starts with the recording. The tweeter may end up accentuating it, but you have to know the source to know if it is being portrayed accurately or not.

[RicardoJoa]

Sibilance always starts with the recording. The tweeter may end up accentuating it, but you have to know the source to know if it is being portrayed accurately or not.

How are people going to know what the recording are suppose to sound or intended to sound? Arent everything, coming from the recording? The speaker then give a charater.

[curtis]

How are people going to know what the recording are suppose to sound or intended to sound? Arent everything, coming from the recording? The speaker then give a charater.

That's part of the point I was trying to make.

Shouldn't assume the tweeter is causing the sibilance.

Also, that tweeter may sound better with other recordings.

[parimento1]

Yes, with a good speaker, bright recordings should sound bright, dark ones dark, etc. They shouldn't add a character of their own, whether it be brightness or harshness, etc. Many recording, especially old ones sound terrible on great speakers because they are bad recordings and the resolution of the good speakers brings them out. Have you ever listened to Stevie Wonder on good speakers....man his songs sound terrible, but not because of the speakers, because of the recording studios back in the day.

That's part of the point I was trying to make.

Shouldn't assume the tweeter is causing the sibilance.

Also, that tweeter may sound better with other recordings.

[RicardoJoa]

Yes, with a good speaker, bright recordings should sound bright, dark ones dark, etc. They shouldn't add a character of their own, whether it be brightness or harshness, etc. Many recording, especially old ones sound terrible on great speakers because they are bad recordings and the resolution of the good speakers brings them out. Have you ever listened to Stevie Wonder on good speakers....man his songs sound terrible, but not because of the speakers, because of the recording studios back in the day.

There are way too much to talk then just speaker tone. Every speaker has some charecter to it. No matter how flat, two different speaker will never sound the same no matter how closely flat their response are. Trying to find a speaker to play what the recording suppose to sound, seems like a journey that will never end. For one, we dont know how it was recorded, and for two we dont know what other mixes are involved, but for the most, is that we werent at the recording venue, so we wouldnt exactly know how it was recorded. But even if you were, there might be a good chance that the next day you may already forgot how it sounded like.
I rather enjoy great music played through great speakers, built from those who have the passion about this hobby.
Thats just my perspective.

[GirgleMirt]

There are way too much to talk then just speaker tone. Every speaker has some charecter to it. No matter how flat, two different speaker will never sound the same no matter how closely flat their response are.

I don't know if that's too accurate... It all comes down to distortion. When you have an uneven FR, that's distortion. When you move off axis and the FR changes, that's distortion. When the sound is not clearly rendered, again, distortion... So... What you're describing would be two speakers that while having an accurate FR, would have other distortions which would make it sound differently... (vertical/horizontal off-axis, THD, etc.) then yeah, ok.

But if you had two speakers with relatively similar behavior; off axis FR, similar distortion, and they also measured relatively the same (not just on axis FR, but the whole slew of measurements), then they would also sound very much the same... So I agree that the same FR on axis wouldn't guarantee that they would sound exactly similar, it would indicate that in this fashion they will have similarities...

identical FR of 2 speakers sounding different analogy: It's like looking at two people exactly from straight ahead. Even if they looked exactly the same, by turning the sideways, you could see differences; one could have a really crooked back, the other a huge ass, or hey one could be a two dimensional photo But yeah, looking exactly the same from the front wouldn't mean that they are exactly the same, but it doesn't mean that they couldn't be either... Maybe they are or maybe they're not... There's no reason they should be dissimilar (fact that they'd be identical from the front would probably hint that they'd be more similar than different...)

Trying to find a speaker to play what the recording suppose to sound, seems like a journey that will never end. For one, we dont know how it was recorded, and for two we dont know what other mixes are involved, but for the most, is that we werent at the recording venue, so we wouldnt exactly know how it was recorded. But even if you were, there might be a good chance that the next day you may already forgot how it sounded like.

I don't think it really matters how it was recorded. The job of the speaker isn't to reproduce a musical performance, it's to accurately convert an electrical signal to soundwaves. Or you mean for the listener, trying to determine which is more accurate...

Hmm... Well, we have better tools to do so than the human ear. We can measure the amount of distortion of a speaker/driver and that can give us a very good glimpse about performance. It most often won't tell us how it would sound in a particular room for instance (arguable with off-axis measurements maybe?), but the 'recording' doesn't really fit in the equation of whether a speaker is better than another.. Ok well if you're trying to use your ears... But I think the audio industry is a clear example of why this doesn't work. Not only are the ears/memory imperfect, there's also subjective taste which makes the whole thing somewhat pointless... (in determining performance for instance or which of X and Y speakers are better). (as you stated!)


But anyhow, there's different views on that.. Some people want speakers to color the sound a certain way or then it's 'boring', 'uninvolving' ,'lacking soul', etc., and they might find certain things like bass boost, lack of treble, etc., good things, which in their opinion, makes speakers better... That's why you just can't rely very much on people to measure speaker performance.. Some might describe perfect theoretical speakers as: 'harsh', 'lean', 'too analytical', 'bright', 'lacking air', 'lacking detail', 'lacking bass', 'too much bass', etc...