My main speakers are Yamaha NS 1000M from 1979. The model originated in 1974 and carried on through to 1997 or so. When used with a good to great amp and accurate subwoofer system, the NS1000M is probably the best vintage monitor money can buy. I've had tons of speakers from big horn systems, JBL, ESS, Rogers, KEF, B&W, electrostatics, nearly all of the New England producers to home brew, etc and can say with utmost sincerity that the Yamahas still can amaze, perform and outperform many modern speakers. Although the tragedy of those who died as a result of manufacturing the deposited beryllium is worth honoring.
I've heard the Focal beryllium tweeters. They sound like they are from another planet or from the future. Once you hear them you really won't believe what you're hearing. Stunning
Paradigm Signature speakers had BE tweeters dating back to 2007. One of my favorites that have survived in my system longer than any other speakers. Love 'em.
Thanks for a good presentation Chris. I'm a pro audio engineer & musician-- I've noticed for many years that tweeters are always the most difficult for designers/manufacturers to get right. As in they're never Right. And I'm including ribbon tweeters! Until Focal came out with their Beryllium tweeters in the early 2000's. Sat me back in my chair-- I was listening to perfect tweeters! I've been out of the loop now (old & in the way) so haven't kept up with the latest and haven't heard TAD's version. They're a great company so I'll have to look them up.
Love my Focal Sopra’s. I was fearing some beryllium bashing like you hear more and more. Soft-dome suddenly seems to be the way to go according to many. A good beryllium implementation still is a valid solution. Love this guys knowledge.
Focal speakers are very popular but are known for a certain sound. You and many people like it. Others not so much. Perhaps the beryllium "sound" is part of what you like.
Not sure if the latest iteration of Focals has this so called Focal sound. I admit that it took some really good electronics to bring the best out of them. Sometimes they where a tad harsh before, but all that disappeared with fine gear. So nothing to do with the speakers. Now they are very neutral, to my ears anyway. But yeah everyone has a preference. Not everybody’s favorite color is red.
@Kris Moodley Hi here in mexico we made voice coils from cooper silver and gold. Hand made vacuum tube amps with silver soldering. But to expensive for the Normal. Consumers.
I have Revel Ultima Salon 2 speakers and before these Paradigm Signature 8’s both use beryllium tweeters. To my ears, these are fantastic speakers both designed by the one and only Floyd Toole.
Hi Chris. Great discussion on speaker tech! I have the TAD ET 701 and the TD 2001 compression drivers. I agree they were implemented well. They do require good electronics to sound smooth.
The new KLH recently produced the Ultimate One headphones that have 50mm, pure Beryllium drivers. I bought a pair (0nly $300) over a year ago and have been pleased with them even though I have difficulty being pleased with headphones. Unlike planar headphones, the Ultimate Ones have an outstanding bass response. Unlike some brands such as Sennheiser (those sound too dark for me), they have a lively top-end that does not sound too bright (never harsh, as some metal tweeters can sound), and unlike some other brands (such as Grado), the Ultimate Ones do not have a midrange that is too forward. Low impedance (32 ohms) and low price, with pure Beryllium drivers that sound nice, made them a good choice for me, though I still prefer to listen to my speakers when I can.
Absolutely! He clearly knows his stuff, very informative! That Chris is not always looking into the camera for me means that he is looking for the right way to explain the subject he is telling about. Function over form is good for me.
It’s great PS audio is going deeper into these important topics. When you look at a total audio system and how money are spent on the BOM, as a consumer, I much rather see an expensive superior cone material than a US$1000 snake oil power cable.
I agree but good cables are always needed for a system to sound good. Although there's no reason for them to cost tons. Unless it's to fool people and make the seller rich.
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt I’ve been involved in running one of the largest multi billion dollar consumer electronics business in the USA and indeed understand the value proposition between what you pay, the BOM cost of the parts involved, manufacturing cost, logistical cost, duties, license fees, sales cost, marketing cost, R&D cost, profit margins and so on. Yes, some times what you pay is factors more than the BOM cost for some fair reasons.
Beryllium domes are the ultimate metal dome material. The 'issues' with beryllium tweeters I have encountered in the past have had to do with the application of the wide surrounds that are popular now in tweeters; the resonance of the surround becomes significant when the dome has no discernible breakup in the bandwidth of interest. Beryllium isn't able to solve all of the problems encountered in a moving coil tweeter, such as viscous damping losses caused by surround coatings and ferrofluid, disposing of the back wave, controlling inductance, or losslessly transmitting the coil force to the dome, but it does mostly solve the issue of diaphragm breakup. A planar ribbon or aluminum ribbon tweeter is still faster and more detailed to my ear, with better dynamic linearity at low SPLs. Also the very high cost of a beryllium dome tweeter limits its appeal; in one application for a 16mm beryllium dome, there wasn't a measurable or audible difference between beryllium and Harman's CMMD (deep anodized aluminum) dome material, but the beryllium diaphragm was 10X the cost of CMMD. The chief issue with metal dome tweeters is that even though the breakup is pushed out of the audible bandwidth, it usually isn't pushed far "enough" outside the audible bandwidth not to have some audible effect - my hypothesis is that this is due to heterodyning with other ultrasonic frequencies and creating beat frequencies that are audible; this is similar to how the original ATC LRAD speaker produced sound (amplitude modulated ultrasound) so I am convinced it has some audible effect even in "quieter" home audio speakers. One of the best sounding commercially available tweeters of any type that I have ever heard, at any price, is the Scan-Speak Illuminator beryllium dome, and a custom version of this tweeter using the Revelator ring neo motor (made for Thiel's 40.3 speaker) was the best performing and measuring moving coil tweeter I have ever heard, period, although I suspect Magico's DLC coated version of this tweeter was even further superior in some barely audible way.
My only experience with beryllium has been with Focal’s Stellia headphones. The headphones are remarkably dynamic and detailed and I understand this to be a result of using the material. I’m hoping you guys add a headphone amp to your amplifiers or sprout one day.
I just bought focal trio6 BEs. Amazing high end. High end like silk - ive heard people say they mix harsh high end because of the softness, but i believe thats because they mix to something other than the speaker itself. You must know the BE sound to mix to it - but if you do then man can you mix for endless hours without worrying about fatigue. Its such an amazing thing.
I have the Solo6 Be and I agree. Still have not heard anything sound more realistic and hyper detailed! Do not like typical high end colorations of sounds.
Look out! Chris is taking over! Well I used to do speaker repair, so I for one am enjoying the speaker talks. Hey Chris, are you familiar with Gallo Acoustics' Cylindrical Diaphram Tweeter? Pretty darn spiffy, that one! ; )
Yamaha NSF-1, NSA(anniversary)10000 are so far beyond what we even see today and their response is astounding. The midrange, long crystal 4" beryllium midrange is perfect from 500 to 5K and can go both higher and lower. Extremely fast and perfect piston, I have heard thee anniversary series which the technology is rarely even seen today except for some of the better components of the caps but few use quality caps. +/- .5 or .75 depending on who did the testing from 38-40K is beyond most anything ever made. The NSF-1 is demanding, as well as the anniversary unit far far more money and going up along with their VFET Amplifiers and those who were capable of making components that are toooo expensive regardless of their superiority such as the Sansui top of the line, Harman Kardon XX Citation which is now over 100K, the Grand Integra and the like. Don't even start on the Trio Laboratory series as engineers are now finding that their findings to be absolutely accurate with only Spectral in the picture here now.
I own a pair of Master and Dynamic MW65 headphones with Be drivers and they resolve really well on high frequencies, but I do hear a more bright sound out of them when compared to my many other headphones. I considered getting a pair of speakers with Be tweeters, but my concern is they may be a bit harsh as well. Must find a place to demo first
I always enjoy your videos I find them very informative. Young's modulus of elasticity reflects the point where a material moves from elastic deformation to plastic deformation. Its the slope of the curve before plastic deformation that your referring to, I'd be curious to see the curves compared. BTW stainless steel is not a defined element/material its an alloy and its properties are subject its composition.
@@ghostrecon3214 To qote Zach Merbach: "Our driver is made of 85% PEN (polyethylene naphthalate) with 15% Beryllium coated on the surface to achieve a punchy, revealing, never harsh sonic spectrum."
Focal has used Beryllium in their tweeters for several years. They're tweeters are highly resolving. I don't know if using this material is the gateway opiate to better sounding higher frequencies. There's so many factors, including crossovers, mating with the other drivers, the cabinet influence on the sound, etc.
If berrylium is done right in a tweeter...there hard to beat. But has to be done right and paired with the right amps. Soft domes have came a long ways and ive heard Soft domes that sounded more bright and sharp than metal ones. Dont always think a speaker will sound a certain way with certain materials. Usually you can categorize speakers by material but dont believe everything you hear
Chris get video, would like to hear your opinion on ribbon tweeters. i realize the are several different types. i have a 30 year old pair of speaker with cobalt ribbon tweeters and they are still hard to beat the have a really big fq. range. From what i see with the AN3's it looks like PS audio likes ribbons as well.
I had a set of Focal speakers and originally I really liked them however as I got older they sounded much brighter. Don't think there was a problem with the speakers think it was my ears getting older. Do you think Beryllium can make a speaker sound too bright? Thanks for the video
Beryllium is interesting... "The single primordial beryllium isotope 9Be also undergoes a (n,2n) neutron reaction with neutron energies over about 1.9 MeV, to produce 8Be, which almost immediately breaks into two alpha particles. Thus, for high-energy neutrons, beryllium is a neutron multiplier, releasing more neutrons than it absorbs."
Everyone hears things differently. For me, Beryllium tweeters sound bright and edgy. They lack a smooth natural sound. I have tinnitus and am sensitive to bright harsh sound. The best sounding tweeters I have heard are the Dynaudio Esotar soft dome tweeters but others may like a brighter, more aggressive top end.
I am with the horn tweeter crowd. The human ear is very sensitive to distortion, especially in the mid-range of ~300hz to 5khz. And distortion is a function of diaphragm travel, ie the further the diaphragm has to move, the more distortion; so if you minimize diaphragm movement with a horn, you will also minimize distortion. Of course now you have to engineer a suitable phase plug for a compression driver and also a horn. Plus in the manufacturing-level you have to manufacture a phase-plug, in the traditional compression drivers that is machined. Today they are of molded plastic and fiberglass which costs way less. In past research has shown that there are little differences in dispersion between the dome and the cone radiator tweeters, but is a function of driver diameter/size. For best sounds, a horn and compression driver are the way to go, but you pay the price. Speaker manufacturers are in business to make a profit. When you put huge amounts of money into R&D and also in manufacturing, they have to charge the customers appropriately. At retail a typical "run of the mill" compression driver and horn can cost way more than the comparable direct radiator because of the r&d and increased manufacturing costs. Pioneers TAD line is a good example of SotA in beryllium and titanium materials and driver technology, and of course of course the cost of that technology is in stratosphere.
Love the speaker info, Chris. I'm kind of a speaker-a-holic! I've built and bought several pairs of speakers over the years. I have 6 pair in my garage alone right now! (My wife's going to KILL me if I get any more)! I'm just addicted to finding the perfect sound!
May I recommend the Gallo Acoustics Strada speakers, mounted low with a low listening position (preferably nearfield), combined with two DIY H-frame subwoofers? Your journey may come to an end with that set-up. ~_^
After purchasing the focal utopia headphones recently I have been more interested in beryllium. Those little drivers in the utopia are the cutting edge in dynamic headphones. Just my option.
Another method to get breakup up to frequencies beyond audibility, is to use ring radiators. Like the incredible SB Acoustics, Vifa or Scan Speak drivers. Ring radiators eliminate bell resonance altogether. No need for expensive berylium. They do have other problems (there's no free lunch in speaker design), but those problems tend to be easier to deal with, and less audible.
Would anyone recommend using beryllium drivers for pro audio in a 215 style midtop application? Looking at radian's 1.4" beryllium cd's I like the idea of hifi at pa levels, those cd's are rated down to 500hz, if I get a horn thats good down to 700hz and keep the cd's at 1100hz and up I'd imagine I could keep them going at war volume all night with appropriate subs matching the 215 cabs, thoughts? Or is aluminum the safer and cheaper bet?
Thank you verry much, this was verry interesting . I have both old pioneer speakers hpm 910 with the berillium tweeters. Do they where good that time?? because they maded in beginning 80ties . That time they costed more then 1000 euro. that was verry much monney in the 80ties ! Thanks for the vid
I remember working on a pair of Yamaha NS-1000's that had the drivers you mention and the sound was very clean but not very dynamic. The drivers of course are not blow out proof.
I have a pair. They are rated for no more than 100 watts. If you run into clipping, the tweeters don't like it. I drive mine with a 60 watt Marantz. Play non compressed natural recordings, not stuff the product of the CD Loudness war and you will be mine. I bought mine new and still have them. Only added a subwoofer. The cabinet is a huge part of the speaker. Have you tried knocking on wood on those? Those are in a non resonant cabinet. I bought the companion speaker stands so mine sit about a foot above the floor.
My first experience with that metal was in our use for inertial gyro navigators. Never imagined it to be used in speaker drivers. What are the chances that as a speaker driver it can pose a hazard?
Essentially zero, unless you lick your domes every day! It's only during machining / processing that fine dust is readily created, which is harmful if inhaled.
Forget this Yamaha...sound very bright and demanding for electronic, look for titanium Diatone DS-77HR, much better...I have beryllium Yamaha home and had Diatones 👌
@@thunderbird66613 you can buy also other Diatone models like ds-501/503 etc..very good...Yamaha has very weak bass (ns-1000x little better) and not so good for all music types. I would buy Diatone or higher Onkyo Monitor Japanese only models, very very good speakers, Monitor 2001 could be better than NS-2000 in music and build quality
Hi Chris, is the beryllium used in tweeters, dangerous over time to the end user or person manufacturer the tweeter or is it the actual amount that is hazardous to your lungs? This was a question that I was asked and I took a guess by saying it was the amount? Then I was asked what if you attempted to fix the beryllium tweeter itself, could you disturb the beryllium enough to cause the damage to your lungs for which I had no answer.
I'm surprised more designers aren't using magnesium. It's light, stif, strong etc. Keep away from open flame though. But it's shapeable, pretty stable and acoustically neutral.
I agree, Seas excel woofers is loved for that reason, but they have an issue where they can crack when the are +10 years, not sure why, but yes super low distortion.
@@kentlarsen578 Interesting, the 1935 Bugatti Aerolithe's body panels were entirely made of magnesium, complete with compound curves. Not prone to cracking after all these years.
@@Joshualbm interesting yes, maybe the panels are so much thicker and not working as pistons makes the difference. As a membrane material you will try and go for the lowest mass unless its a subwoofer driver, so it might just be thar Seas needs to add some material to make them last forever. But I will say that I haven't heard anybody complain about it, they typical just take it as a cost of the fantastic response, and very few materials can rival it I agree.
Because magnesium corrodes, I know the Seas Excel drivers suffered, some were so bad the voice coils popped out, Seas denies all responsibility, but plenty of proof with pictures out there.
“Mix up a little more bass here, then we can put us a little treble right in there. See how you can move things around? You have unlimited power on this canvas -- can literally, literally move mountains”
Thanks for the video Chris. I heard that Yamaha dumped beryllium and moved to zylon because they viewed the risk of cancer from beryllium to be very high. Since I was in the market for a speakers that I know uses Beryllium, it has got me worried if over time this beryllium can start to leech out into the air and cause cancer. Family is priority... What are your thoughts about beryllium leeching over time from the tweeters.
I found most beryllium tweeters gave terrible harsh high end with tons of vocal sibilance, only really works if you can compensate with the rest of the system to somehow subdue the harshness.
I have a set of NS2000 by Yamaha which have the Beryllium Tweeters and Mid Ranges. Having worked in professional sound with recording engineers I can tell you that there are signal chain distortions which are unmasked by the a BE tweeter. The operative word is unmasked. I lent a pair of very high end studio monitors to an engineer who was using KRK "pro" monitors to use overnight. He was very happy with his recording until he heard them in our monitors. He had never gone to bed but listed to all of his recordings through the night. He looked like hell the next day. He had the startling revelation that speakers can mask distortion.
I have been using TAD's for more than 25years already. I am not turning back. The only tweeters I like more is plasma but they are too in-efficient to match with compression horn.
cp070476 Well Chris knows his stuff and PS Audio take an uncompromising approach so it is always a possibility. My guess is PS audio will make a great speaker that is aesthetic and not as expensive as the ATC top of the line beast. Unless you are Lenny Kravitz or Mark Knopfler the SCM 300 is rather overkill.
Mylar is 4.5 grams per square meter. And it is used in electrostatic loudspeakers. A large electrostatic speaker has only a total of 3 grams moving mass. Please note that includes the bass (woofer) part that goes down to 30 Hz with minimum distortion.
Aluminum/Magnesium alloy is superior to Beryllium for a tweeter. Beryllium in unnecessarily expensive, toxic an fatiguing over longer listening sessions
@Fat Rat I'm sensitive to harshness and listening fatigue. When I think back on some demos, I thought about realism and how some highs were too crisp. I've found my Polk setup began harsh, but after several hours, I like them better, now. I've heard Klipsch and don't think I could get to love them.
B&W started using Beryllium in their Tweeters close to 15 years ago and they were absolutely brittle. The domes didn't bend or dent, they crumbled. It didn't happen often but we did received some speakers with shattered tweeters (I worked for a B&W dealer). It was a problem unpacking a 200lb speaker at a customer's house only to discover the tweeter dome had turned to dust.
Get a partner to talk to, get some eye contact with the camera and these will be perfect. Good start, speaking in front of a camera is not easy, and the audio nerd in me loves the step up from Paul's (also excellent) talks.
I disagree that copper beryllium does not a good tweeter make. it's like saying paper is not a good material for woofers ( which I prefer). Young's modulus is twice that of aluminum. I have listened to several BeCu tweeters and the sound was very good.
I agree. I just picked up a pair of LSA 10 Statement speakers, which have copper beryllium tweeters. They still have some further breaking in, but I am hearing things in familiar recordings my previous KEF ls50s just buried.
I like this guy. Great information about beryllium wannabe materials out there. I was noticing the copper-beryllium tweeters coming out of China recently. How could a soft metal like copper do anything but ruin the benefits of an ultra stiff metal like beryllium?
I have to admit I am too scared of beryllium to own a speaker incorporating it. It's like the more hard core cousin of titanium. But I would love to hear one to see if it lives up to the hype. Great video.
@@leonardkrasner5811 I see people playing with mercury on RU-vid but I wouldn't breath the air in the room. The stakes are too high even if it's low risk.
Marcus M once the beryllium is manufactured into the tweeter the is no contamination. Hundreds of thousands or even millions have dental crowns in their mouths that have substructure of beryllium alloy not a problem. Only in manufacturing process is there any risk.
I don't like titanium tweeters. Never did. I have Yamaha NS2000's with Beryllium Dome Tweeters (and mid ranges). Not the same thing at all. Beryllium is great!
Beryllium is a metal chosen for use in many applications. As with all metals there will be positive and negative facts with beryllium. Toxicity and expense are two negative factors. Proper engineering design to take advantage of its positive characteristics is important otherwise it will be an expensive paperweight with little real audio advantages. Beryllium is a fine material but if not applied in a properly designed device it has little real benefit.
I owned a pair of Yamaha NS-1000M speakers that I bought while stationed in Germany in 1984. They were great speakers and I most definitely regret selling them.
Well I just bought some master and dynamic MW65 closed back high quality headphones with high quality 40mm beryllium drivers, with an excellent flat response, smooth non sibilant top frequencies, with tight tightly defined low frequencies, not the slow, boomy, exaggerated low frequencies and tipped up treble frequencies of most regular run of the mill headphones, with exaggerated frequency response. As regards my audio loudspeakers, I am extremely happy with my older classic monitor audio gold reference gr20 special edition loudspeakers, with their flat and balanced sound quality with their ceramic coated dimpled magnesium drivers, and they are properly biamped. They are detailed and smooth and do everything extremely well without the boxy character of poorer quality loudspeakers. In the context of loudspeaker size verses room space, for my 4 metre uk flat living space, they do every thing well and are smoothly analytically detailed with frequency balance, 30hz to 30khz - 6db each end of the frequency range. They are a smooth clean open window clarity, as regurds to all the downstream audio electronics and cables with their different signature sounds etc. They definitely will show up poor components with poor abilities , but they are also worthy of their title as regards their monitor abilities. If source and amplification components have 0.00 % non detectable distortion figures they are smooth as butter with analytic detail. As they say don't shoot the messenger, but blame what are the upstream components are doing, as well as the source recording material you are listing to. If people say paper drive units are better than magnesium drive units, well paper is not equally better either. Paper drive units still suffer high distortions, flexing, and cannot relay a wider set of frequencies, nor can they retain the pistonic qualities of what the ceramic magnesium drivers are capable of.
