Tony L
Administrator
Audioworks also demonstrated the effect of adding supertweeters which kick in at 15kHz, well above what I hear in an ear test.
Worth listening to the supertweeters alone without the speakers. Chances are you will hear them easily. I borrowed a very expensive pair of Tannoy supertweeters ages ago and they were easily audible even on their highest crossover frequency as the HPF crossover slope is so gradual. They have to be as the only people who could afford them are unlikely to be able to hear anything over about 10-12kHz!
I’m really not a fan; the effects are very audible, but can be fully explained by altered treble dispersion, adding time/phase error, comb-effects etc, or simply turning up the treble! This especially the case with Tannoys where the physical distance between the main DC driver centre and the supertweeter is anything up to a foot! Just moving your head up and down a cm or two totally alters the phase alignment. I really hated them, they ruined everything that is so right about a good point-source driver, though they do improve off-axis listening if that’s important to you. Definitely an effect IMHO.
PS I later played around at length with a pair of Decca Kelly ribbons and crossovers of my own and whilst I got results I felt were far better (a lot more subtle) than Tannoys’ own supertweeters the basic time/phase issues remained. Physics is gonna physics. It is what it is. The only place they can work IMO is in a design like a BC1 where the two tweeters are really close to one another and the crossover is specifically designed for that alignment. That said if folk like an effect then buy an effect.