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Thread: Diamond Tweeter?

  1. #71
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by Beave View Post
    They have tested other speakers at much higher voltage levels (and much higher subsequent power levels, as those other speakers also have lower impedances) - and no damage resulted.

    85dB for the Crystal Cable speaker required 8.74V input levels. The speaker's impedance is over 8 Ohms in general. So, as you stated, power would be 10 watts or so.

    Now look at the tests for the PSB Synchrony Two B (another small bookshelf speaker with fairly low sensitivity of 84dB). They ran THD sweeps at 90dB@2m with a voltage input of 10.9V, and that's a speaker with a lower impedance than the Crystal Cable speaker. So even more power. Then they even went a step further and measured THD at 95dB@2m, with a voltage input of 19.5V. With this speaker being around a 4 Ohm load, that's way more power than what they did with the Crystal Cable speaker.

    So why were they willing to play the PSB speaker at such high power input to it, but not willing to go nearly as high with the Crystal Cable speaker?
    Probably because PSB speakers are also very well designed and Paul Barton has his own anechoic chamber and insane amounts of testing equipment, so I'm sure he just told them to throw whatever the hell they wanted at it. With the Crystal Cable speaker it's a much smaller company and I doubt they have the resources to be able to just throw power at their costly products until they explode.

    Just a thought.
    -Alex
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  2. #72
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Keep in mind 84dB to 81dB sensitivity is a pretty big difference. The 81dB speaker requires double the power to reach the same volume as the 84dB speaker.

  3. #73
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by sludgeogre View Post
    Probably because PSB speakers are also very well designed and Paul Barton has his own anechoic chamber and insane amounts of testing equipment, so I'm sure he just told them to throw whatever the hell they wanted at it. With the Crystal Cable speaker it's a much smaller company and I doubt they have the resources to be able to just throw power at their costly products until they explode.

    Just a thought.
    Doesn't PSB use the NRC, the same place where these tests are run? I suppose you could consider that in itself to be 'insane amounts of testing equipment.' But keep in mind that the tweeter used in the PSBs costs about $25 each at retail, and quite a bit less when bought in bulk, as PSB does.

    Also, whether or not Crystal Cable is a small company is mostly negated by the fact they're not designing their own drivers. They're using a ScanSpeak woofer and a SEAS tweeter.

  4. #74
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by Beave View Post
    They have tested other speakers at much higher voltage levels (and much higher subsequent power levels, as those other speakers also have lower impedances) - and no damage resulted.

    85dB for the Crystal Cable speaker required 8.74V input levels. The speaker's impedance is over 8 Ohms in general. So, as you stated, power would be 10 watts or so.

    Now look at the tests for the PSB Synchrony Two B (another small bookshelf speaker with fairly low sensitivity of 84dB). They ran THD sweeps at 90dB@2m with a voltage input of 10.9V, and that's a speaker with a lower impedance than the Crystal Cable speaker. So even more power. Then they even went a step further and measured THD at 95dB@2m, with a voltage input of 19.5V. With this speaker being around a 4 Ohm load, that's way more power than what they did with the Crystal Cable speaker.

    So why were they willing to play the PSB speaker at such high power input to it, but not willing to go nearly as high with the Crystal Cable speaker?
    It is one thing to destroy what is likely a $25 tweeter (cost) compared to a $2K+ tweeter (cost). Additionally, as I mentioned they are hitting the speaker with sine wave sweeps - which in itself can be very damaging to speaker components.

    I suggest if you are still curious, send Doug Schneider an email and inquire.


    Quote Originally Posted by sludgeogre View Post
    Probably because PSB speakers are also very well designed and Paul Barton has his own anechoic chamber and insane amounts of testing equipment, so I'm sure he just told them to throw whatever the hell they wanted at it. With the Crystal Cable speaker it's a much smaller company and I doubt they have the resources to be able to just throw power at their costly products until they explode.

    Just a thought.
    Again, there is a huge difference in price between the Diamond tweeter and the tweeter in the PSB.

    Put it this way, if I were sending up a pair of speakers with the SEAS White Diamond tweeters and any damage due to testing was purely our responsibility - I too would absolutely instruct them to avoid higher power distortion tests. Better safe than sorry....
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  5. #75
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by mikesiskav View Post
    Keep in mind 84dB to 81dB sensitivity is a pretty big difference. The 81dB speaker requires double the power to reach the same volume as the 84dB speaker.
    Only if they had the same impedance, which they don't. The Crystal Cable speaker's impedance is significantly higher (roughly double, or a little more). It needs more voltage to play loud, but less current.

    If one speaker has a 3dB higher voltage sensitivity but twice the impedance of another speaker, isn't the power needed to play at a given level the same for both speakers?

  6. #76
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by davef View Post
    It is one thing to destroy what is likely a $25 tweeter (cost) compared to a $2K+ tweeter (cost). Additionally, as I mentioned they are hitting the speaker with sine wave sweeps - which in itself can be very damaging to speaker components.

    I suggest if you are still curious, send Doug Schneider an email and inquire.




    Again, there is a huge difference in price between the Diamond tweeter and the tweeter in the PSB.

    Put it this way, if I were sending up a pair of speakers with the SEAS White Diamond tweeters and any damage due to testing was purely our responsibility - I too would absolutely instruct them to avoid higher power distortion tests. Better safe than sorry....
    If you go back and look, I was the one who suggested they were cautious with the Crystal Cable speaker because of the price of the tweeter. So you're agreeing with me.

    But it does make me wonder why a $25 tweeter can handle the power, but everybody gets nervous playing a $2k-$6k tweeter at similar levels. Just goes to show that not all parameters improve when price goes up.

  7. #77
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by davef View Post
    It is one thing to destroy what is likely a $25 tweeter (cost) compared to a $2K+ tweeter (cost). Additionally, as I mentioned they are hitting the speaker with sine wave sweeps - which in itself can be very damaging to speaker components.
    Do you know how quickly they run the sweep? And how many discrete points they actually use? I can't find that info online.

    When we ran sweeps where I used to work, the entire sweep only took a few seconds. The power handling of a speaker depends (as you well know) not only on the levels but also on the time. A tweeter, for example, might handle a high-power sweep just fine if it's only a couple of seconds, but a lower-power sweep that's really slow might cook the voice coil. {I know you know this, I'm just pointing it out for others.}

  8. #78
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Here is another low sensitivity speaker that they ran at higher levels than they did with the Crystal Cable speaker:

    http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/ind...nts&Itemid=153

    82dB sensitivity, an expensive SEAS Millenium tweeter (though nowhere near as expensive as the diamond tweeter), and a fairly high impedance. They ran its THD test at 90dB.

  9. #79
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Quote Originally Posted by Beave View Post
    Here is another low sensitivity speaker that they ran at higher levels than they did with the Crystal Cable speaker:

    http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/ind...nts&Itemid=153

    82dB sensitivity, an expensive SEAS Millenium tweeter (though nowhere near as expensive as the diamond tweeter), and a fairly high impedance. They ran its THD test at 90dB.
    Beave,

    You are really jumping to the wrong conclusions here. The SEAS white diamond is actually SEAS's highest power handling tweeter at this time. Replacing the domes on the SEAS millennium tweeter is inexpensive and quite simple (if it were to be damaged). With most tweeters, the expense is in the magnet system, but with the diamond, the majority of expense is in the dome itself.

    Klaus (from SEAS) and I tested the white diamond tweeter here with a full range signal - no crossover whatsoever (yes, a big no-no with tweeters). I was hesitant due to risk of damaging the tweeter but Klaus assured me it was OK and, well, since he recommended it - I wasn't too concerned about damage since these were his demo units. We compared this against nearly every other tweeter we had here at my facility - and the complete lack of compression and distortion, combined with the extremely ribbon-like open and airy sound was very surprising. This tweeter is IEC rated at 300watts peak power handling.

    Another important point is that you are referencing the NRC measurements of the Arabesque Minissimo but I am not so sure that this is actually the Diamond version of the speaker. Actually, after checking - it is not the diamond version. Here is the associated review that links to the measurements. http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index....o-loudspeakers

    The tweeter in the review unit is actually the Scan Revelator - a good tweeter but IEC rated at about 1/2 the power of the white diamond.
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    David Fabrikant
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  10. #80
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    Default Re: Diamond Tweeter?

    Ah, so there are two versions of the Abaresque Minissimo, a standard one and a Diamond version. I didn't catch that. And the NRC measurements are for the standard (non-diamond) one. Stereophile's measurements are for the Diamond version, but Stereophile doesn't test THD.

    I'm not sure what "wrong conclusions" I jumped to, but it appears it's all for naught anyway. The part where I was wrong was assuming it was the diamond tweeter version being tested by the NRC.

    Too bad we don't have NRC measurements for the diamond version.

    And it's good to know that the diamond version (of the Minissimo) likely has higher power handling than the standard version (of the Minissimo).
    Last edited by Beave; 09-27-2016 at 06:12 PM. Reason: for clarity on last sentence

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