Why does a tweeter look different?

Tweeters look different than woofers, but why? Aside from their obvious size differences, what's the big difference between the two?

[Oystein]

Hope you keep doing these epiodes once in awhile, Chris. It's a great combo with you and Paul on the channel :)
Love that you explain things in a so relaxed and good way :P

[AnalogueGround]

Good solid info and I don’t envy speaker designers and their juggling of many compromises - it’s bad enough having to deal with a single compromise in a piece of hardware!

[mndlessdrwer]

I like a radial ribbon tweeter when it's available. I find they have nice dispersion and a sweet sound signature.

[PebblesChan]

“It depends.” - A real engineers’ catchphrase.

[gerritgovaerts]

Finally some one at PS Audio mentions the importance of constant (and perfect) directivity for a speaker . This trait dominates by at least an order of magnitude how well a speaker sounds and from what I've seen so far from the PS Audio line of speakers, nothing convinces me that they posses that trait (but I could be wrong). With this guy on board, that may finally change

[mverbaan]

It seems like Chris is getting more used to the camera. Nice!
But the most important thing for me is that Chris knows his stuff and explains the physics of loudspeakers, whereby he sticks to the subject. Paul has a slight tendency to digress from the subject. Maybe the difference between a tech-nerd (in the most positive way) and someone who set up a brand, leads it and sells its products -which i also admire.
How do you (Paul, Chris, other technicians) 'translate' the measured results to how it sounds?
Thank you for your interesting videos!

[freekwo]

Thank you Chris, now I'm getting to understand it better the other aspects of matching the of the drivers. Directivity, sensitivity of individua drivers, phase alignment... Much to think through to make a good pair of speakers - there are many factors to satisfy.

[jjhackr]

The nicest guy you wouldn’t want to mess with lol

[scottmackey]

Hey Chris, great job on these videos. You are very knowledgeable and explain things in plain English. Could you shed light or do a video on why some speakers have the tweeter above the mid or woofer and some speakers put the tweeter below them? Or even in the middle between larger drivers? Doesn’t that muddy the sound or overlap of directional waves and not directing the higher tones efficiently? Would love to hear your explanation of this oddity.

[stimpy]

Chris, thank you so much for the informative videos that you're presenting . I am learning an awful lot about drivers that I never really understood before. Speaker design has always felt like a black art to me. Designers seem to be holding deep secrets back about speaker design

[StewartMarkley]

Nice job Chris on different types of tweeters, but I would like to hear what you think about the pros and cons of the different types of tweeters.
Something that you mentioned is a sore subject with me, being an electronics and audio engineer with experience in horns and waveguides, both RF in radars and horns in audio. The de facto expert in acoustic horns and waveguides is Dr. Earl Geddes who back in the late 80s and early 90s published AES papers stating "a horn is any conduit with a variable cross section" and "all waveguides are horns,  but not all horns are waveguides". This arose by his strict definition that a waveguide is designed for a minimum of diffraction to achieve the end result of directivity control, while horn theory does not support design for directivity but rather for the end result of loading. This however confuses the terminology because by Geddes definition if any conduit with a variable cross section is a horn, then a conduit with a constant cross section isn't a horn but rather a waveguide, and also all horns guide waves. This dichotomy has led to a duality of terminology in the audio industry regarding horns and indeed many times both terms are used interchangeably, which I think is an unfortunate outcome of some very fine work by Dr. Geddes.

[sean_heisler]

Good information, Chris, thanks! Great to hear from other folks at PS Audio, too.

[mangaas]

Either he's letting me in on a secret, or dads in the other room sleeping and he doesn't wanna wake him.

[snakehead]

In my opinion if you bring your speakers close enough together within the sweet spot so that you are sitting between them without being too close you will have fairly good off-axis response from your tweeters regardless of what kind they are

[azharzaidi]

Nice to see Chris is not giving in to ”Loudness War”.

[ThinkingBetter]

Lots of speakers sound very different off axis losing much treble at higher angles. Turning your speakers can sort of be a tone control/EQ but obviously you also alter the soundstage with ambient reflections being different.

[dl]

Hi Chris, if I understand the implications of what you're saying, there's a directivity mis-match between the woofer and the tweeter in the crossover region. Is that a problem? If so, how is it addressed?

[thomasandersen]

What a nice and calm presentation there for us (thx), and very interesting subject.

[InsideOfMyOwnMind]

I love these speaker talks. Lots of juicy morsels of info.

[HareDeLune]

Star Trek Audio
Episode #147: The Trouble With Treble.

"Beam the music at me, Scotty!"