Tweeters

A tweeter is a loudspeaker designed to produce high frequencies, typically from around 2,000 hertz to 20,000 hertz (20,000 Hz is generally considered to be the upper limit of the human ear). Some tweeters can reach up to 30 to 35 kHz. more...

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The name is derived from the high pitched sounds of some birds.

Operation

Nearly all tweeters are electrodynamic drivers, using a voice coil suspended within a fixed magnetic field. Tweeters operate by applying current from an amplifier to a coil. The electrified voice coil produces a varying magnetic field which works against the fixed magnetic field, forcing the voice coil, and the diaphragm attached to it, to move. The coil is attached to a diaphragm, so the motion of the coil creates motion in the air which we hear as sound. Additional functional diagrams and details are listed under Loudspeaker.

Modern tweeters are typically different from older tweeters, which were usually small versions of woofers. As tweeter technology has advanced, designers have come to realize that woofer/midrange style cone shape and density were less than ideal. Today, most tweeters are dome shaped and made of a vibration damping material such as silk, or an extremely light and rigid material such as titanium.

Tweeter design is intended to effectively convert an electrical amplifier signal to mechanical air movement with nothing added or subtracted; the problem is difficult, and real-world tweeter design involves trade-offs. There are many challenges in tweeter design and manufacture such as stopping the dome's motion cleanly at each end of the in/out cycle, properly handling high level signals which require the dome to move farther in and out, and ringing in which stored energy is radiated after the drive signal stops. There are also challenges with keeping the dome centered as it moves, handling large amounts of power in a small voice coil, and with maintaining a stable electrical environment for the amplifier.

All tweeters have electrical/mechanical properties that influence or even force particular crossover choices in a loudspeaker system using that tweeter. There are no standards or commonalities for tweeters, so a given tweeter may work well in one application and not at all well in another. In short, this means that one tweeter is not likely to sound right if installed with a crossover suited to another tweeter. It is important for designers to know and understand these parameters in order to build a satisfactory high frequency section in a loudspeaker system.

Dome materials

All dome materials have advantages and disadvantages. The four properties designers look for in domes are light weight, stiffness, rapid damping, and lack of coloration/ringing. Exotic materials like titanium and beryllium are light and stiff but can have ringing problems. Materials like silk will ring less but are usually heavier for similar size and shape domes, and are not as stiff. But there are good tweeters and bad tweeters made with all types of dome materials. While there is a lot more to driver construction than just dome material, dome material choice is often an important selling point, so designers often use the most exotic dome materials, add assorted additional features (eg, lenses or phasing plugs), too often without regard for other complexities. Some dome tweeters have exotic designs such as putting a fixed wave guide (also known as a phase plug) over the middle of the dome, attempting to reduce directivity at high frequencies, at least in part.

Read more at Wikipedia.org