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Weekly Q&A: Answers | Week of May 13, 2024

Weekly Q&A: Answers | Week of May 13, 2024

Rethinking Supertweeters...

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Thomas Martin
May 17, 2024
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The Absolute Sound
The Absolute Sound
Weekly Q&A: Answers | Week of May 13, 2024
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Q: Can a "Super Tweeter" be configured in a system so that firing it to the rear of the speaker adds more air and soundstage?

-Michael

A: Aiming a directional supertweeter to the rear does not seem ideal. However, we should add that the mechanisms by which supertweeters work are not perfectly understood.

One possible problem with rearward aiming, is that the supertweeter frequency response is then affected by the possibly variable absorption of the room walls with frequency.

In addition, there is some research indicating that the reason tweeters operating above 20khz are beneficial is that they deliver better transient information. While it seems commonly accepted that hearing falls off above 20khz (or less), this is with sine waves. When hearing research is done with transients (imagine a stream of clicks), people seem able to detect transient information well above 20khz (perhaps 50khz or higher). Aiming a supertweeter to the rear would seem to alter the phase of transient information i…

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