PURIFI finally did a fully purified passive speaker design! The SPK 16 prototype is here - with a PTT tweeter

[vermouth]

Would anyone in the uk, be interested in a group buy baffle with integrated 8" waveguide to suit SATORI TW29 (perhaps others) and either 6.5" or 8" Purifi PTT drivers?
Machined from solid resin based composite.

 

[Lbstyling]

I got to hear the new Lyngdorf CUE-100 today, they were really great. At the Bristol show with full Lyngdorf streamer/amps. Kept me in my seat and wanting to hear more.

There was a perfection that I didn't hear in many other systems and a clarity (lack of distortion?) that was epic.

Amazing what the little 6.5" with a few passive radiators can put out, the RoomPerfect software helped tighten up the bass (they did an A/B).

£19k+ a pair. Hopefully I can build something with the woofers soon.

I heard the same system at the same show. Sound was truly excellent.

I was surprised how much better this was than almost anything at the show.

The demo of the room EQ was very good.

What surprised me was the only thing that sounded as good (in fact it was marginally better IMO) was the much cheaper Warfdale floorstanders.

 

[Lbstyling]

So we know when the SPK16 tweeter is released. And the price?

 

[mocenigo]

I heard the same system at the same show. Sound was truly excellent.

I had a chance of hearing it AND also the system with the SPK16 tweeter. Since the two listening were temporally quite apart and in non controlled situations, I cannot compare them, but both were astonishingly transparent. Also, the SPK16 was driven by the ‘9040.

We do live in very, very interesting times.

I was surprised how much better this was than almost anything at the show.

The demo of the room EQ was very good.

What surprised me was the only thing that sounded as good (in fact it was marginally better IMO) was the much cheaper Warfdale floorstanders.

 

[Matias]

New article about the new tweeter.

The PURIFI Tweeter Project - Part 1

A Short Story of a Long Multi-Disciplinary R&D Effort

purifi-audio.com

"Sadly, most tweeters have a strongly narrowing dispersion in the top octave which simply seems to have become an accepted fact of life. It has even become the norm to seek a predicted in room response that tilts downwards which is the consequence of the poor dispersion of today’s tweeters."

They still did not get the part of deviating from the norm and therefore creating a circle of confusion... aka bright.

 

[IamJF]

@Matias There are plenty of usecases for linear off axis performance! I like my reference speakers in a good controlled room are flat at high frequencies to hear all the details and make mixing easier. And this is not bright, it sounds natural. Also many rooms have too much dampening at high frequencies -> linear radiation helps.
It's just for untreated rooms with hard reflective surfaces (modern concrete & glass bunkers) where it is quickly too much. Or when you like your sound very bass heavy and warm.

Have you ever heared speakers with tweeters like Bliesma T34A or T25A? It's amazing how far you can move off axis and the sound stays perfectly the same. I build my kitchen speakers with T25A for that reason and also my surrounds to get as much hf energy off axis as possible for all seats.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Sadly, most tweeters have a strongly narrowing dispersion in the top octave which simply seems to have become an accepted fact of life. It has even become the norm to seek a predicted in room response that tilts downwards which is the consequence of the poor dispersion of today’s tweeters."

Interesting. Maybe they were onto something at Kingswood Warren back in the ‘70s, look at the thing they put over the T27 dome:

A stock T27:

Incidentally, the Tygan grilles that cover the entire front baffle of the LS3/5a were also considered mandatory.

 

[Matias]

@Matias There are plenty of usecases for linear off axis performance! I like my reference speakers in a good controlled room are flat at high frequencies to hear all the details and make mixing easier. And this is not bright, it sounds natural. Also many rooms have too much dampening at high frequencies -> linear radiation helps.
It's just for untreated rooms with hard reflective surfaces (modern concrete & glass bunkers) where it is quickly too much. Or when you like your sound very bass heavy and warm.

Have you ever heared speakers with tweeters like Bliesma T34A or T25A? It's amazing how far you can move off axis and the sound stays perfectly the same. I build my kitchen speakers with T25A for that reason and also my surrounds to get as much hf energy off axis as possible for all seats.

These are all very good reasons. Yet the flat response would still deviate from a tilted down slope that the mixing and mastering engineers used to finish the song.

Also ask anyone who tried a simplistic flat target curve on their room EQ: it just sounds thin and bad. Why aim the tweeter project to that??

 

[IamJF]

Yet the flat response would still deviate from a tilted down slope that the mixing and mastering engineers used to finish the song.

No - it isn't. The tilted Harman Curve is just ONE of the possible room curves. But very rarely you aim for a complete flat curve, that's also true.

For e.g. the standard curve for Neumann MA1 is flat but with 3-4dB pronounced low frequencies. I use the same but with 4-6db pronaunced LF (to translate better to the real world in my very dry control room). Genelec GLM is also aiming for a flat HF response. These companies know a little about monitoring, maybe even more as I do
In Dirac you can chose between the Harman Curve and a more linear one or own curve.

This is the Harman Curve:

It's tilted 1dB from 10khz to 20kHz! That's completely different as what normal tweeters achieve there!

For listening in my Home Cinema I also use something similar to this curve. But for reference listening in a dry room (or nearfield) the linear curve is better for many.

 

[Matias]

A Genelec 8351B has pretty linear highs up to 17 kHz.

Graphs and Measurements for Genelec 8351B

www.spinorama.org

Same with Kii Three.

Graphs and Measurements for Kii Audio Three

www.spinorama.org

Neumann LH150 too, it is elevated a bit as a whole but otherwise no sudden drop.

Graphs and Measurements for Neumann KH 150

www.spinorama.org

All of them use somewhat traditional tweeters, and are pretty much state of the art reference monitors AFAIK. All tilted and pretty linear responses in that air region.

 

[IamJF]

You know how these in room graphs are calculated? In a monitoring situation (and that's what these speakers are made for) you don't sit far away in an untreated room! You don't have the reflection angles used for this calculation (cause you sit closer) and you have absorbers to dampen those early reflections.
You get a result WAY closer to the direct 0° frequency response.

Let's wait and see how the Purifi tweeter will perform with these room calculations. For sure more linear but it also has a cabinet blocking HF at 180° - it's not a spherical source!

 

[Rick Sykora]

New article about the new tweeter.

The PURIFI Tweeter Project - Part 1

A Short Story of a Long Multi-Disciplinary R&D Effort

purifi-audio.com

"Sadly, most tweeters have a strongly narrowing dispersion in the top octave which simply seems to have become an accepted fact of life. It has even become the norm to seek a predicted in room response that tilts downwards which is the consequence of the poor dispersion of today’s tweeters."

They still did not get the part of deviating from the norm and therefore creating a circle of confusion... aka bright.

View attachment 371052

Sorry, but until it is priced and available (and detailed measurements provided), am less interested in more white papers, interviews or even prototypes. At this stage, this paper seems pretty lightweight from content perspective. Did we not already see a dome prototype a year ago?

I want to know if it will deliver something significantly better (and when) and will it be at a reasonable price!

 

[highender]

@Matias There are plenty of usecases for linear off axis performance! I like my reference speakers in a good controlled room are flat at high frequencies to hear all the details and make mixing easier. And this is not bright, it sounds natural. Also many rooms have too much dampening at high frequencies -> linear radiation helps.
It's just for untreated rooms with hard reflective surfaces (modern concrete & glass bunkers) where it is quickly too much. Or when you like your sound very bass heavy and warm.

Have you ever heared speakers with tweeters like Bliesma T34A or T25A? It's amazing how far you can move off axis and the sound stays perfectly the same. I build my kitchen speakers with T25A for that reason and also my surrounds to get as much hf energy off axis as possible for all seats.

AFAIK the only commercial available Bliesma T25A execution is the Sun Audio Purified 4, throwing a wide dispersion indeed. Considering the concept, I would expect they will also offer the Purifi tweeter when available.

Spoiler: SPL Horizontal Sun Audio Purified 4 with Bliesma T25A

 

[kemmler3D]

I personally think the wide dispersing tweeter is really interesting (never heard anyone say anything bad about Bliesma so far) but what I'm more interested in is the distortion numbers. The purifi mids and woofers do better than anything I've seen in terms of distortion, will the tweeter similarly become the unit to beat?

And if the dispersion is too wide for your taste, as they note, you have

• Complete freedom to adjust the dispersion with a waveguide.

 

[Salt]

There are constant directivity tweeters all around for decades/centuries, not?

 

[Sokel]

I personally think the wide dispersing tweeter is really interesting (never heard anyone say anything bad about Bliesma so far) but what I'm more interested in is the distortion numbers. The purifi mids and woofers do better than anything I've seen in terms of distortion, will the tweeter similarly become the unit to beat?

And if the dispersion is too wide for your taste, as they note, you have

So far real world high SPL champions with nice performance,low fs,really low distortion,etc are the Elipticors,specially D3404/55200.
The price is a little high but as Purifi,quality is no cheap.

 

[cavedriver]

The biggest driver I see for this (being a fan of beryllium tweeters) is that the whole beryllium supply problem from Materion is driving prices through the roof. I'd be happy to fall in love with a new tweeter that isn't beryllium. So far the Satori textreme tweeter is "great" but still not "equal" to the best beryllium domes, at least from what I've read and the small number of speakers I've heard it in.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

"Sadly, most tweeters have a strongly narrowing dispersion in the top octave which simply seems to have become an accepted fact of life. It has even become the norm to seek a predicted in room response that tilts downwards which is the consequence of the poor dispersion of today’s tweeters."

I bought a new spaeker that doesn't beam in the top and sounds really good these highs-end hz
This look awesome for a dome tweeter and looks awesome to the eyes too. Concept 500:

This dome looks always black but with light is kind of red, the top end is very good love it.

This is not the Concept 500 but a smaller brother

 

[kemmler3D]

The biggest driver I see for this (being a fan of beryllium tweeters) is that the whole beryllium supply problem from Materion is driving prices through the roof. I'd be happy to fall in love with a new tweeter that isn't beryllium. So far the Satori textreme tweeter is "great" but still not "equal" to the best beryllium domes, at least from what I've read and the small number of speakers I've heard it in.

I'm interested to see where the breakup mode of this driver is. IIRC the Aluminum domes from Bliesma have theirs way up around 27khz or something, (at least I am sure they are ultrasonic) so much less problematic than others. Presumably Purifi has made some efforts in that regard. IMO that would remove some reason to seek out beryllium over aluminum.

 

[Head_Unit]

There are constant directivity tweeters all around for decades/centuries, not?

Are you including horns? I have seen *some* horns that have a really constant directivity. But if you mean domes, I can't think of one.

One of the difficulties with truly constant directivity is then the on-axis response will generally droop. In some shining future I want a constant dispersion horn and will use room EQ to flatten things.