Horns vs Ribbons vs Dyanamic

I'm a bit partial at the moment to ribbons. I very recently received a new pair of full-range speakers that include ribbon tweeter and ribbon midrange. My first real in-depth or analytical experience with ribbons.

There is a substantial improvement in the mid and higher frequencies. The amount of musical information is just so much more than what I'm used to hearing thru dome tweeters and dynamic midrange drivers. Horns, strigs, and vocals just sound far more natural, full, and complete. A tremendous refinement that is irreplaceable. There also appears to be little to no loss of dynamics. In fact, the two most difficult types of music to reproduce (opera and choral) now sound so clear and dynamic without any apparent leveling off or breakup.

As explained to me the dynamic drivers and domes are supposed to be somewhat sufficient for certain jazz and rock where dynamics are ever present. But the fact that a dynamic driver is in essence a piston, it simply cannot handle certain notes that are sustained over longer periods of time (like an opera singer's voice). According to my source that is what causes the dynamic driver to start breaking up.

But now that I've been on the on greener side of the fence, and with horns, strings, and vocals in all kinds of music, I think my source may give dynamic tweeters/midrange drivers too much credit. Right now it's hard for me to phathom how anybody could label a speaker with a domed/dynamic tweeter as SOTA because this just might be an oxymoron.

At CES 2008 we must have evaluated about 70 pairs of speakers using a certain test cd. All of the dome tweeters failed, some miserably. The only two speakers that did not fail and in fact soared to new heights had ribbon tweeter.

I realize there's more to such comparisons but it's not likely the above conclusion or results were coincidental.

-IMO

while my current speakers dont have cone or dynamic midrange and tweeters (VMPS) I think Stehno fell and hit his head, to say that no cone, dome, dynamic mid or tweeter can be called SOTA is at best foolish.

Stehno,
What type of speakers are you using now with ribbon mid and tweeter?
Thanks,
Bill

There is a substantial improvement in the mid and higher frequencies.

Yes that is the typical manifestation from the additional ambience or reverberation. The room is excited more in the mid range and treble than regular box speakers. (Basically an anechoic calibrated ribbon will have about 3 to 6 db boost in the mid and high frequencies when placed in a room and compared to a box speaker.) The fact that many popular selling box speakers are tweaked upwards in the treble and bass response (helps sell) means that the planar or ribbon will be a revelation (hear things you never heard before) to most people not used to a proper balanced mid range.... you can blame most popular box speaker manufacturers for this....big bass and treble sizzle sells but at the expense of the mid range!!

I am somewhat incredulous with regard to dome tweeters being failures according to your test what ever it was. I have a pair of Dynaudio Esotars and listen with delight to the Morel MTD 33s in my TSMs. My thinking is that like the vast majority of young women there is something to like.( yes some are just not attractive at all )I grew up on horns still enjoy tem for those got to hear it lOUD moments. Love IRS Vs with a couple of ribbons in them like over 100 use psuedo transmission lines and plain ported boxes. Even bass reflex.