Thanks for all the feedback and insightful comments. If you have the A130, it looks like it uses the same tweeter only with a slightly shrunken waveguide. If the waveguide design is producing some HD wouldn't it be likely you would notice it in the 130's waveguide? I'm just thinking it seems that explanation is unlikely unless the slightly larger waveguide in the 180/190 somehow compromises the design because I assume you are not finding much distortion in the 130's design.
I don't think it's the recordings because, while the old Lata recordings have horrible fidelity that is really brought out by these speakers, I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD600 headphones running through a small Hidiz DAC that I use as a reference for the various sources. I assume you would agree that these should produce a good reference for all the content in a song? Also, on simple at-home hearing tests (using the Sennheisers) I think my hearing cuts out around 15k these days.
On the breakup thing, could we be hearing the fabled break up mode of the aluminum dome, even though this is supposed to happen up at 30k or something like this? Countless people describe aluminum tweeters as fatiguing to listen to, which pretty well describes what I'm hearing here. I haven't really dug around here on ASR to see what the collective opinion of the concept is or where it might show up in audible measurements. Again, I do expect that the answer will be distortion between 2 and 3k once they're measured.
I definitely did listen to them at high volumes. I didn't measure it but based on other reference sounds I would say over 90 dB for stretches for sure, but probably not over 100.
Cool.
I would be very surprised if the whole "A" line did not use the same button tweeter.
It literally is a $1 tweeter to an OEM, though that is a very nice waveguide line they are using it in.
You can make great stuff with budget parts.
Headphones are never a reference for loudspeaker fidelity IMHO. Maybe, and I say maybe tonality but how could that be? The scale is tiny and in your head to a huge degree, there is not visceral bass to speak of and no sound waves hitting your body. There is no stereo effect only and L or R effect and all sorts of skewed distance perceptions. I definitely like a much darker headphone sound vs loudspeakers and never get all that excited about headphone sound in general. YMMV of course.
I also don't think the high frequency cutoff of your hearing is really indicative of what treble sounds like to you and how your brain uses the small frequencies to create a sonic landscape and sense of space. This is all very psychological and prolly not easily reduced. It is subjective almost all the way home with some helpful signs posts to guide you.
Measure your SPL, do you have an iPhone or a decent Android? Download an app. Some are not all that accurate but even if you are off by 5db at least you can get the idea.
100db average levels are extremely loud by the way, that would be louder than a great many speakers can play cleanly in the farfield.
You may also be hard clipping your amp on peaks as only powerful amps can drive those levels farfield unless your speakers are very efficient or your room very small.
Some of the smoothest most listenable tweeters I have ever heard have been metal domes and some of the harshest, brashest tweeters have been soft domes. The material is not important. The quality and implementation are.
The metal dome in my Revel M126be is absolutely never brash or harsh even when the music calls for screaming high energy peaks.
As I said a lot of folks like a darker sound or less vibrant, less realistic treble.
Treble has various qualities but "bright" is often used universally to describe what is more granular.
I like photography so some of this is photography analogy. It is not a complete list of treble related adjectives by any means at all nor is it universal just what I can do to clarify and these can be combined mix and match and add yours.
"Bright" = overexposed, blown out highlights. details are lost as everything is just trebble with no air. Turning down the trebble helps this unlike "brash" below.
"Dark" = underexposed highs, a dim room that doesn't hurt your eyes but details are either obscured or muted. The details do appear if you look they are not blacked out or in the case of music they present if you "lean and listen, or go into the music"
"Dull" = like above but even when leaning in there is no detail no vibrancy. It is not mellow but rather lifeless.
"Vibrant" = filled with energy and a sense of realism, big yet sounding and feeling good to listen to despite being very present. You don't need to lean in but rather the treble comes and gets you but in just the right way.
"Over Saturated" = like the above but starting to feel embellished rather than real, still good sounding but close to the next one which is..
"Brash" = treble stands out to much to often in a way that perhaps would be "vibrant" but something else just isn't working such as low quality tweeter or poor implementation. You want to lean away or turn it down but often that brash quality stays as it is not tonal but rather something else.
"Harsh" = Like the above but less obvious at 1st and then starts to grow after it is to late - this is headache city for some folks. Often this is a bad recording meets a brash and/or bright tweeter.
and many more...
When I tested the DBR62's, besides the Snells, I also had 6 other pairs of bookshelf speakers, including the Elac Debut 2 6.0's, Monitor Bronze 2, Dali Oberon 1, Micca RB42, Jamo S803, and Pioneer BS22. Granted none of those speakers are expected to have the bass quality of the DBR62, but at least I was able to rotate through all of them in an apples-to-apples comparison and it was clear the DBR had the best quality bass output of the group by a comfortable margin. I was particularly impressed with the detail and texture that it gave to bass. Of course the texture part could have been a flaw but I assume it had to do with the design of the port and any time difference that produced, or perhaps the construction and bending behavior of the cone during travel, but who knows. It just sounded very, very good for a 6" ported woofer. As a side note, I was not happy with any of those speakers and returned all of them, except that I later got the Pioneer's for $80 a pair and did Dennis' mod on them which has made them at least nice. I still can't explain the "short tunnel" effect on the DBR62's but was enough of a flaw to really bother me and I had to return them. I almost tried to convince Dennis to mod them but what would he fix??
"Monitor Bronze 2, Dali Oberon 1, Micca RB42, Jamo S803, and Pioneer BS22." None of these are speakers that have particularly great bass. I am not surprised you appreciated the ELAC more. The ELAC 2 6.0 has pretty good bass though IMHE and some have said there is little to no difference between the 6.0v2 and the DBR62 in the bass, they measure fairly similarly all ways there as well. I am not saying you did not hear differences.
My advice is try a REVEL M16. Try the KEF R3. Try the M106, try the JBL l82 with is treble adjustment pot, if you like Dennis try the BMR(though really high SPL is in ? there), try that KLH model 5, which I have never heard but everyone seems to like. Try some better loudspeaker gear. So far you are working the budget realm. Great values to be found there for sure but are they actual gems? Don't miss out.
