What is the difference between silk and aluminum tweeters? Do almunium have a "brighter" sound while silk has a warmer/softer sound? I'm thinking about getting the Diamond d661 component set for replacing my front speakers & tweeters but they come in both silk and aluminum... not sure which to pick. Unfortunately there is no one in my area (I don't think) that sells Diamond that I could listen to

 

Yes, aluminum tweets are brighter in sound. Diamond just recently added silk tweets as an option. I purchased my M661's with the silk, but realized I would have been happier with the aluminum tweets. So now I have both on my HEX system. If you want a very smooth natural sound, silk is the way to go. If you like the sharper "brighter" sound, aluminum all the way. (some people have complained that the aluminum on the Diamonds are too bright)

 

I have the aluminums and have the cross overs set to neutral (no tweeter cut) and it sounds great to me. The "s" sound with female voices is very SHARP but I like it (most of the time). You can always adjust down via the cross overs...

 

Definitely agree with both comments above concerning the difference betweeen the 2 materials. It really comes down to listener preferences. I personally prefer a silk tweeter as I find it is somewhat more soothing, but there is a tendency for some silk tweeters to be less accurate, so that is a potential drawback. I have not heard the Diamond Audio line before, so it is difficult for me to see specifically, but see if there is a local dealer near by that you can sit down and listen to these to find out what you personally prefer.

 

One thing that is interesting is that Diamond uses the same tweeters universally among their higher end components. Both the M661/D661 series uses the same tweets as the HEX series. They are great tweeters. Plus they are 8 ohm which is even good for home audio.

 

I didn't realize they were 8 ohm. They don't sound "quieter" than the rest of the system. Maybe the crossover balances the sound appropriately...

I'm not certain about your claim regarding the tweeter though cause the specs for the different components sets are different. The high end response should be the same across the board if the tweeters were all the same. The HEX series aluminum set has a response through 24 kHZ. None of the others are rated that high...

 

Nope, I'm 100% positive. I've contacted Diamond in regards to that matter. I know, seems odd that they rate the HEX's at 24khz, and the M/D series at 22kHZ, but they are identical. When I was building my x-overs, I talked to the DAT tech at length in regards to that issue. "Coupe" is his name, and he is very helpful if you ever need to contact DAT. Also another interesting fact is that the M651 x-over is identical to the M661 x-over. The FS is different only because of the size of the woofer. But they both use the same x-over network.

 

The tweeters aren't quieter. They're matched. The company that builds the tweets is German and I buy them direct for my speakers : )

Fundamentally, aluminum as a mechanical material tends to "ring" a little more - that is, every thing has a mechanical resonance. Some materials "ring" more, some stop "ringing" faster.

Silk has the ability to self-damp better than aluminum. Keeps excessive resonance from causing brightness.

Now, some silk tweeters have much lower resonances - Morel, a/d/s/, Alpine X type, DLS, Dynaudio, etc. These can play a lot of mid and can sound very different from high-resonance tweeters, regardless of material.

That's not just a material function, it's also a design function. Haven't seen metal tweeters play that low.

But as a matter of prejudice, I sell no metal tweeters at all in my store. Decided that they are easy to sell but not that easy to live with. We do all silk and fabric in the higher end.

I always wondered, if one speaker really does sound better, why sell others? So I decided to apply a speaker philosophy to what we carry.