Midrange Titanium diaphragm question

[jjptkd]

20 minutes ago, pzannucci said:

 The Ti may demand a higher cut off vs phenolic.

You know that is a good point that I don't think has been made before. Looking at the specs for the Cornwall III the mid is crossed over at 800hz, the Heresy III at 850hz while the forte / Chorus models are crossed over lower at 600-700hz. There has been much attention given to the over reach of the titanium drivers and the need to cap them off at the high end but how do they perform at the lower frequencies between 600-800hz?

[djk]

" properly set up with a low crossover makes much more sense to me. "

 

Altec chose to crossover at the point where the woofer and horn had the same Di (Q).

 

(which generally gives the most uniform off-axis power response in a room)

[pzannucci]

12 hours ago, djk said:

" properly set up with a low crossover makes much more sense to me. "

 

Altec chose to crossover at the point where the woofer and horn had the same Di (Q).

 

(which generally gives the most uniform off-axis power response in a room)

djk, 

Glad to know the history and that was one of the issues with the physics.  The other issues that pushing the crossover down and / or using smaller woofers have a better chance of solving though it all depends on your hot buttons.  I say enjoy all of them as long as they don't get in the way of that enjoyment since they may be more technical than noticeably impacting overall musicality. 

[Grizzog]

I've enjoyed the titanium diaphragms I've put in the tweeters of Quartets, Fortes, and KG4s. I've never changed out the mids.

 

When implemented properly, I think the metal diaphragms work well. The aluminum used in the Altec drivers to me sounds a bit softer and I do appreciate that. I don't completely care for the titanium in the RF-7II - that actually sounds metallic to me, but could probably be a combination of things.

 

I wonder if someone did an A/B test on driver material, how many times I could get it right. Part of what we perceive is psychosomatic - your visual perception or prior knowledge will play a part. Floyd Toole had shown this in blind tests. A speaker that LOOKS like it should sound good, had received better ratings when the listener could see it (obviously not always the case, but certainly interesting). I'm guessing the same may happen when we know the material used.

[jjptkd]

42 minutes ago, Grizzog said:

 I don't completely care for the titanium in the RF-7II - that actually sounds metallic to me, but could probably be a combination of things.

I've had the RF-7 II's for awhile now and have mixed feelings about them so far. They can present themselves as bright and overbearing with some material but mostly not so much luckily. It's weird, sometimes the horns will just sound like I guess what they are, gigantic tweeters with much larger than life cymbals and high end noises / sounds in general. I'm still evaluating these but honestly so far I think I actually prefer my RF-5's, at least in my small room where the added headroom and bass are not needed so much.