Diamond Tweeter?

This is mostly a question for Dave as I doubt anyone else has been able to directly compare the Diamond Sierra with a Sierra-2EX.

The first question is have you been able to keep possession of a pair of the Diamonds?

Have many pairs of the Diamonds been sold?

Since when the diamonds made their debut, they were compared to the S-2s, do you feel that the difference in detail noted in the Diamond reviews was a product of the EX woofer, the Diamond tweeter, or both.

After an extended period of time listening to both the Diamonds and the 2EXs, what are your impressions comparing the two?

Edit: What got me thinking about this, I was listening to AIX's Lawrence Juber DVD-A "Guitar Noir" through my full system in 5.1 all RAAL equipped glory! It is stunning how real his acoustic guitar sounds in this title, and it is equally as stunning the level of detail to be heard from the percussionist, he uses lots of metallic instruments like bells and triangles, brushes on cymbals, and a fairly diverse array of other percussion instruments.

I'm just struggling to comprehend how any of this could be improved upon! I do understand that it was reported that the diamonds showed more detail with complex passages like an orchestra, or big band style, I truly wish they weren't so prohibitively expensive that I might have the pleasure to demo a pair myself.

I also was thinking about the reference to hearing finer details Of Diana Krall's performance, but was thinking those frequencies would be more in the mid range, thus my question regarding what transducer was in fact providing the increased level of detail. I suppose the true acid test would be comparing a diamond equipped Tower pair to a ribbon equipped Tower pair, with the dedicated mids that would mitigate differences from those frequencies.

Jay

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Originally Posted by petmotel

This is mostly a question for Dave as I doubt anyone else has been able to directly compare the Diamond Sierra with a Sierra-2EX.

The first question is have you been able to keep possession of a pair of the Diamonds?

Have many pairs of the Diamonds been sold?

Since when the diamonds made their debut, they were compared to the S-2s, do you feel that the difference in detail noted in the Diamond reviews was a product of the EX woofer, the Diamond tweeter, or both.

After an extended period of time listening to both the Diamonds and the 2EXs, what are your impressions comparing the two?

Edit: What got me thinking about this, I was listening to AIX's Lawrence Juber DVD-A "Guitar Noir" through my full system in 5.1 all RAAL equipped glory! It is stunning how real his acoustic guitar sounds in this title, and it is equally as stunning the level of detail to be heard from the percussionist, he uses lots of metallic instruments like bells and triangles, brushes on cymbals, and a fairly diverse array of other percussion instruments.

I'm just struggling to comprehend how any of this could be improved upon! I do understand that it was reported that the diamonds showed more detail with complex passages like an orchestra, or big band style, I truly wish they weren't so prohibitively expensive that I might have the pleasure to demo a pair myself.

I also was thinking about the reference to hearing finer details Of Diana Krall's performance, but was thinking those frequencies would be more in the mid range, thus my question regarding what transducer was in fact providing the increased level of detail. I suppose the true acid test would be comparing a diamond equipped Tower pair to a ribbon equipped Tower pair, with the dedicated mids that would mitigate differences from those frequencies.

Jay

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Happy to provide some feedback on your questions:

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The first question is have you been able to keep possession of a pair of the Diamonds?

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Yes, I do keep a reference pair available - this is my personal pair and can be used for demos etc.

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Have many pairs of the Diamonds been sold?

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This type of info is confidential.

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I'm just struggling to comprehend how any of this could be improved upon! I do understand that it was reported that the diamonds showed more detail with complex passages like an orchestra, or big band style, I truly wish they weren't so prohibitively expensive that I might have the pleasure to demo a pair myself.

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This is exactly correct, it is with complex passages that the diamonds truly shine - but it is important to understand that they sound different. There is a level of transparency and "air" with the SEAS diamond tweeters that I have personally never heard with any other tweeter, be that ribbons or domes etc. In addition, because the diamond domes can be crossed low, more upper mids comes through the tweeters for overall more detail in this range.

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I suppose the true acid test would be comparing a diamond equipped Tower pair to a ribbon equipped Tower pair, with the dedicated mids that would mitigate differences from those frequencies.

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We have sold a pair of diamond towers to a customer. His comments are somewhere in this massive thread. I have done this exact comparison, I believe I even posted a pic of it and I came away with the exact same conclusions as the 2-way diamonds.

Thanks, Dave, for the above.

Just to clarify, as your conclusions were the same for S2's with Diamonds and Towers with Diamonds, does this mean that the Towers with midrange weren't better than the S2's?

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Originally Posted by racrawford65

Thanks, Dave, for the above.

Just to clarify, as your conclusions were the same for S2's with Diamonds and Towers with Diamonds, does this mean that the Towers with midrange weren't better than the S2's?

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I don't follow you. From my comparison between Ribbon Tower and Diamond Towers, the diamond tweeter still did better with complex passages and lower treble area's. Basically, the same differences I heard between Sierra-2EX and S2 diamond, were also evident between our Ribbon Towers and the Diamond towers. Keep in mind there is a massive price increase stepping to the SEAS diamond tweeters.

Thanks, Dave. Sorry if my question wasn’t clear. My interpretation of your earlier response was S2 with Diamond were essentially equivalent to towers with diamond. Seems not to be the case. Sounds like Towers with Diamonds are the highest performance. May have to plan a trip to hear the diamonds

Dave, any chance of a much cheaper version of the Diamond tweeter, like Cubic Zirconia, for us enthusiasts on a tight budget? :cool:

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Originally Posted by davef

This is exactly correct, it is with complex passages that the diamonds truly shine - but it is important to understand that they sound different. There is a level of transparency and "air" with the SEAS diamond tweeters that I have personally never heard with any other tweeter, be that ribbons or domes etc. In addition, because the diamond domes can be crossed low, more upper mids comes through the tweeters for overall more detail in this range.

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Hi Dave,

As someone who has experimented with crossing RAAL 70-20XR tweeters lower than the recommendation, I've experienced some of the effect you're talking about here. My lowest experiment was down at 1.27 Khz and it was a lovely sound, though of course I have to be careful about maximum SPL doing that.

Out of curiousity, how low can you cross over the Seas Diamond domes?

You are on the forefront of "no holds barred" sound!

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Originally Posted by eboleyn

Hi Dave,

As someone who has experimented with crossing RAAL 70-20XR tweeters lower than the recommendation, I've experienced some of the effect you're talking about here. My lowest experiment was down at 1.27 Khz and it was a lovely sound, though of course I have to be careful about maximum SPL doing that.

Out of curiosity, how low can you cross over the Seas Diamond domes?

You are on the forefront of "no holds barred" sound!

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I honestly can't recall exactly what the lowest crossover point with the RAAL 70-20xram was that I tried. that stated, it is difficult to go lower than 1800Hz as the tweeter has its own built in high pass filter due to the transformer. Going lower than 1800Hz isn't recommended as distortion will dramatically increase and power handling will be greatly diminished.

How did you come about purchasing a pair of these tweeters? These are only sold to OEM's and with a signed contract.

For the white diamond, we had a customer request a custom pair of S2 diamonds using a very low crossover point. I believe we ended up going with 1.5kHz, which was not a problem for the diamonds. Fs on these tweeters is a very low 500Hz and when Claus from SEAS visited us and demonstrated the capabilities, he had me run them full range, which caused me a lot of concern while we were listening. Destroying one of these tweeters is, ummmm, rather costly ;)

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Originally Posted by davef

I honestly can't recall exactly what the lowest crossover point with the RAAL 70-20xram was that I tried. that stated, it is difficult to go lower than 1800Hz as the tweeter has its own built in high pass filter due to the transformer. Going lower than 1800Hz isn't recommended as distortion will dramatically increase and power handling will be greatly diminished.

How did you come about purchasing a pair of these tweeters? These are only sold to OEM's and with a signed contract.

For the white diamond, we had a customer request a custom pair of S2 diamonds using a very low crossover point. I believe we ended up going with 1.5kHz, which was not a problem for the diamonds. Fs on these tweeters is a very low 500Hz and when Claus from SEAS visited us and demonstrated the capabilities, he had me run them full range, which caused me a lot of concern while we were listening. Destroying one of these tweeters is, ummmm, rather costly ;)

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Sounds awesome.

2 things were done to make the 70-20XR work when crossing over lower: 1) Put a large capacitor in front of it, and the resulting response curve had good response down to about 900 Hz, and 2) used a DEQX digital crossover with an extremely high slope (~200db/octave linear phase) and level correction. AKA I cheated, haha. Having said that, the resulting distortion was not measured when crossing that low, and will agree the human ear is notoriously bad at detecting it.

EDIT: The lowest crossover point actually being used is 1.27 KHz, to be clear. Computing the numbers, it limits the max SPL by 6db, but due to average greater power use of the lower frequencies am being conservative and limiting by 12db. I like nearfield listening, so this limitation hasn't been a burden on me.

As to getting the 70-20XR pair, I wrote RAAL directly asking if it was possible to get a pair, and was graciously allowed one set. The 140-15D didn't fit in my design so I think he felt a bit sorry for me, haha.
I have been so impressed with the 70-20XRs that I've subsequently bought a set of the 140-15D's and am building a new set of boxes with enough space for them.

Anyway, loved hearing about your Diamond Dome experiments. I have "price is no object" fantasies like many audiophiles, but so far the RAAL ribbons have been about my limit pricewise.