Beryllium Tweeters - Your Opinions & Comments ??


I notice the Beryllium tweeters cost about $500 each!  Focusing mostly on SB Acoustics (Satori) but you are welcome to comment if you have heard any brand.

Can you hear the difference?  Are they an obvious Upgrade, or do some people find them to be TOO detailed or TOO bright?

I am mostly used to the Dynaudio D28af textile soft domes (back in the 90's when af didn't mean AF, hahahaha!)

I kind of want the best sound i can get at any price but not if it produces listening fatigue and such like that.  Thank you for reading...

rop45

One-size does not fit all. Depends on the OEM bespoke BE tweeter in question .,,, some I really like , but others , not-so-much.

My fave based on my personal experiences to date: REFERENCE 3A MM De Capo BE. They get it “right” and are very easy to drive with a 92db efficiency.

It's really too broad a question. Be tweeters can be tamed or they can sound too metallic, depends on the implementation.   

Different flavors for sure. I like both. Some BE tweeters can be pretty natural. Overall I think good soft dome like Dynaudio are more natural but definitely don’t have the speed or micro detail of a good BE. I prefer BE…….. I think…… depending on the day….. ymmv….. etc

I was concerned trying the beryllium tweeter. But very impressed with the Reference 3a be tweeter. Not at all annoying or bright very smooth but detailed. I’m using with Conrad Johnson, r2r dac and lp12. Everything going through it is on the warm side so that may contribute to my results with the be tweeter. 

If you have the $, the Fritz Carrera BE’s here on Audiogon right now for $2500 are really awesome speakers,  I personally liked this tweeter better than the SB Acoustics BE (Neo magnet)… 

The Fritz seems like a good suggestion. 

Interesting the current version of the Carrera seems to be using SB tweeter now

Audio from properly implemented Be speakers is anything but  "metallic" and bright.

 

I have enjoyed one of the first pair of Focal Sopra No2 speakers that arrived stateside, driven by a smooth-sounding McIntosh power amp, the BE tweeters don't sound too bright at all.  I can and do listen to that pairing for hours at a time.

Having said that, I've auditioned the same model speakers driven by a "more contemporary"..."fast" amp and didn't find the sound as pleasing.  When I audition speakers I typically spend some "quality time" with the audition and felt that I probably couldn't listen to this "fast amp/Focal" pairing for as long as I can with the setup I have at home.

Like others have said, it really depends on the implementation.  Focal makes excellent Be tweeters that sound great, once they are broken in.  The first 300 hours are rough, extremely bright and metallic sounding but after that they gain a sweetness, while still being detailed.  

Revel uses SB Acoustics Be tweeters in the Performa Be line (328be/228be)if I am not mistaken and I think they are great. Less grain than the tweeters focal uses in the Sopra line which is also very good. Check out the water fall plots on stereophile of both speakers and the SB settles real quick and clean. But Revel might have worked some magic with the wave guide and motors. What ever is in the 328be (assuming SB) is pretty perfect. 

I have Focal Sopra 3's, in a properly treated room.  The Be tweeters are to my ears perfectly integrated with the other drivers such that I hear a coherent sound with plenty of detail, very transparent, yet without the tweeters calling attention to themselves.  

In general I don’t like metal tweets and prefer silk dome.  Something about the metal just sets me off.  But, hearing the Be tweets in the Magico Q7 sounded excellent to me with no bothersome metallic sound whatsoever.  Obviously it comes down to quality and implementation, but I would actually entertain a speaker with a Be tweet if the rest of the speaker really grabbed me.  I’ll also say the diamond tweet in the B&W 804D3 didn’t bother me either. 

BE comes with a karmic burden. It's toxic why use it? You may not get ill but what about the miner's, factory workers, or those in the future.

It's all in the implementation.

I dropped some Be tweeters into a pair of Tektons. The results were extremely noticeable, but in the end, I upgraded to a different pair of speakers that were more seemlessly integrated across the whole sound range.

 

 

Paradigm Personas use Be for Tweeter and Midrange

proper amp,cabling and room you will get some of the finest sound available. Small room in a near field position maybe not so much.