Treble and Tweeter trends over the past few decades
I was in a discussion about Kef speakers and a room when I thought about something worth discussing with all of you, and that is that my observations are that the general desire for treble energy has changed a great deal over the past decades.
I want to be specific as I can. In the past a well-balanced speaker had a rolloff from 10kHz upwards. By 20 kHz this was usually severely down, and sometiems the rolloff started earlier.
As a result perhaps of the spec wars as well as better tweeters across the board, this rolloff is not as often seen in high end speeakers, it has almost vanished. The need we had to point speaker tweeters directly at our ear drums is no longer achieving the same musical balance, but also, a very "revealing" speaker now may have too much treble energy in a room.
Kind of makes me think a little about the trend in the late 80’s / 90’s for B&W speakers and ARC gear, how bright it sounded to me. Always in untreated rooms. Maybe the issue wasn’t the combination but that the gear hat outstripped the room? I imagine Abbey Road had much better acoustics than the average home listener, and perhaps it was that disconnect that drove me away from B&W then?
What are your thoughts, greybeards? Have you experienced this as well? Do you find that older speakers work better in your bare rooms?
To expand a little... I wonder how much of the B&W 800 reputation translated to the consumer world, but lacking the studio acoustic treatment, ended up in a very lopsided idea of what reference sound should be like? That is, if recording engineers were listening to B&W 800s that's great, but they had dedicated acousticians treating their rooms. B&W never sold us a room, they sold us the speakers and this effect could very well have tilted what we thought neutral sounded like. |
AR means Audio Research Erik. I was able to compare their 6922 based preamps (2 of them) VS their new 6H30 based preamp around 2002, or so. At the same audition we compared a BAT 6922 preamp to their then new 6H30 based preamp. The crowd were ARC fans (I'm not) and the demo speakers were the then new Vandersteen 5. What I learned with the "5's" was that on many, many, many recordings the Vandersteen 5's internal subs rarely made a difference, but when they did it was impressive.
DeKay
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It depends on what model amplifiers from each manufacturer you used. CJ was always on the warm sounding but usually lacked details. Some of the older Audio Research amplifiers like the D-79B amplifiers were really good back in the day and with upgrades today are awesome. The 6H30 tube tended to be more detailed (analytical) that the other tubes 6922/6DJ8 vs 6SN7, EL34, etc. We are using Vivid speakers in our Listening Room and depending on the amplification, they can sound analytical or very musical. That has been true in the old days and current days.
Happy Listening. |
Our Matrix 801 Series 2 with North Creek Crossovers have killed all speakers that have tried to challenge them. Unbeatable in every aspect. They’re in a very good room with phenomenal tube electronics. The Matrix 801 series 2 tweeter has been described by folks on Audio Asylum as one of the most neutral, yet revealing, tweeters of all time. I don’t know about that, all I do know is that they’re excellent and that the speakers that they live in aren’t leaving.
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@erik_squires from my own experience, that's likely true for most. Even mild room treatment makes a world of difference. |
