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Is the Shredder the only alternative to the stock Guitar Hero guitar? Does anybody have the shredder & is it any good? Or some of these guitars I just watched someone playing GH at Best Buy and it looked like a blast. Before I go spend the $60 I want to know if the guitar itself is any good. If not, Im sure I can find a loose copy of the game somewhere and buy a couple good guitars.

Thanks for helping me understand this better.

It's peak volume vs quality.

The compression/horn drivers work better for cinema, concerts, outdoor events requiring very loud volumes blaring in all direcitons. The horn is an wide-angle amplifier of the sound waves but the quality of the sound suffers from various wave modes, resonance, etc.

The ribbon/dome tweeters provide more accrate treble without the interference of a horn but without the amplification of a horn-shaped waveguide you'll need much larger and more powerful units to obtain the same sound volume levels as an equivalent horn.

If you are using the speakers for personal listening you will not need or want a horn driver because a ribbon or dome tweeter will offer a more accurate reproduction. The only reason you normally see horns used for near/mid-field speakers is if they are trying to make the speakers as small as possible. Bose try this and it works if you have some effective DSP, but it's expensive and arguably flawed in other ways. Unless you need (very) loud volumes or outdoor speakers for hundreds of people, ignore the type of HF driver and just go on audio reviews by the experts.

Just to expand on what Chrispy_ said a little, dome tweeters can be highly directional, with HF response falling off dramatically depending on how far off-axis the listener is. This is less of an issue for near field applications like studio monitors since the listener will usually be sitting directly in front of the speakers; and for a studio monitor you really don't want the resonances and frequency response anomalies which can come with a horn-based design.

Horns are more efficient at turning electrical energy into sound.

So it's all about optimizing the design for the intended application. You're trading off flat frequency response against efficiency and uniformity of sound dispersal.

If this is for a purchasing decision for a desktop or home studio / living room, I wouldn't worry too much about the design type. Just read/watch the reviews and don't mind whatever technology the speakers in question use.

Dieol wrote:

I am trying to understand better a few things.

1. When I see in magazines and online - large main studio speakers like the Augspurgers, and JBL M2's, have tweeters with horn/compression drivers.

2. But most studio speakers for nearfield, and midfield, for example, those reviewed in Sound on Sound, use dome or Ribbon tweeters.

Which is better, compression driver/horn tweeters or dome tweeters?

Are cost savings a reason why dome tweeters are the de-facto standard in nearfield/midfield speakers.

Why are compression driver/horn tweeters not used in most nearfield/midfield studio speakers?

..better (in this context) is a subjective quality, assuming similar objective results - it's really up to you what is "better". I tend to favor (treble) in-order: Ribbons, Heil/AMT, Electrostat, Planar, (good domes), compression drivers. So between a good dome vs. good compression driver (ALL ELSE EQUAL), I prefer the dome tweeter. As you move into the midrange, my preference changes, there I prefer Electrostat's and specifically in a dipole radiator.

Dome's are often less expensive than compression drivers - at least on an OEM basis and when comparing a typical 1" dome tweeter to a typical 1" exit compression driver. To consumers though there is large range of choices/prices.


In a near-field basis (less than a meter distance from the monitor), the integration window (polar/directivity response/summation between the drivers) for the tweeter + midrange/midbass becomes more difficult for a horn loaded tweeter, be it a compression driver or a dome tweeter, within a short distance (..depending on the *size/depth of the horn and diffraction artifacts). The subjective result is a "disconnect" between the tweeter and the midrange/midbass - with a typical "I can hear the tweeter" effect.


*small (6" or less) round shallow depth waveguides/horns often integrate reasonably well at shorter distances, and can even help with dispersion matching between the two drivers.

Unless you find a particular trusted reviewer that has the same taste as you do, there's not a great substitute for actually listening to speakers yourself in a head-to-head comparison. More than two decades ago, I was able to audition dozens and dozens of speakers side-by-side. (Yes, this was long enough ago that I was able to visit Circuit City stores.) I selected Infinity Crescendo speakers with the EMIT-R ribbon/leaf tweeters for my home theater system because the speakers simply sounded better (to me) than anything else in the store, even the more expensive models from other brands. Today, the decent-sounding speakers that I've listened to use dome tweeters. Ribbons have gone out of style.