Treble, Treble, Treble... getting right is a challenge... Can Gear/ Systems Extend the Highs without Brightness? Why so Many Cut-off the Highs?
- Thread starter caesar
- Start date
I have foil tweeters in a radialshtrahler formation, and I can adjust them up and down as needed with the active crossover. It is a challenge. If you can 'hear' them vividly, they could be too high.
With ultrasonics, you can make the imaging phosphorescent and intriguing for a short time before it tizzes you out. Having enough is necessary for when those brief high frequency bursts/transients poke through the sonic cloud. Oddly enough, proper highs also contribute some mysterious psychoacoustic presence factor to the bass.
So, yeah, getting the perfect and natural blending of highs is not easy.
I find it difficult to imagine that any fixed crossover solution would get it right in most rooms right out of the box without some way to adjust it..
With ultrasonics, you can make the imaging phosphorescent and intriguing for a short time before it tizzes you out. Having enough is necessary for when those brief high frequency bursts/transients poke through the sonic cloud. Oddly enough, proper highs also contribute some mysterious psychoacoustic presence factor to the bass.
So, yeah, getting the perfect and natural blending of highs is not easy.
I find it difficult to imagine that any fixed crossover solution would get it right in most rooms right out of the box without some way to adjust it..
Some Lamm models sound darkish, and not as extended. I assume the designer, who is a genius, has done this on purpose, as many of his customers pair Lamm with Wilson, and those older wilson tweeters are HOT!
BAT is another one that comes to mind...
Some 300B amps... WE 300B tubes may just not be as extended as the European 300B models? ...
Some powercords and power conditioners are not as extended as others....
I better stop. People's feelings get hurt...
Caesar, when I saw this thread title, I just knew you posted it. And I was proved right LOL.
I've been to a lot of live classical and jazz recently, and i NEVER hear treble presented in the spotlit way that so many so-called high end spkrs manage.
I've been to a lot of live classical and jazz recently, and i NEVER hear treble presented in the spotlit way that so many so-called high end spkrs manage.
I am serious on my treble statement, Caesar. No concert I've ever been too resembles the tipped up/spotlit treble I hear in so many flagship spkrs. I do believe Zu designer Sean Casey very much feels the same way, hence evolving to the full range driver concept where treble isn't treated as a thing resembling a laser. Once I hear different drivers, that's it for me.
Most speakers are designed to have a flat FR (frequency response) in an anechoic environment. When you put that same speaker in a normal room that has reflections, the treble region can often seem too hot. Back in the old days, most speakers had controls on the back for the tweeter so one could dial down the highs for a more normal sounding presentation. Those controls, however, were quite unreliable and so almost all manufacturers stopped using them. In speakers I own, I often mod crossovers to reduce treble level. I change resistor values.
Some good posts. In addition, getting the treble right includes matching the way the mid and tweeter sound. IMO, this is one of the more recent achievements by some manufacturers. I've mentioned YG and Verity getting it right and I believe it's because they make their drivers in-house and have achieved a better match than manufacturers who do not build drivers. Getting this right is one of the primary advantages of single driver speakers.
When I was testing tweeters for my horn speaker, in the end the diaphragm material used for the tweeter's compression driver made the difference between the mids and highs sounding "as one" or not... metallic overtones in some CDs simply didn't work when paired with the mid's paper cone. I think these days we have far better tweeters than we used to though, there are some really nice units on the market of all types.
Also, treble perception varies from person to person, it's not unusual for folks to have sensitivities in some places combined with an overall declining response caused by old age and/or hearing damage. Some really need a warm system to not get listening fatigue, but for others it may put them to sleep! Treble quality can effect the nervous system response to music, I believe some distortions or artifacts cause an unconscious alert reaction which leads to irritation and listening fatigue.
When I was testing tweeters for my horn speaker, in the end the diaphragm material used for the tweeter's compression driver made the difference between the mids and highs sounding "as one" or not... metallic overtones in some CDs simply didn't work when paired with the mid's paper cone. I think these days we have far better tweeters than we used to though, there are some really nice units on the market of all types.
Also, treble perception varies from person to person, it's not unusual for folks to have sensitivities in some places combined with an overall declining response caused by old age and/or hearing damage. Some really need a warm system to not get listening fatigue, but for others it may put them to sleep! Treble quality can effect the nervous system response to music, I believe some distortions or artifacts cause an unconscious alert reaction which leads to irritation and listening fatigue.
Agreed. I recently managed to get closer to this ideal of live music by a simple measure : speaker toe-out by a few degrees. I have not yet discovered any adverse side effects, such as deteriorating soundstage.
A big help is also when the electronics control the treble better. My treble is considerably more well behaved since I have the new preamp in the chain -- with no loss of treble extension.
Another trick: cleaning and treating all my cable connections with DeOxit G5. Less HF distortion. Seriously.
Seamless treble and mid driver matching is one of the critical fundamentals of a good speaker for me.
The Harbeth tweeter mid pairing in their 40.2, 30.2 and P3s is for me seamless.
The 20.7 Magnepans like the smaller 3.7s have this perfectly integrated as well.
The BMS wide range compression driver in the pap horns also has this covered just as well as the other two. There is different treble extension in each speaker but the integration down through to the mids itself is just more important for me.
But still you also then can’t really talk treble without considering the relationship also to bass... the extension down low to the extension up high needs to be appropriately centred within the mids. Shelved up balance is just not good from my perspective... getting the weight of the balance nicely anchored from below with a treble that is still nicely attached up top is a big part of ultimate rightness in speaker design.
The Harbeth tweeter mid pairing in their 40.2, 30.2 and P3s is for me seamless.
The 20.7 Magnepans like the smaller 3.7s have this perfectly integrated as well.
The BMS wide range compression driver in the pap horns also has this covered just as well as the other two. There is different treble extension in each speaker but the integration down through to the mids itself is just more important for me.
But still you also then can’t really talk treble without considering the relationship also to bass... the extension down low to the extension up high needs to be appropriately centred within the mids. Shelved up balance is just not good from my perspective... getting the weight of the balance nicely anchored from below with a treble that is still nicely attached up top is a big part of ultimate rightness in speaker design.
G5 works but can be messy as it leaves residue everywhere... So I use a heavy duty electronic cleaner that leaves no residue followed by G100 applied with a little brush, then try to remove all the G100 with a q-tip or rag. You don't want too much on there, and should clean every 6 months or so anyways. Also be sure to hit the inside of the ground shell or ground prong if it WBT, dirt can accumulate there and cause issues. It's not normal but some systems seem to accumulate a lot of gunk on the RCA grounds, maybe due to excessive ground current, I'm not 100% sure.
While I agree completely on the importance of seamless coherency, I don’t agree that “these days we have far better tweeters than we used to.” With my horn midrange (YL Acoustic) I use an Electro-Voice T350 which dates back some 50 years. With the right crossovers and cabling, this combination is detailed, dynamic, fast and extended, and most importantly they blend seamlessly.
Extended highs != bright. And I agree with you on the gear you referred to as dark as my experience with it has been the same. So I think a big portion of the audiophile world does feature detuned treble such that when a lot of people hear properly extended treble, they immediately and erroneously describe it as "bright". If you could have only seen the looks and expressions in the Voxativ room this past weekend at the Cali Audio Show. Pure terror. Haha.
Bright is usually a culprit further down in frequency range, mid-treble and not the highest treble, which is more responsible for the feeling of "air". The Voxativ drivers probably has an elevated 1-6Khz range, especially on-axis, that would contribute to that "bright" sensation...it probably is not all that extended , especially off-axis...
Not necessarily. "Bright" is usually a rising response from midrange to treble or bass all the way to treble. It can also be a timbre thing. "Extended" can therefore simply refer to a flat response or even a response that rolls off "too gently". The audiophile manufacturer generally wants to be overly sure the word "harsh" is never used to describe their product when volume is cranked up (which they were reticent to do in the Acapella room by the way). In measurements I've seen, the Vox drivers are actually incredibly flat between 400 Hz and 9kHz, and Holger does not even use much toe in - maybe 10 degrees - so we'd expect some rolloff. It's just not enough to please the psychoacoustic mechanisms of most audiophiles, so therefore it's "bright". 
Last edited:
Not necessarily. "Bright" is usually a rising response from midrange to treble or bass all the way to treble. It can also be a timbre thing. "Extended" can therefore simply refer to a flat response or even a response that rolls off "too gently". The audiophile manufacturer generally wants to be overly sure the word "harsh" is never used to describe their product when volume is cranked up (which they were reticent to do in the Acapella room by the way). In measurements I've seen, the Vox drivers are actually incredibly flat between 400 Hz and 9kHz, and Holger does not even use much toe in - maybe 10 degrees - so we'd expect some rolloff. It's just not enough to please the psychoacoustic mechanisms of most audiophiles, so therefore it's "bright".
View attachment 55553
Yes, because the Voxativ drivers, like most single drivers with whizzers, have a large bump from 1Khz and up on axis. Look at the Stereophile review of the Ampeggio from Voxativ...the measurements show a 5db "bump" from about 2Khz to 10Khz and then drop rapidly above 10Khz. That will be very audible. I have Decware HDTs that use a modified Fostex that are a bit better than that but still too hot on axis (also the quality of the treble has led me to make an active 2-way out of the speaker...see my thread https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/first-trials-of-active-horn-speaker.28267/). The in-room response of the Ampeggio at ADs room was ruler flat until just over 10Khz, which is actually going to sound hot in a real room (power response should be dropping somewhat at higher frequencies for a "balanced" perception).
So the Voxativs will sound perceptually bright. The Thiel CS3.7 is also very flat measuring this way and in a normal size room it has a tendency to sound bright as well. I think in a really large room this might tilt down a bit in a more pleasing way but in smaller rooms its too much of a good thing...
The bigger problem I hear with single driver highs is that they don't sound particularly clean. Differentiation is not superb for tonality like I hear with a good ribbon or compression driver or electrostatic panel. This is what I love about the Beyma CP350Ti tweeters I have in my Odeons, this driver has very low distortion (Beyma publishes this data) and cymbal differentiation or tonality of different horns, strings etc. is truly excellent and has the ring of "real" to it. I have not heard this from any of the single driver speakers I have heard so far, whether it be my budget priced HDTs (which fare pretty well in comparison I have to say) or the new darling Cube audios or even the ultra expensive versions from Voxativ, AER or Lowther (although I am very curious about the Lowther as a midrange). This new Beyma driver I am using in a bigger horn might not be quite as perfect as the smaller one in my Odeons but because it goes clean down to 700Hz, it makes a great upper midrange as well!
I ended up with Fostex T500 which has a Mg diaphragm, it fills in over 12 kHz.
Other Fostex tweeters with Al diaphragms were not coherent at all, they have a metallic sound that just didn't work. Ribbons were better but not as good as the T500.
Similar threads
- Sticky
