Mark K's Speaker Pages
...when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science...Lord Kelvin
Scan Speak Aircirc 6600 and Peerless HDS 1" 810921
Scan Speak 6600 and Peerless HDS tweeter 810921, all compared with the Seas 27TBFC/G as a reference
Frequency response at 1m.
SS6600
Peerless HDS
The venerable Seas 27TBFC/G
Nonlinear distortion
Notes
What we have below are matched pairs of graphs. In the first of each pair, the Seas is in black. Again, as usual for Praxis, the red graph is underlaid. You'll only see it if it exceeds the level of black. So, where you see extra red, this means extra SS6600 distortion. In the second of each pair, the graphs are flipped and excess red is excess Seas distortion.
Hopefully that's not too confusing. Or, just skip to the conclusion.
Now just for this pairing at 1k, the SS was only driven to 104dB. I started seeing all that higher order stuff appearing and got a little nervous. In retrospect, I could push it without a problem. I don't have a graph of that. Well, you're not really going to cross it at 1k, are you? Turns out the SS isn't statistically worse at 1k, though it struggles a bit at 1.5k.
Below, you've got the 1.5k bursts. The Seas is a bit better.
Now we go to 2k and the tables turn, markedly. At 2k and above, the SS6600 is clearly the nonlinear distortion winner. It is better at 2k, 3k, and 5k.
OK, how about the Peerless?
For the 1k data, only 1 graph.
At 1.5k
At 2k
At 3k
At 5k
Conclusion.
The Scan Speak 6600 is clearly the nonlinear distortion winner at 2k and above. In fact, it's probably one of the best I've tested at 2k and above. Without doing the comparison tests all over again, it's hard to always make the comparisons to older data that's often done a bit differently.
Nonetheless, at 2k and above, it's clearly an elite tweeter. It also has a very extended low end response and very flat to 10k. The top octave has a bit of peaking, but that's about it. I probably wouldn't go much below 2k to get the most out of the tweeter.
What about the Peerless? Also a winner. At 2k and above, it's in a statistical dead heat with the Seas, which is saying a lot, since the Seas is one of the best performing tweeters, irrespective of price. What makes the Peerless especially nice is it's very smooth and extended top end and somewhat better than average-for-a-1"-dome off axis performance. It too, has a rising top end, but it's a little smoother, and more easily adjusted than, say, the SS6600. At it's price of around $60, it should be a hit. I see a nice 2 way second order Peerless HDS exclusive 2 way in my future. Or, someone's future.