The first listening session with the super tweeters in place was just completed.  The recordings used were Mark O'Connor's Hot Swing Trio with special guests Wynton Marsalis and Jane Monheit followed by tenor Mark Padmore and The English Concert doing arias and songs for tenor.  It took only a minute or two switching back and forth between no volume to the super tweeters and appropriate volume to the super tweeters that matched the Quintets to know that addition of super tweeters is going to be a fantastic upgrade.

The super cheap 8 ohm super tweeters (two per side) are wired in series and crossed over at 12khz with a single capacitor.  They are being driven by a Cary Audio 300SEI outfitted with Western Electric 300Bs and Cryotone input and driver tubes.  The super tweeters are less than two inches apart, facing straight up to the ceiling, sitting on stands three feet behind the Quintets, and are at the exact height of the Voxativ full range drivers.  The reason I have two per side is that I had originally planned to have one facing forward and other to the rear, but I determined that comb filtering was going to be a real problem using a first order crossover so in the end decided to have them all behind and facing straight up.

Unless I put my ear right on the face plate of the ribbon there is no evidence that they are operating at all, but from the listening chair, and from the family room one flight of stairs up, and where I do lots of listening these days, the amount of additional air is so obvious.  And it's not just air, it's juicy air--a much greater level of ambient detail that I did not expect.  The last thing I would have ever said about my system is that it sounded dry, but compared to how it now sounds, at least with these two recordings, it sounds dry without the super tweeters doing their thing behind the Quintets.  I guess the bottom line conclusion for now is that all of the instruments and singers sound significantly more like live musicians and singers.  It is not a subtle improvement--it's quite remarkable.

So, thanks again, Geno, for getting me thinking about this possible system upgrade.  It looks like it's going to be a winner.

The tweeters are precariously sitting on pieces of one inch thick oak that are atop a pair of very old Klipsch corner bass horns that I've been using as bass traps for many years.  This set-up is temporary, but now that I know how effective the super tweeters are, I'll use some quality wire and connectors and figure out a permanent mounting system that looks a lot nicer.  

Here's a photo of the temporary set-up........



After several more hours of listening today, I couldn't be happier with results of this inexpensive experiment.  The tweeters cost $25 a piece at Parts Express and the two Jantzen Superior caps were $15 each.  I guess if I hadn't had a spare amp on the shelf it would have been a little trickier to get the output level matching right, but lucky for me I had one.  

MM, glad to have inspired someone else to give it a go, or another go, in your case.  For many years I have been wanting to try an expensive pair of super tweeters, but I just couldn't force myself to lay out that kind of money on an experiment.  But when Geno posted about his success last year with the rear firing tweeters, I knew right then that at some point in time I would give something like that a try.  Now with many hours of listening over several days, I'm convinced that anyone, even those completely inexperienced in listening to quality stereo systems, would immediately recognize the difference with and without the supertweeters in my system.

I'm am curious about your series wiring and any crossover parts.

I misspoke about the series wiring in my earlier post- the f15 and w15 are in series. Positive out from the amp to F15 positive terminal, F15 negative to W15 positive, W15 negative to amp negative.

The tweeters are literally “stuck” to the W15, magnet to magnet, pointed up. The tweeters are wired out of phase in parallel with the W15, with a 3.3 Solen capacitor on the tweeter.

I have basic knowledge of calculating ohms and resistance with wiring a couple of speakers in parallel vs series- and I have no idea what this load looks like or how bad the impedance matching is. All I can say is that it sounds a little better. I intended to throw it together and see how it sounds then make it permanent if I liked it. I haven’t gotten to the permanent part yet. It sounded good and there it sits.