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I was reading the Sound Quality tutorial and it seems to be mention that the tweeter is the most important? I was wondering why this is so, considering that most of the vocals are covered by the midbass drivers?

Someone shed some light?

All speakers are equally important in a good SQ set up, I feel. In a 3-way system, the vocals mainly come from the midrange, but in a 2-way setup, most vocals come from the tweeter.

Well, midrange (not really midbass so much) drivers don't really cover most vocal frequencies. It's really just over half of them, but this really depends on the crossover frequency.

The main reason tweeters are the most important is that human ears are the most sensitive to high frequencies and can notice subtleties much more easily than with lower frequencies.

One of the reasons tweeters are the most important is the effect the upper frequencies have on a person. In many recordings, there is a whisper track that captures all of the high pitched noises from a vocalist and is layered into the original track. This adds great depth.

You can also take distance for example. High frequencies are absorbed first by the atmosphere. (this really doesn't affect you inside the car as much, though as it would inside a large room in your home)

Tweeters are very directional as compared to midbass and midrange drivers.

300-3khz is the critical range. There's a reason the telephone is designed with those frequencies as the biggest priority Which means midbass or midrange drivers.

Tweeters primarily cover harmonics of the fundamental vocals. They're critical for detail and ambience, but the midbass/midrange is by far the most important driver in a system IMO.

hmm my tweets are currently crossed over at 3.2khz. damn

I have to agree with Jonathan here. The mids are the most important.

Yeah the install of your tweeter can make a big diffrence, it would be lacking without a good mid.

Rivers, there is nothing wrong with having your mid and tweeter x-over at 3.2k As long as your not running into beaming issues with the mid. Heck my Focals x-over at 3k from factory.

Jonathan are you using a W18NX001?

As are mine Jeremy.

I was going to say pretty much what John said. Every speaker and component of the system is important (my chain analogy again..) but tweeters are the most directional of the speakers, so their placement can be vital. Midrange covers most of your audio spectrum for music and nearly all of your vocals, while still being fairly directional so their placement and signal path length compared to the tweeters is also vital, as is their absolute phasing. Remember 70% of your music is covered by the front stage of your system as far as frequency range goes.

Blending the tweeters and midranges is vital as well. If the two don't match well, and if the crossover you choose doesn't do the job of blending them together well, the quality of each speaker isn't going to matter in the least. Same goes for the installation and choice of mounting locations for those speakers.

Never get so focused on one thing that you neglect other equally important factors. Never miss the forest for the trees.

Rivers wrote:Jonathan are you using a W18NX001?

Not at the moment. I've considered using some in either a car audio application or for home audio use down the road, but right now we're about to put up another MBO line and I'm stuck with the engineering at the moment. Not a lot of time for fun when you put in 96 hours in a week *sigh*.