Stereophile review of Escalante Fremont

I was referring to the WP7 and was not aware that the WP8 uses a different tweeter. The WP7 tweeter exhibited harshness in the presence region (3 Khz. - 7 Khz.). Atkinson wrote the following in the measurements section of Stereophile's WP8 review:

"Despite my caution about the tweeter's dome resonance being close to the audioband, very little delayed energy seems to be associated with it, which will minimize any audible problems. The latest version of this Focal tweeter is definitely better than the one used in the W/P7."

That is good news!

Nonsense! It is the same tweeter. It anything, it behaves slightly better in version 7.

Dhaan,

Nope, sorry dude, it is not the same tweeter.

The “brightness” of the Watt comes from its tweeter's dome break-up that is too close to the audioband. It is not brightness, it is simply distortion. Some, may find it exciting.

Almost all extremely rigid light weight drivers seem to run into resonance problems (high Q) - it is physics after all - and even when the problems are supposed to be "out of band" they often appear to affect "in band" response, especially at modestly elevated SPL levels...just my two cents....a cone that does not internally damp itself is akin to a "bell". The "bell" acts like an instrument in that the way it affects the sound can be quite unrelated to the music and therefore a more noticeable form of distortion. Soft damped cones have other distortion breakup mechanisms and they are much heavier material and require more expensive drive motors but they they have a big advantage in that they tend to damp unwanted distortion that is unrelated to the music.

I can't think of an easy way to explain it except that TIM distortion is much worse than Harmonic distortion and "ringing" drivers tend to produce TIM-like distortion.....much more audible....two cents, as usual.

Shadorne,

No one is questioning that the problem can exist. I am questioning that anyone has heard it on the W/P8. If you have heard it on the W/P8, please provide the material you heard it with (album, song and time). Also, make sure to list the amp that was used as well, because audible transient intermodulation distortion (TIM) is sometimes caused by amplifiers.

It isn't a lot to ask for people who claim to have heard something to give some practical evidence that can be validated by other people who are using the speaker in question. The hearsay in this hobby gets old quick.

Having some audible proof would also help me to decide on which speaker to keep. I don't want to be using a speaker that might be ringing or exhibiting "grunge" from ringing occasionally, but so far I haven't run into it in my listening experiences. I don't feel like it is a lot to ask. In fact, I really wish someone would help me out with this...

I've thought of possible solutions to my Salon2 HT positioning dilemma, but it would require expensive custom built sliding stands that could slide to a position beside the screen for HT, and then out to the best listening position when being used for music. So having the proof I'm asking for would be quite meaningful in my current situation.