do you prefer silk or Alum?

[04blackgmc 10+ year member]

for your tweets? i want good highs, strong.. So alum would be that right?

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[Max_Power 10+ year member]

I like silk, and cloth tweeters because of their softness and clarity. metal tweeters tend to sound sharp and edgy to me. this is kind of a preference thing here.

I do suppose though, if you are going for strong highs, metal might be better.

 

[04blackgmc 10+ year member]

Yea i also play with the windows down the most so i need something that can make up for that.

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

Whatever gets the job done in the install you need. Its not about dome properties as much as its about the strengths /limitations of particular drivers.

You can get great off axis or more on axis focused tweets of either material, you can get smooth rolloff or extended response of either.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Metal domes have a tendency to sound harsh when driven hard. It's a "feature" of the breakup properties of the metal. Silk dome can get more than loud enough. At moderate volumes you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two materials.

 

[casper97ta 10+ year member]

I really like metal domes. I dont think they sound too harsh just really loud and sharp. which is probably why i dont think MB tweets are too harsh. but really its just personal choice. you should go to a shop and listen to some models with each and see which sound you like the most.

 

[SQChevy 10+ year member]

Beryllium

 

[phyphoestilic 5,000+ posts]

I went from Alum. to silk drivers, never look back again. I always perfered the soft roll off on the higher frequencies, the Alum. drivers i used sounded really harsh to my ears and i couldn't take them. Of course it could be the drivers themselves since they were completely different drivers. But I've used 2 sets of silk tweeters and loved them both over the alum.

 

[envengineer 10+ year member]

Whatever gets the job done in the install you need. Its not about dome properties as much as its about the strengths /limitations of particular drivers.
You can get great off axis or more on axis focused tweets of either material, you can get smooth rolloff or extended response of either.

x100

The metal vs. textile tweeter debate has largely evaporated. There are so many different tweeters available that you can't make these types of assumptions based on dome material alone.

I have heard plenty of metal domes that are not harsh, shrill, etc. and I've heard soft domes that I have found offensive to listen to, in direct contradiction to the conventional assumptions.

You really need to consider on-axis vs. off-axis performance. A lot of tweeters will sound harsh if you point them right at your head, and they'll soften up if you turn them away. Take a look at dome size in relation to off-axis performance.

Depending upon where you are putting them in your vehicle, wide dispersion or narrow dispersion could be very desireable qualities.

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

Well, soft domes seem to be popular, most people say metal tweeters are too harsh.

I wonder if it's an install issue... I see people putting tweeters in all kinds of crazy places, far from the mids, and causing situations where the tweeters of both channels have a severe difference in distance to a given listener... in cases of less than optimal speaker placement, I wonder if soft domes are more forgiving of speaker placement/install.

I like metal tweeters... to me, something is missing with soft domes. But all my front speakers are always in the kick panels, and I use surround sound speakers in the rear, which tend to soften certain types of distortion. If I use soft domes, my systems sound too laid back.

I'll also let you in on a little secret... metal domes seem to match the sound of high end headphones better... and headphones are what most recording engineers/producers are using to finalize the recordings we hear. I've had better results in good sound by trying to duplicate a recording and recording techniques than in trying to recreate live music.

 

[envengineer 10+ year member]

I'll also let you in on a little secret... metal domes seem to match the sound of high end headphones better... and headphones are what most recording engineers/producers are using to finalize the recordings we hear. I've had better results in good sound by trying to duplicate a recording and recording techniques than in trying to recreate live music.

That is quite the blanket statment. You are assuming all metal domes have some characteristic "metal" sound. This is simply not true across the board.

You are further assuming that high end headphones all sound similar. They do not. Listen to my ER4s, my Grados, and my Senns and then tell me they sound the same (they don't).

Most engineers/producers worth a **** do not use headphones alone to evaluate a final mix. Headphones have poor reproduction of staging cues unless the music was recorded specifically for reproduction on headphones (binaural, holophonic, whatever term you would like to use), and the low freqency reproduction of headphones does not touch that of decent home stereo.

Studio monitors were designed specifically for the tasks you are alluding to.

Hell, a few years ago, Abbey Road studio had 5 B&W Nautilus 801s as their studio monitors. While they may not be the best speakers ever built, they sound ****ed good (yes I have personally heard them albeit in only a 2 channel setup), but they are a very far cry from any headphones.

With regard to your comment about install locations, this is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned dispersion characteristics. Go grab a Hiquophon OWII and stick it in your kicks, I bet it would sound ****ing great if they weren't pointed right at you. This is largely due to their tremendous off-axis performance.

The same tweeters might sound horrible in a-pillars because the wide dispersion would create a ton of unwanted and potentially annoying reflection off the glass and dash. Meanwhile, a big aluminum tweeter with narrow dispersion could sound great in the pillars and horrible in the kicks.

While material is obviously something to consider when looking at a tweeter, it is important to remember that there is so much more to a tweeter than the dome material alone.

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

That is quite the blanket statment. You are assuming all metal domes have some characteristic "metal" sound. This is simply not true across the board. .

- This is why I don't usually make radical statements like this here, I don't always have time to discuss it. On the other hand, sometimes I slip because I think people want to hear other's opinions. Many facts are just opinions that we accept as fact.

I say they have more potential (everything else being equal, which it never is, LOL!) in a great install... I would not say across the board that metal will always sound better... as you probably know, there is a great variance in tweeter quality. Especially in high power applications, a better soft dome will walk all over a poorer metal tweeter.

You are further assuming that high end headphones all sound similar. They do not. Listen to my ER4s, my Grados, and my Senns and then tell me they sound the same (they don't). .

- I agree, but I'm willing to bet that more high end head phones sound better than a greater number of speakers in many areas... no crossover distortion, lower distortion, perfect stereo separation... there are some things they can do better and for a much lower cost than monitors.

Headphones have poor reproduction of staging cues unless the music was recorded specifically for reproduction on headphones (binaural, holophonic, whatever term you would like to use), and the low frequency reproduction of headphones does not touch that of decent home stereo. .

- I agree totally... the main problems with headphones is no front sound-stage and unrealistic imaging (it sounds like everything is happening inside your head rather than watching a live, natural performance in front of you in the real world.), and lack of low frequency extension. What I try to approach in the car systems I design is sound like headphones but with the addition of a front sound stage and extension. I think in some ways it can sound better than live. But I would not call it natural. .

One other point... I would say that installation quality, tunning, system design, and speaker placement are more important than the speakers themselves.

 

[envengineer 10+ year member]

One other point... I would say that installation quality, tunning, system design, and speaker placement are more important than the speakers themselves.

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

 

[Hebrew Hammer 10+ year member]

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

agreed...but when you have this down then having good drivers do make a huge difference...you do get what you pay for in most cases.....

I tend to stick with silk....hell I tend to stick with scan to be honest //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/yumyum.gif.0556df42231b304b9c995aefd13928a8.gif

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

agreed...but when you have this down then having good drivers do make a huge difference...you do get what you pay for in most cases.....
I tend to stick with silk....hell I tend to stick with scan to be honest //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/yumyum.gif.0556df42231b304b9c995aefd13928a8.gif

agree with tuning, speaker install and location are important but speakers do tend to have certain characteristics that certain people like when installed correctly so i agree also with hebrew that speaker selection is another important aspect.

i'm using the cal26 titan and i am very happy. actually my two favorite tweets i've used personally are alums.