Boxing Match - Altec 288 VS Focal UTOPIA Beryllium tweeter EPIC!

Do you know what the best dome tweeter can do? Do you know what compression drivers can do? Food for thought about tweeter technology. We are so hell-bent nowdays on measurements. Yet, marketing only considers them when they are favorable to back up a certain product, or a certain technology. You shall see here a comparison of the mechanical distortion these two produce, and what distortion is introduced to the sound while comparing the two at the same SPL. The latest technology Beryllium dome tweeters have fantastic prowess to reach out very high in the frequency range, but they are so far behind the compression drivers in the ability to produce DISTORTION-FREE sound, that it brings tears to the eyes. Yet, for compression drivers the extension does not go beyond the human hearing range, so they will not provide the subtle 20+kHz signals that are the last bit of icing for realistic sound reproduction. On the other hand, the compression driver (Altec 288K) produces the mid-high frequency range with vanishingly low mechanical distortion, on the order of 100,000 lower than that of the dome tweeter technology. So, comparing the two: -Beryllium dome tweeter: best icing ever (the part you can't hear) -Compression driver: best cake ever (the part you hear) My personal motto: to have a great cake you need firstly a great cake, and if you can add icing to it, all the better. However, great icing but poor cake is still a second rate cake..... despite looking very showy, the first bite will tell you. That's how sound is, and we all have our preferences. No matter which you prefer (many prefer icing over the cake, there's nothing wrong with that), good luck on your audio journey! I hope this video helps to make you appreciate why the "other" camp is so enamored with their favorite high frequency driver, as often we see that beryllium tweeter and compression driver users form very strong opinions about what they use, and what others use. Here's why :) This is part of the A5 VOTT series, looking at the compression driver used in the A5. Currently there is little to no information on how to build cabinets for 515 and 288 series drivers. I'm stirring up the scene, and throwing this stone in the pond to rediscover these magnificent drivers, which are supposedly the finest high efficiency woofer and the finest compression driver ever made. I've built my speakers with 515C and 288H. I call them Voice of Lancelot (VOL). They do not follow any currently available cabinet concepts or designs, they are the result of my two decades long research and know-how passed on to me by one of the greatest minds of high end audio (Stu Ono), who broke down ever single speaker design and taught me how to improve on them. Sadly, he is gone, but his legacy shall continue. VOL includes a few groundbreaking concepts, the synthesis of the current cabinet design principles, backed by music instrument making principles, adapted for human auditory systems requirements and the actual room requirements (as opposed to designing for an-echoic chambers and optimizing for a select subset of convenient measurements rather than human hearing and those measurements which show up the hidden issues). This video series will start introducing these overarching concepts to help you get ideas to build your own design, and enrich your life with truly astounding musical instruments, which bring substance rather than an empty show. As the saying goes, once you go Altec, you can't go back.... the adage is true, a properly built Altec is what I (and many) think as the finest music reproduction instrument available in our age. (Others can do better shows for sure, but fail at tonal balance, often miserably.) I encourage everyone to keep going on your chosen path, apply what you learn here, and I hope I can provide you munition to leap to the next level! Kaplah. MUSIC: Wolgemut Schauspeluden. CD. Sorry about the poor sound quality, the voice recorder did not fire. Bringing all the glory of the computer built-in microphone for you.