Speakers: Parts is Parts - Styles and Dome Tweeter Variations.

Mike Klasco and Steve Tatarunis wrote a series of articles under the header Parts is Parts where they explore loudspeaker drivers, how they work, and all the different parts and components. In this article, the two audio industry experts expand on the historical evolution of tweeter design. After discussing the cone tweeter, and introducing the common dome tweeter, the article explore dome tweeter variations and introduces the balanced drive tweeter. This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2013.

For several years, Mike Klasco and Steve Tatarunis wrote a series of articles under the header Parts is Parts where they have explored loudspeaker drivers, how they work, and all the different parts and components. In this specific article, the two audio industry experts provide an excellent introduction to high frequency drivers, revisiting some key historical designs. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2013.

For this edition of Test Bench we characterized the Punktkilde AUGDL0003-JN03, a 1” magnesium-lithium alloy dome tweeter. This transducer, from Eastech’s relatively new Punktkilde line of home hi-fi drivers built in China and designed in Denmark by Scan-Speak engineers, is a tweeter from its magnesium-lithium product line, which includes this AUGDL0003-JN03 tweeter plus 4” thru 8” magnesium-lithium alloy cone woofers. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, November 2019.

For this edition of Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the TAFE28, a 28 mm silk dome tweeter from Trueanalog. This is the first time Test Bench has characterized any product from Trueanalog, and the company sent Voice Coil its new 28 mm diameter silk dome tweeter, intended for high end hi-fi and recording studio applications. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2019.

In this Test Bench we will be looking at the 29 mm TW29DN-B cloth dome tweeter from the SB Acoustics Satori line of high-end devices. This new TW29DN-B-8 SB Satori tweeter is a wide surround format-type similar to the original Vifa DX tweeter, or the current Scan-Speak D2604 or D2607. However, all of these are 26 mm diaphragm tweeters, and the new Satori ST29DN-B-8 is a 29 mm diaphragm type. This article was published in Voice Coil, March 2019.

This Test Bench characterizes the T34B-4 34mm beryllium dome tweeter from BlieSMa, a German company founded in 2018 by Stas Malikov. BlieSMa’s first tweeter offering, the T34A-4 34 mm aluminum/magnesium alloy dome, appeared in Voice Coil’s June 2018 Test Bench. This month, I received the company’s second offering, and it seems logical that this driver, the T34B-4, is a 34 mm beryllium dome tweeter. This article was published in Voice Coil, March 2019.

Being primarily known as a pro sound driver OEM, with a great reputation for both guitar speakers and PA drivers, it may come as a surprise that this Eminence driver, the SD28, is a 1” soft dome tweeter — a staple of the home and car audio businesses. I should note however, that while Eminence has a rather large catalog of pro audio transducers, the company also produces drivers for home and car audio companies. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, January 2019

Voice Coil January 2019 is now available. This edition focuses on New Materials for Earphones and Headphones and also includes a valuable listing of Earphone and Headphone Manufacturers and a schedule of headphone-centric events for the year. In Acoustic Patents, James Croft looks at a new patent of a multilayer voice coil plate and flat speaker based on the same, while in this month's Test Bench Vance Dickason features a 1" compression driver from Radian Audio Engineering, and a 1" soft dome tweeter from Eminence. This is much more, now available in print and download.

BlieSMa was founded January 16, 2018, by Stas Malikov. The first product being released by BlieSMa is a 34 mm tweeter, the T34A-4. Available from May 2018, the T34A-4 is a 30 mm metal aluminum/magnesium alloy dome tweeter with a substantial feature set that includes extremely low moving mass, and a fully saturated neodymium motor with copper sleeve shorting ring. Particularly impressive is the T34A-4's extremely wide frequency range, going from 1.3 kHz to 35 kHz. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, June 2018.

This edition of Test Bench focuses on the Scan-Speak Ellipticor D3404/552000 dome neodymium motor tweeter. Overall, the D3404/552000 is like a big elongated 28 mm diameter tweeter. For a motor system, Scan-Speak basically scaled up their currently successful Air-Circ tweeter motor with 10 neodymium slugs and copper shorting rings and a titanium former. The big news is that this motor and diaphragm yield a 2.83 V/1 m sensitivity of 97 dB! This article was originally published in Voice Coil, April 2018.