C-CAM Ribbon vs. RAAL Ribbon

[Hetfield]

The case for using off the shelve drivers like plannars, ribbons, is a cost effective measure. When manufacturers say that the building their drivers, many times they ask the OEM to tweak an existing driver so they can claim they can claim it's their design. Even most of the exotic manufacturers like Wilson use off the shelve drivers.

This is something I learned not too long ago. The business of speaker building is after pretty fascinating. At the end of the day buy what you like, what sound good to you. Don't worry about exotic brands and what drivers and everything else. What sounds best to you in your budget. That's really it. Everyone else's opinion has been effect on your enjoyment. I sometimes get caught in that BS and I have to snap out of it by listening my system which sound fantastic to me.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[Roen]

This is something I learned not too long ago. The business of speaker building is after pretty fascinating. At the end of the day buy what you like, what sound good to you. Don't worry about exotic brands and what drivers and everything else. What sounds best to you in your budget. That's really it. Everyone else's opinion has been effect on your enjoyment. I sometimes get caught in that BS and I have to snap out of it by listening my system which sound fantastic to me.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

True.

My very basic system does sound great, but I was just curious.

However, I was told that the MA Gold series suffer from bad distortion. True?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Swerd]

If they're outsourcing the ribbon, who made the decision on the alloy tweeter instead of single metal?

C-CAM is Monitor Audio's trade marked material for their metal driver cone. It is used on all their drivers, from large woofers to tweeters. C-CAM, ceramic-coated aluminum/magnesium alloy, where the ceramic coating is the oxidized layer on the surface. They probably have a controlled way of oxidizing the alloy during manufacturing, rather than let it naturally develop by simple exposure to air. It may be similar to Infinity's alumina coated cones, and SEAS magnesium/aluminum alloy cones.

In woofers and mid range drivers, these types of ceramic-coated alloys significantly raise the frequency at which break-up begins, compared to non-coated aluminum. They extend the range over which these drivers behave as pistons – a good thing to have. However, I don't see any benefit to coated aluminum tweeters, domes or ribbons, as their break-up noise is usually already at higher frequencies than can be heard. This is especially true for ribbon tweeters.

The visual appearance of C-CAM drivers is apparently as important to MA's sales & marketing as the yellow Kevlar driver cone was to B&W (until recently). I think this may be the reason why MA has ribbon tweeters made with C-CAM alloy instead of aluminum. If there is a performance benefit, no one seems to have any info about it.

 

[Hetfield]

True.

My very basic system does sound great, but I was just curious.

However, I was told that the MA Gold series suffer from bad distortion. True?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

I understand completely. I am so curious about different speaker brands and what they do and how they do things. I wish I were a reviewer and got to hear all these different brands. That would be a dream but I'm afraid I'd be a terrible reviewer because I'd probably liking everything. I'm sure all these brand have good qualities. I'm fascinated by different designs, different drivers in different configurations. This one shapes it speakers different for this reason, and this one does something different with it's drivers for this reason. It's really interesting.
Just the other day I was ready to scrap my HT that I just spent all this money on for another brand just because I want to hear them. I mean that's the definition of insanity. I snapped out it but it happens to us all.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[Swerd]

However, I was told that the MA Gold series suffer from bad distortion. True?

I couldn't say without listening to them, or seeing good measurements of them made by a reliable 3rd party.

A lot of misinformation about ribbon tweeters gets repeated on the internet. "They distort worse than dome tweeters", and "they have narrower dispersion than dome tweeters" are the most commonly repeated ones I've read.

I've already talked about tweeter distortion at low frequencies, and the importance of crossovers. A ribbon tweeter may distort badly at 1 kHz, but that means nothing if it is crossed over at 2.8 kHz with steep crossover slopes. This is hardly a secret among speaker designers. Your Ascends, those from Philharmonic Audio, Salk, and other makers are good examples. I haven't heard the MA speakers and I don't know if their marketing people have forced their audio designers to ignore widely known principles of good speaker design. This has been known to happen in other large well-known speaker makers.

The dispersion argument is also meaningless. Modern ribbon tweeters have horizontal dispersion as wide as 1" dome tweeters. Their vertical dispersion may be narrower, but that doesn't matter as much.

Be careful what you read. A kernel of truth may start out honestly, but quickly can lead to false generalizations.

 

[Verdinut]

I have been using Airborne Air Motion Ribbon tweeters in several of my designs. They don't distort and the model which I've always been using is the RT-4001. It sells at a very affordable price. It has a very smooth frequency response, a wide dispersion providing a full center sound image. It also can operate down to 2000 Hz with a third order filter. In addition, it has a flat impedance curve.

This is what I am using in my three front channels and I am very satisfied. The sound image with those tweeters is impressive indeed.

Both Meniscus and Solen carry that product line.

It's worth trying it. Some serious audiophiles and one who worked in the retail audio sales have been really amazed with the performance of that transducer.

 

[Roen]

I understand completely. I am so curious about different speaker brands and what they do and how they do things. I wish I were a reviewer and got to hear all these different brands. That would be a dream but I'm afraid I'd be a terrible reviewer because I'd probably liking everything. I'm sure all these brand have good qualities. I'm fascinated by different designs, different drivers in different configurations. This one shapes it speakers different for this reason, and this one does something different with it's drivers for this reason. It's really interesting.
Just the other day I was ready to scrap my HT that I just spent all this money on for another brand just because I want to hear them. I mean that's the definition of insanity. I snapped out it but it happens to us all.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Wow.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[everettT]

My reps response was as expected, none answer but there is an oem involved...

 

[everettT]

This is something I learned not too long ago. The business of speaker building is after pretty fascinating. At the end of the day buy what you like, what sound good to you. Don't worry about exotic brands and what drivers and everything else. What sounds best to you in your budget. That's really it. Everyone else's opinion has been effect on your enjoyment. I sometimes get caught in that BS and I have to snap out of it by listening my system which sound fantastic to me.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

That's why it's so hard to find good value. I now one higher end speaker manufacturer that used all off the shelve drivers with no change and had a crossover guru align the drivers. Those cost 30k a pair for less than 2k in drivers per speaker. The designer of the crossover is phenomenal, so add some sb acoustics drivers a good designer and an overly built cabinet and a manufacturer slaps a huge price tag on it. Reality is the crossover designer gets the most out of the design...

 

[Hetfield]

That's why it's so hard to find good value. I now one higher end speaker manufacturer that used all off the shelve drivers with no change and had a crossover guru align the drivers. Those cost 30k a pair for less than 2k in drivers per speaker. The designer of the crossover is phenomenal, so add some sb acoustics drivers a good designer and an overly built cabinet and a manufacturer slaps a huge price tag on it. Reality is the crossover designer gets the most out of the design...

Yeah that's exactly right. You don't have to spend a million bucks for good sound. I'm not saying any speaker will do and sound as good as a very, very expensive speaker but good speakers come in all price ranges. My speakers sound so good and people rip the manufacturer daily. What can I do, I love them. I guess in the end there see no right or wrong answers, it's what you like, what sounds good to you within your budget.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[Verdinut]

I recently built a pair of three-way cabinets, using the Air Motion Ribbon tweeter mentioned in post #26, a pair of SB Acoustics 5¼" mid-woofers and a 12" subwoofer.

I also designed the passive crossover, using a second order filters between the sub and the mids, and for the mid-high frequencies, a second order filter on the mid-woofers and a third order one on the tweeter. The crossover in a speaker design is as important as the drivers. You can have the best available drivers, but combine them with a poorly designed crossover, you will never get a good performance.

This speaker pair was presented to the Montreal Audiophiles Association, and I received excellent comments after the presentation and a warm applause. One of the members, who had of course heard many loudspeakers over the years, told me that my speakers were with from another pair of speakers, the best speakers that he had ever listened to.