XBL Tweeter... At Last!

Filed under: Home Audio > DIY Raw Drivers > Tweeters



Since XBL equipped drivers first started to pick up speed amongst the DIY and OEM crowds alike, there has been on near-constant question: where are the XBL tweeters? When Adire Audio was at the peak of its success, it was pretty common to see multi-page threads full of speculation about when some XBL tweeters would be available and what they would be capable of. With the closing of Adire Audio's doors last year, the hope for XBL tweeters has hinged on them becoming available through an OEM relationship and maybe showing up in a few kits. Lucky for us, this is now a reality thanks to Acoustic Development International.

This particular tweeter is 26mm in diameter and uses a pure ceramic dome with a neodymium magnet. It has nearly 2mm of linear throw with good efficiency and an Fs under 900 Hz, making this a good candidate for a low crossover point.

By itself, this tweeter is capable of 92dB efficiency above 2.5 kHz with slightly lower efficiency (89dB) below that. However, ADI is also recommending a waveguide which will result in 94dB efficiency from 1 kHz to 20 kHz with less than 1% THD over that range with 96dB SPL output. The slightly rising response from the tweeter on the top end is a good match with a conical horn. Recommended geometry is 3.5cm long, a throat diameter of 2.8cm, and a final diameter of 12.5cm.

THD from 1.5 kHz to 20 kHz at 96dB SPL is below 0.2%, while THD at 90dB SPL at 1 kHz (a very low frequency for a dome tweeter) is still very low at only 1.7%.

So how can you get your hands on a few of these? Well, this is an OEM product right now with a minimum order quantity of at least 1000 pieces, so you'd better have a good idea of how to use them all. Hopefully we'll be seeing these from one of the various ADI clients in the near future.