Tweeters for long periods listening

I have found out that JBL's titanium composite tweeters are best for long term listening. Also at JBLPro monitor's information page it is said that these are used in pro monitors because they don't cause ear fatigue. Also in my home speakers, MRV308s, there are composite titanium tweeters.

When I listened to different speakers years ago, I found the tweeters nice compared to others. Also recently when I aimed to go to a hi-fi shop and listen to JBL Studio L890s, but these were not available, the salesman asked me to listen to B&W 804s which sounded very harsh compared with my nice sounding home loudspekers MRV308.

So, my question is: Are many loudspeakers made for only short listening periods, for e.g. to concince buyers in a shop, but not for all time listening (6-24 hours a day)? Studio monitora are made for 7,5-8 hours/day listening, so should I the buy these rather than home hi-fi speakers optimized for 30 min. sales playing?

And, are L890's all titanium & Mylar tweeters equally nice?

Have you got experience on these?

So, my question is: Are many loudspeakers made for only short listening periods, for e.g. to concince buyers in a shop, but not for all time listening (6-24 hours a day)?

It used to the the case but even budget stuff has improved as the market is more educated and manufacturers have got better at making cheaper loudspeakers.


Studio monitors are made for 7,5-8 hours/day listening, so should I the buy these rather than home hi-fi speakers optimized for 30 min. sales playing?

I think you are referring to reliability, engineers get tired after a while, particulary when its loud.

Are you talking vintage or modern monitors? The quality is chalk and cheese. My suggestion is buy a modern HiFi speaker and stop worrying.


Its all relative.

If you are used to mid fi it may not affend. Case in point applies to the older 4343 (stock) and some of the early Ti stuff which frankly is as hard as nails on mass market consumer amps. Horrible to br exact. I could not listen to any of this stuff on anything less than class A power and in most cases a splash acquaplas is a given once you hear that difference it makes.

It's not always just the materials used. I have used the pure Ti and composite tweeters. I think it's a combination of materials and driver balance with the emphasis on driver balance. At least for me. I can tolerate the undamped Ti if the driver balance is good. A perfect example is the L80t vs. L80t3 which use the all Ti 035 tweeter. The drivers are identical however the L80t has the a rising response and the L80t3 has a falling response of the tweeter level vs the midrange. The L80t3 are much better for long term listening and are voiced better over all. The point is you have speakers with identical components where the driver levels determine how hard/harsh the speakers sound. I have 4344's and have been able to listen to them all day with no fatigue. This is before I dropped in aquaplas diaphrams which made them even better. Same with the XPL-200's which are all Ti diaphrams. Both speakers have really excellent driver balance and voicing so that makes them much more enjoyable for long term listening. The XPL-200 comes that way out of the box, the 4344 however does not and takes some work to set-up properly. I can easily make the 4344 sound like crap to me by not adjusting the driver levels "correctly". But as Ian says it's all relative. Someone else could love those settings. Damped metal diaphrams does make lot's of sense and does sound better however I wouldn't use that as decision maker unless it is clearly audible to you and you can't tolerate the undamped diaphrams. You need to get out and audition. There are plenty of so called "monitors" that you may not be able to stand 5 minutes with.

Rob:)

An often-overlooked cause of listener fatigue is simply speaker placement and room acoustics. Secondary reflections of highs that arrive at your ears just slightly after the direct sound are often the culprit, as your brain tires of trying to sort it all out. The lower the frequency, the less noticeable the effect becomes.

To determine if this is the cause of your grief, try to visualize and eliminate the primary possible paths of reflected highs from the tweeters to your listening spot. It might be as simple as angling the speakers slightly away from a nearby sidewall, or it might take a little room treatment. Fortuneately, damping HF reflections falls on the least-expensive end of the room treatment spectrum.

You won't have to listen for hours after each attempt at improvement to see if you solved the problem, results will be apparrent almost immediately, in the form of dramatically improved focus and imaging. If it sounds better, you can listen longer.

As the moniker Titanium Dome implies, there's nothing I'd rather listen to than Ti drivers, but of course those Ti drivers must be well made, well deployed, well networked, and well integrated. My tagline used to be "Inverted Dome Metalhead" before Ian inspired me to change it to "Your EOS Waveguide."

Speaking of the EOS Waveguide, that's your first indication in a consumer speaker or pro studio monitor that there will be well-controlled, uniformly dispersed, even-tempered high frequency sound. It almost eliminates any baffle-related problems and minimizes unfortunate early reflections. Usually the Ti (or other) dome will be "capped" to assist in controlling directional beaming directly in front of the driver. The EOS Waveguide coupled with a Ti driver is a match made in heaven, as far as I'm concerned, and though JBL had bigger, better, more expensive Ti tweeters in the past, I think the EOS Waveguide is such a significant JBL achievement that even the relatively inexpensive (but well made) Ti tweeters in use today sound overall better than most of the vaunted Ti tweeters of the past.

Other manufacturers are free to use a generic waveguide, as the concept has been around for a while, but the EOS Waveguide design is a JBL innovation that makes regular waveguides weak in their execution by comparison. I guess I'd concede that any waveguide is better than none where a tweeter is concerned, but an EOS Waveguide is far and away better than a typical waveguide.

(I have to go to a meeting. More later. :yes: )

In addition to the EOS Waveguide, I want to comment on the integration of Ti drivers.

Whether its Ti domes like in the XPL Series (095Ti mid and 046Ti tweeter) or mixed domes and inverted domes in the Performance Series (908Ti woofer, 904Ti midrange, TM025 tweeter), a well executed network will highlight the virtually seamless transition of sound from one Ti driver to another. The transients, attacks, delays, timbre, and harmonics are virtually identical and impeccably precise.

No doubt there are better individual drivers than any of these, but there are not many sets—well, in fact, none that I've heard—that work better acting in concert with each other. The first time I heard the 095Ti/046Ti combo, I was spellbound by the beauty. The quality of the experience was unreal, almost ethereal, and it still gets me every time I listen to my XPL160s or XPL200s.

That wonderful combo only covers 1.1kHz to about 25kHz. Sadly, the other drivers in the XPLs don't have the same character, so there is some letdown as a result.

The Performance Series, with its trio of Ti, extends and refines that XPL experience for me, taking it from 80Hz to 22kHz or so. That's phenomenal when you think about it.

The Studio L Series has but one Ti driver, the tweeter. Still, it's an EOS Waveguide AND a tweeter, so it's a good high range component. From my own listening, the mini-horn super tweeter and the Ti tweeter get along just fine, and the other PolyPlas drivers are quite competent.

I know from personal experience that they are very listenable, and there is plenty of nonfatiguing high end. Add to that MJC's comments, and they seem well worth getting.

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

(I have to go to a meeting. More later. :yes: )

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

In addition to the EOS Waveguide, I want to comment on...

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Damn... you weren't kidding! :rotfl:



Widget

Yeah, I know. Frikkin' job... :mad:

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

Yeah, I know. Frikkin' job... :mad:

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Yeah, but you don't have to make it that way... this is supposed to be fun... it's really only a hobby.

In any event, I think you have probably gone over EVERY subjective aspect possible on those tweeters now so you can enjoy your Labor Day weekend. :bouncy:


Widget

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr. Widget

Yeah, but you don't have to make it that way... this is supposed to be fun... it's really only a hobby.

In any event, I think you have probably gone over EVERY subjective aspect possible on those tweeters now so you can enjoy your Labor Day weekend. :bouncy:


Widget

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I guess you misunderstood my post. I was referring to the fact that my real job interfered with my fun—the fun being to go "over EVERY subjective aspect possible on those tweeters"— thus the three hour delay in finishing the post while I was in a meeting. Truthfully, there's a lot more that could be said... ;)

I like very much the naturalness and openess of the upper end of my S38s. Even more so I like the sound of my 4412A monitors.
The monitors are even more natural now that I have upgraded my receiver to a Pioneer Elite with MCAAC. This corrects frequency response and reflected sound waves (my non technical interpretation). So evidently the acoustics of my room were preventing me from hearing the clarity the speakers were capable of. Evidently the room and the speaker are both important.

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Originally Posted by Titanium Dome

In addition to the EOS Waveguide, I want to comment on the integration of Ti drivers.
The Studio L Series has but one Ti driver, the tweeter. Still, it's an EOS Waveguide AND a tweeter, so it's a good high range component. From my own listening, the mini-horn super tweeter and the Ti tweeter get along just fine, and the other PolyPlas drivers are quite competent.

I know from personal experience that they are very listenable, and there is plenty of nonfatiguing high end. Add to that MJC's comments, and they seem well worth getting.

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I couldn't have said it any better, and although I've never had the experience of the PS:crying: , the 890s are the best new JBLs I've heard in years.:D Much better than the original Studios, Nothridge, Venue etc.
In fact I've been thinking of upgrading the entire signal path to the 890s to take full advantage of their quality.
I only have them connected to a turntable, and plan on keeping it that way( I prefer the sound of vinyl 100 x more than cds). Replacing the Sony receiver(the only one I've currently got that has a phono input) with all B&K gear, phono pre-amp, pre-amp, power amp, and a much better cartridge.

-tweeters damped (titanium composite) titanium to reduce distortion (causing ear fatigue) at the lowr end of tweeter's range where the ear is most sensitive

-LSR6328P sounds to be very interesting, with that tweeter, but price also double than that of L890. But includes bi-ampilification (2 amplifiers) already. The low end of frequency response can be adjusted.

http://www.jblpro.com/FullLineCat/Studio%20Monitors.pdf

So, y'all talkin' about the $9.94 UltraHigh tweeter, or the $32.34 1" job? ;)

http://www.jbl.com/home/product_supp...px?prodId=L890

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Originally Posted by Zilch

So, y'all talkin' about the $9.94 UltraHigh tweeter, or the $32.34 1" job? ;)

http://www.jbl.com/home/product_supp...px?prodId=L890

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Zilch, pay attention! We're talking about the $42.28 combo. :rotfl: