Tall order- small ribbon-tweeter speakers, with restrictions

thedelihaus

Nocturnal transmissions
Here's one for you-

A smallish speaker, let's say monitor or bookshelf size in modern terms (as in B&W 601s/2s, NHT SuperOnes, SB3s, Classic 3s, Paradigm Titans).

Ribbon (or derivative) tweeter.

6-8 ohm load.

86+DB sensitivity or better.

Parts rebuildable, replaceable, source-able- not obscure or "unobtanium".

Can be powered off 50, 70, 100wpc.

:scratch2:
 
What are you asking / telling?

s6a.jpg
 
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What are you asking / telling?

In a nutshell, interested in seeing what a small, ribbon tweeter monitor can do, performance-wise, and if one can be found that isn't expensive (to me), or a hard load on an amplifier (nothing more than a personal pet peeve).

Pleased with the performance of a quality metal dome and soft dome, but both can have their limitations.



I've always liked what Infinity can do with the EMIT. But the Infintessimals are a 4 ohm load, and also have a mixed reputation- some think highly of them, others feel the upper registers have a "cupped" presentation, esp. with vocals.

I have been impressed with full-sized electrostats, planars, etc. But they don't always fit where needed.

There are some DIY models that get good reviews that use a Chinese brand tweeter, but the tweeter is a bit more prone to failure than I find acceptable.

Others are of mysterious origin, and concern is, if something fails, will it cost me a small fortune to fix?

worse, will the parts not be available?



Those look nice. What are they?


Those drivers look much like the parts off Parts express- might be a killer little performer for not much money.
 
Don't know how much $ you want to spend, but if you can manage it, I might consider some of the small Dalis from the Ikon or Mentor line. They use a hybrid tweeter module consisting of a ribbon and a dome and should meet most of your specifications, except I don't know what the replacement parts situation is like.

Bear in mind that I haven't actually heard these specific models although I have heard the Dali hybrid ribbon/dome tweeter module in another pair of speakers that about knocked my socks off. Those were the near-TOTL Euphonia MS5 towers, a different and exotic animal, but they certainly opened my eyes (ears?) to the Dali brand and left me seriously considering a smaller, more affordable pair of Dalis for a future purchase myself.
 
There's a pair of Fostex RM-65's sitting on my desk at work, which earned that position over some pretty tough competition. They have an odd tweeter and I can't quite figure out what it is, but I believe it's a coaxial ribbon tweeter. They look like a single driver speaker, but they aren't. They also have an adjustment for near or mid-field placement, as they were professional near-field monitors. I like them a lot. I don't have the specs and I'm not at work but they've never shown themselves to be a tough speaker to drive. There was also a consumer version, with a more attractive cabinet than the plain black of the monitor.
 
I'd try to clone one of these:

sunfire-crm-up-close-fig-1-tn.jpg


It's been confirmed that the planar driver is the same as the Dayton "ribbon". The woofer is less known, but there should be no trouble finding something close enough.

As for design details, just try it out until you come up with something. And then worry about how the psycho-acoustics work in unconventional designs like this. :D
 
Here is a pair I built a couple of years ago. PE had these amps on sale for $60, so I bought 3. One is a spair, just incase.

These use the Beston 5 ohm ribbons. I guess they are creating 18 watts from their 22 watt amp.

The woofers are the 4 ohm Peerless 5 1/4 SLS. Should get the full 58 watts from their amp. The amp crosses at 3K. I use these as my PC speakers and they sound very nice.

I do use an 8 inch, 75 watt powered sub with them. They are also fed with an Asus Xonar card to an Aric Audio single tube preamp. Oh yeah, there is an 6.8uf Solen cap on the ribbons, per instructions with the amp.
 

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Totally outside of the price range of this request are the Elac monitors that use a variation of the Heil tweeter. I think the model was the BS-244 or 243. I saw a speaker with that tweeter yesterday in a studio and was reminded of this thread. Didn't get to hear it, though.
 
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