sbhattac@rnd.gba.nyu.edu (Shankar Bhattacharyya) (07/16/90)
A few weeks ago there was some discussion of ribbon drivers, and sources for them. Sorry this is wildly late, but perhaps it is of some use anyway: If we divide ribbons into two categories, small ones for use as tweeters, above 6 khz or so, and large ones for use as almost full-range drivers, from about 500hz on up, here are some which one can get in the USA: small ribbons: Deccas: about $200/pr on the used market, a true steal. I don't know what they cost new nowadays. The sensible way to get them may be to get someone in England to buy them for you, and send them over. Sequerra's Pyramids: two models. Expensive, but rather good. Handle rather more power than the Deccas. In the neighbourhood of $1000 a pair. I heard them over a pair of old Quads, and thought they were a bit harder than Deccas. Apatures: may not be made any longer, but obtainable on the used market, if you look. I have a pair on top of my Quads, and if I were to sell them, I would hope to get about $50 for them. Not as good as the Deccas, but not bad at all. JVC: also, most likely, no longer made, but obtainable if you go hunting. If you can find them, they should cost no more than about $30 the pair. Also, Panasonic made a leaf tweeter, which was quite well-regarded. A good way to find used drivers is to advertise in the back pages of Speaker Builder. There are not exactly a lot of other mechanisms for finding used drivers. The selection of small ribbon drivers may have declined over the years, perhaps because large ones have improved. large ribbons: Speaker Labs : about $1000 a pair. I don't know anything about them. They are a very recent design, and I don't know that there is much information on them. Speaker Labs is a bit effusive about their product, which is probably not surprising. Gold Ribbon Sound (previously called Gold Ribbon Concepts): When last I heard, their ribbons went for about $1600/pr. A design using these was described in Speaker Builder, and the builder was very pleased with the results. Even allowing for parental enthusiasm, these seem promising. They seemed to disappear for a while, but are now around again (perhaps always were), and are now in Iowa City, Iowa. Strathearn: much cheaper, probably not as good as the Gold Ribbons, but still quite good. Used cost about $250/pr. This is probably the most cost-effective way to build ribbon-based systems. Eminent Technology: They use a ribbon in the LFT-1 (?), and sell their drivers, too. I don't know any more about this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shankar Bhattacharyya, Information Systems, New York University sbhattac@rnd.gba.nyu.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------