Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler New Products? A Question For Ian, Amie and/or Alan

I'm sure there are folks who'd prefer one to the other. I sold my M50s. I'd give a pair of M45s a twirl, especially a pair of M45 STs.

The current binding posts aren't all that beefy, and my bananas don't hold very tight in them. I've actually switched to spades because of it. The binding posts on the Veritas I had at home were much, much nicer.

Oh...I almost forgot...nicer grills. They're really flimsy.

I know all these things are mostly cosmetic. The speaker themselves sound great, and I don't know enough about audio to make any engineering suggestions.

About the 45kHz thing. There are people in the world that believe that even though the human ear can not hear above 22kHz, a speaker that can play to 45kHz still sounds better. Sounds like a load of audiophile crap to me, but I have never experienced it. One speaker I can think of that does it can be found here:
http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/home/utopiabe/microbe.htm

The JM Labs mini utopia you referenced are great speakers. Here's the Frequency Response plot for that speaker:



There are some other very high end speakers which also use supertweeters, Tannoy, Harbeth, VMPS, PSB Platinum Range speakers, Coincident ... you may recognize some of the greatest speakers out there.

I guess the theory is that, even though we may not be able to hear it, there may be some inaudible charateristics that affect the way that we interpret/recieve the sound. Or, it may be that, even though we can't hear above 22kHz, a speaker that can play frequencies above that amount is sure to be able to reproduce the frequencies we CAN hear without strain, and as such, the extreme frequencies are experienced as naturally as possible.

But what do I know.

Preserves the amplitude of fundamental harmonics, which are well within the average person's hearing range.

Here's a white paper on the subject:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:uicyBsZzhysJ:www.tannoyna.com/professional/pdf/wp_wideband.pdf+why+supertweeter&hl=en

Somehow I doubt that many people can hear over 16000 Hz, much less 22000 Hz... And I've always seen it as 20kHz, anyway.

Just nitpicking.

Fascinating thread.

What types of instruments (or sounds) would produce energy in that beyond audibility range? I mean, are we talking about harmonics created by cymbal crashes or what here? Is there a specific example of a type of sound or a type of instrument whose reproduction would be enhanced by the ability of the speaker to produce those signals from 22k-45k Hz?

And are the other links in the typical audio chain either deliberately or theoretically limited in conveying signals at those frequencies? That is, even if I had a super-tweeter, would a system comprised of "typical" audio components benefit, or would you need to upgrade to esoterics to really hear the difference?

Just because a manufacturer (like Axiom, for instance) only *rates* speaker frequency response up to 20k Hz, does that necessarily mean that the extant tweeter is incapable of flat response even higher? Is there a theoretical limit on frequency response based on the design characteristic of a dome tweeter?

Yes, I AM too lazy to do my own research, but y'all started it.

You probably can't hear anything above 15 kHz. Nevertheless, it makes an audible difference in the range you can hear. Cymbals provide approximately 40% of their energy above 20 kHz. The violin and oboe provide substantial musical energy above 40 kHz and the triangle puts out substantial musical energy at 100 kHz.

Hi Tom

That's the beauty of SACD and DVD Audio - these formats put out energy in the supertweeter range.

Here's the response graph for the Axiom M80Ti, note the steep drop off just before 20 kHz.