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External mount tweeter?

Keneye

Keneye

Well-Known Member
Would I be completely crazy to add a tweeter to my Infinity or Klipsch speakers on top of the cabinet? I am old and losing my hearing for high frequencies. Was thinking I could move or adjust them for maximum efficiency. Or do they need to be in the cabinet. Its a tube amp, so they need to be efficient. Or an equalizer?
Infinity SL 30
Klipsch R-51M
 
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I'd probably try an equalizer. Trying to get multiple tweeters to work together when they weren't designed that way is a recipe for impending madness, especially when you try to tune them for specific frequencies. Plus, adding a second tweeter will only give you about a 3dB boost (there are lot of "it depends" in there, so don't take that as gospel). An EQ can usually get you 10-12dB.

Having said that, there are add-on supertweeters that are designed to sit on top of a speaker, but you don't need a supertweeter, you need to supplement your speakers' existing range.

Unfortunately, you may find that your hearing loss is absolute above a certain frequency, and no amount of boost will bring it back. You might (I seem to be recommending this a lot lately) try downloading a frequency generating app for your phone, hook it to your amplifier, and see how high you can hear.
 
Depends on the tweeter. Some tweeters sound better with a front baffle. I repurpose smaller vintage speaker cabs for tweeters.

Biggles
 
Keneye said:
Would I be completely crazy to add a tweeter to my Infinity or Klipsch speakers on top of the cabinet? I am old and losing my hearing for high frequencies. Was thinking I could move or adjust them for maximum efficiency. Or do they need to be in the cabinet. Its a tube amp, so they need to be efficient. Or an equalizer?
Infinity SL 30
Klipsch R-51M
Click to expand...
Not if you feel a real need for a "supertweeter". Do a search and see what folks do (and why).

IMG_0341 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
beta test ;)

071 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
075 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

DSC_0144 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
 
And you should toss an inductor in your speaker systems tweeter circuit. It'll cut it off wherever your super tweeter comes in. Don't want too much overlap between the two tweeters. All is easy to do.

Biggles
 
Looking at Skar supertweeters. But 4ohm. Speakers are 8 ohm. Amp has 4 or 8 ohm. Will they play nice together?
 
Tweeters are freaking hard. You can look at the specs for tweeters and get close to your existing speaker system. Chances are the tweeter is going to be too bright. For an 8 ohm tweeter, you'd just buy an 8 ohm l pad. But you have a 4 ohm tweeter, there aren't 4 ohm loads available. So, you gotta build a 4 ohm attenuation circuit. But by how many decibels? I have an EQ I put in my system to adjust a set frequency by a certain decibel. That'll give you an eyeball to guess at how many decibels to attenuate. Then you start building and testing.

Biggles
 
My answer to the tweeter question is to slap RTR ESR-6 electrostatics onto anything big enough to support their weight. Frequently response is 1600 hz to a hell of a lot higher than I can hear. Reach about 92db 8n efficiency.D9339863-5D01-46D7-ADCA-D7A105A1680F.jpeg Built in crossovers or you can bypass and use electronics to them. Still really good tweeters even all these years later.

Don’t look nearly as ugly with the grills on.
 
Electrostatics can make nice add-ons.
Years (and years) ago, Radio Shack sold an add-on electrostatic supertweeter (maybe JanZen made, or designed, using single-ended panels), primarily for the early AR acoustic suspension speakers that didn't really have tweeters in the commonly understood sense of the word :) and could use some help above 10 or 12 kHz (or so). The low sensitivity of the AR speakers was a good match for typical electrostatic tweeters.

upload_2021-2-1_20-32-51.png

upload_2021-2-1_20-25-42.png
source: https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1961_radioshack_catalog.html
Coupla pairs of these in the basement, as it happens ;) -- but they're strictly as-found/as-is and would need power supply rehab before I'd consider them safe to use.

The much-later Radio Shack 40-1375 "leaf" (planar) tweeter; a variant/rip-off of a then-popular JVC design, makes a very nice supertweeter as well. Very sweet sounding, fairly high sensitivity, with very extended HF response.

40-1375.jpg
 
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If you "know" how much attenuation is needed, and/or if you have a big ol' bag of resistors and a bag of clipleads, it is straightforward to construct a fixed L-pad attenuator. Here, e.g., is a simple "app" that will calculate the required series and parallel resistances for a given load impedance and desired amount of attenuation (dB).

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-Lpad.htm

upload_2021-2-1_20-38-26.png

The R values aren't "really critical"! Well, they are, but it doesn't really matter, because the "Z" (true impedance) of almost any real-world supertweeter will not be exactly equal to its nominal impedance at all frequencies, and the attenuation probably doesn't have to be exactly - x dB, either!

As an aside, some planar drivers do behave electrically as purely resistive loads, and so in those cases the nominal impedance and the actual impedance (independent of frequency) may be identical. :)
 
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swechsler said:
I'd probably try an equalizer. Trying to get multiple tweeters to work together when they weren't designed that way is a recipe for impending madness, especially when you try to tune them for specific frequencies. Plus, adding a second tweeter will only give you about a 3dB boost (there are lot of "it depends" in there, so don't take that as gospel). An EQ can usually get you 10-12dB.

Having said that, there are add-on supertweeters that are designed to sit on top of a speaker, but you don't need a supertweeter, you need to supplement your speakers' existing range.

Unfortunately, you may find that your hearing loss is absolute above a certain frequency, and no amount of boost will bring it back. You might (I seem to be recommending this a lot lately) try downloading a frequency generating app for your phone, hook it to your amplifier, and see how high you can hear.
Click to expand...

I have been hearing good things regarding thishttps://www.schiit.com/products/loki

Good luck to the OP! "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
 
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