In Reply to: anyone compared SUPER TWEETERS? all about same or some better? posted by soundquest on March 7, 2007 at 10:21:33:
Since we don't hear the frequencies these devices produce as sound, there is a question of whether they do anything that could affect what we do hear.My thought is that they provide a dissipative path for ultrasonic energy from the power amp. Most power amps have bandwidths far in excess of our hearing range, and can suffer from stability problems if the speakers have too much inherent inductance to load them at the higher frequencies. A super-tweeter will provide a respectable load to the amp and may help it avoid stability and intermodulation problems.
You can provide a wide-band load much more cheaply by adding R-C filters at your speakers. R is about 10 ohms, or the characteristic impedance of your speaker cable if you know what it is, and C is 0.01 microfarads. This is the recipe for the Walker High Definition Links. Wire the resistor and capacitor in series, and connect the free end of the capacitor to the (+) terminal and the free end of the resistor to the (-) terminal.
The best-sounding resistors I've found are the PRP types sold by Michael Percy. The best sounding caps in my experience are silver-mica.
You can extend the effective bandwidth of the load into the UHF range by using a series of caps, each about a factor of ten smaller than the last. A separate resistor for each is best, but you can also parallel the caps by themselves. Solder the R-C filters to the ends of the speaker cables for best performance, or use solid-silver spades if you don't want to modify your cables. Install filters at the amp ends as well for even better performance.
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Follow Ups
- Speculation about cause... - Al Sekela 11:43:58 03/07/07 (15)
- Re: Speculation about cause... - Tuckers 12:30:28 03/10/07 (0)
- Re: Speculation about cause... - Kal Rubinson 12:25:19 03/07/07 (11)
- most tweeters are far from ultra sonic - Kloss 06:02:55 03/08/07 (0)
- That speculation is supported by my experiences.. - PAR 02:41:15 03/08/07 (1)
- Re: That speculation is supported by my experiences.. - Kal Rubinson 09:02:36 03/08/07 (0)
- Re: Speculation about cause... - Ross 18:53:53 03/07/07 (2)
- Ross is right, I have read similar comments and results on - Antonio Machado 05:23:09 03/08/07 (0)
- OK, now,........................ - Kal Rubinson 19:35:17 03/07/07 (0)
- Two questions to you Mr. Kal Rubinson... - Antonio Machado 12:40:53 03/07/07 (4)
- Re: Two questions to you Mr. Kal Rubinson... - Tuckers 12:44:58 03/10/07 (0)
- Re: Two questions to you Mr. Kal Rubinson... - Kal Rubinson 13:24:39 03/07/07 (2)
- Thank you for your answer, here mine... - Antonio Machado 13:31:54 03/07/07 (1)
- Can you just try it? - Kal Rubinson 16:04:28 03/07/07 (0)
- Very interesting Al Sekela, and I have two questions to you... - Antonio Machado 12:14:06 03/07/07 (1)
- Walker Audio is the only one I know of. - Al Sekela 09:10:38 03/08/07 (0)