How could you quantify such a thing though if a soft dome measures like this?
A couple dB here and there but pretty flat. SB Acoustics.
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Anyway it's a raw response and not exactly what you'll get in a speaker box, but just trying to figure out what about the driver would cause that.
1st, to be clear I can't quantify it. Even if I was going to, the frequency response by itself doesn't seem like enough data. Find me a driver manufacturer who only looks at that in house when creating a driver.
Anecdotally, I have used several SB drivers with textile domes. I currently have two speakers here that have them installed(the same tweeter in this case). One is horn loaded/waveguided and one a 3way without a horn.
They sound very different from each other in many ways and similar in others.
I would bet if I was blind tested or anyone with some level of experience was tested blind they would guess they are both soft domes and not metal. As well between Just these 2, I think picking the horn would be possible if one new 1 of the 2 had a horn. Just 2 designs though and a guess about a hypothetical test, so clearly not a white paper.
In any case per your postulation, nothing I have said in my posts does not mean that ultimately a soft dome can't sound indistinguishable from a metal and therefore a metal dome sound sound indistinguishable from a textile.
Anecdotally have you heard very many design that you thought had soft domes that turned out to be metal or very many metal domes that turned out to be soft domes? I am just curious, I have a couple times. Generally though I think I have been able to tell or least note a preference for a sound that is most common so far on designs I have heard using metal tweeters. How many variables beyond driver material many be contributing here? Many of course.
Really, you are asking a question about something that is still very controversial.(or not depending on how one leans in on this)
Driver materials.
So far I have not noted a preference for designs using a particular material in woofers in myself. Though I do think that if someone could truly isolate just the material there would be some difference inherent. It would be fun to find out.
With tweeters again how would Isolate the material enough? In any case if I take a BE tweeter or a good ceramic alum I have a stiff very lightweight material. With a good textile I have the lightweight but not the stiffness.
When playing at a good robust volume and dealing with crescendos are the soft and stiff drivers behaving exactly the same way?
When they overload a bit are they presenting the same quality.
Anyway golden ears aside, people are not sensitive in the exact same ways. Especially with regard to what we are extra sensitive toward or typically pay extra attention to whether naturally or when sitting upright and at attention.
For myself, like some others, I believe I pay quite a bit of attention to the highs.
I do believe some very subtle things (that I not saying are the result of golden ears) that happen in the treble region are things I many just be attracted to and extra sensitive toward like some other folks and unlike some others. At that point if there is variation then a general preference may emerge.
For my REVEL M126be speakers I was skeptical about Be. In DIY products it is absurdly expensive and many great speakers don't use it. I purchased the M126Be speakers as I really liked the M105, loved the M16 and went to buy the M106 to get the extra power of the 6.5" driver with the M105 design character. I ended up just going for the M126Be as the price offered was worth giving them a shot. Normally at retail $2200 vs $4400 is pretty crazy but the discount on the M126Be was substantial. It would be great to compare someday the M106 and M126Be even though they are completely different speakers with different drivers they have the family similarity and I am curious how they sound side by side.
One thing that would be really interesting is to ask Harman why they chose Metal Tweeters for their entire REVEL line. Same goes for KEF, GENELEC, Neumann, Perlisten and other manufacturers that do a lot of testing and use design approaches rooted in science. Why did they choose the tweeters they did. Especially as there is a lot of metal tweeters in the above manufacturer list. Though obviously others use soft domes or other materials. Arendal, KII, and many others. JBL is using a mixture and I have to say that Teonix(fancy mylar??) is really interesting so far as possible metal lover.
One speaker I'd like to hear but just have not is the Tekton Impact Monitor that measures extremely well and uses a soft dome tweeter and of course that array of additional tweeters as sort of dispersion control upper midrange unit.
Dennis Murphy has used a wide variety of tweeters in his design and folks swear by all of them. I'd be interested din his take on tweeter driver material. He definitely has stated he doesn't like waveguides.