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In Reply to: RE: Which component has benefited most/least from modern tech? posted by Todd Krieger on April 25, 2016 at 15:50:50
Speakers are 'nother matter but inarguably there has been Damned little improvement over Drivers the like of 604's et al.
Dr Toole's analysis procedures has allowed speakers to be adequately tested and improved.. hardly universally though.
Amps ? Dunno, except Pass designs are ever improving with a comensurate parts count reduction.
Tubes ? ARE Over.. everywhere except in the minds OF the Flat Earth types.
Digital? Plusses And Minuses abound....Mebe in a few more years.
Edits: 04/25/16Follow Ups:
For example, in the last decade, ceramics have gotten better and become more mainstream. Also, ribbon tweeters have come a long way. The Raidho and RAAL ribbons I've heard are magnificent.
Metal domes have gotten better too, you don't often hear the brightness/resonance problems anymore that used to be common with metal domes. The latest Magico Be tweeter that is trickling down their product line right now is amazing.
And soft domes are better than ever, with wider bandwidth and new coatings to reduce breakup. Ring radiators were the hot ticket 5-10 years ago but it seems like the improvements in dome tweeters have tilted the balance back in their favor.
In general, midrange and mid-bass drivers seem to keep getting cleaner and faster.
Mostly this comes from taking advantage of improvements in materials science, improvements in computer-aided design and manufacturing, and new production processes.
These improvements are pushing the state of the art in the high end, but I think the bigger impact is in lower end of the market. A decade ago you just couldn't buy something with the price/performance of the new Elacs or KEF LS50.
Ever voiced one of those ceramic drivers , they sound pretty unnatural to me , granted its been more than a decade since i had last done so ...
So far I've heard ceramic drivers in Avalon, Kharma, Marten, and Raidho. The Avalon was a store demo a long time ago and it wasn't really to my taste, but it was being driven by Spectral which I know isn't to my taste. Kharma was nice. Marten was a bit meh. Raidho was nice.
I think the Raidho drivers are really quite impressive. That ribbon tweeter is amazing and the diamond coated ceramic drivers are awesome in the midrange. Unfortunately, I don't like the way they voice their speakers with a phat mid-bass.
Yeah, some seem to be getting good sound out of the ceramic (pure pistonic) drivers. If you run them with steep slopes (24db) and keep them in their sweet spot you can get away with it somewhat, i could not get over their coloration at the time and thought the effort would amount to naught.
I actually agree about the drivers..... The cabinet designs, crossover designs, and driver integration are vastly improved.
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