I'm going to start a new thread with my supertweeter project as the old thread was more focused on RAAL in particular. Hoping for general discussion with ideas, experience, and mutual support. I'm going a DIY route and will need some expertise. I may need to post over at the DIY forum though, we'll see.
I have Super 7 XRS with RS7A driver. I love it, but looking to add a bit of sparkle and air. I'm thinking of a Supertweeter like a subwoofer. The most important aspect of the single driver is the lack of a xover in the most important range. In my case, that would be ~90Hz - 15kHz. This preserves most, if not almost all, of the imaging and coherence that the Omegas are known for. In reality, the sub rolls off starting at about 90 and the supertweeter rolls off starting at about 17kHz, so there is some overlap. But it can be best of both worlds, extension on both ends, almost like a three way, but without a xover anywhere in the mid-bass, mid-range, or lower treble range.
The subs have their own amps. I have a 50wpc chip amp for the ST's thanks to one of our community here. I am finding, however, that the ST's I have sound better when wired parallel with the Omegas rather than bi-amped. This may be due to the much greater gain of the chip amp when compared to my tube amp. I will be experimenting further with this.
I picked up a pair of used ST's made with Vifa dual concentric ring tweeters. They have selectable high pass filter for 15, 17.5 or 20kHz and level selector of 0, -3 or -6db.
I have them set for 17.5kHz hi pass and -6db.
Bottom line is that they do what I had hoped, though I would like more control and refinement. So, I will post my planned project in a reply to this message later today.
There is that bit of sparkle with symbols, etc. And the quality I call "texture," evident in strings, breath, etc., is enhanced. I anything, I would say imaging is improved. Definitely not degraded. I found this with subs as well, even though they (two) run in mono. Don't ask me to explain how that works!
More to come..........
preview: I have on the way a pair of vintage Yamaha beryllium dome tweeters and a pair of vintage Pioneer (TAD) ribbon tweeters that will be my DIY starting points for a higher quality ST (hopefully!
). The plan is to make separate boxes for the tweeters and for the hi pass filter/L-pad level control. If things go well, it would be less risk to go for some current high end tweeters. I will just need to swap out the tweeter in that box and possibly change a cap and/or inductor in the filter. So..... my questions will come later today.
I love this hobby!
.........Peter