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Author Topic: Meyer tweeter array  (Read 21648 times)

John L Nobile

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2019, 11:19:41 AM »

I don't recall piezos ever sounding very good. I always thought that the only reason for having them was to claim a 20khz and higher freq response on paper.

Am I wrong???
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Dave Pluke

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2019, 11:55:20 AM »

I don't recall piezos ever sounding very good. I always thought that the only reason for having them was to claim a 20khz and higher freq response on paper.

Am I wrong???

Nope!

All they did, IMHO, was to add a little HF static sufficient to fool some ears.

"The Emperor's new high end" for those of us too cheap to buy JBL slots or bullets...

Dave
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duane massey

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #12 on: June 17, 2019, 12:16:57 PM »

I don't recall piezos ever sounding very good. I always thought that the only reason for having them was to claim a 20khz and higher freq response on paper.

Am I wrong???
The small piezos were pretty horrible. The larger ones, if used with a passive network, could be "ok". I still have a small 2-way cabinet with a screw-on horn/piezo, and it works well for a monitor on a small stage. None of them sound good at higher levels.
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Duane Massey
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Paul G. OBrien

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2019, 08:52:52 PM »

All of the original Motorola piezos were super tweeters and any type of deployment that didn't use them as such ended badly. I used them in a few DIY projects of mine back in the '80s, for home audio apps they delivered a lot more topend than the cone tweeters that were common at the time but they didn't have the power handling capacity to survive PA applications in singles or even doubles. I still have some with holes burned through the piezo element from my first DJ cabs, after blowing these up twice in 2 gigs I substituted regular bullet super tweeters and gained a massive increase in sound quality, instead of everything sounding like frying bacon from moderate drive levels up I could actually discern the difference between ride and crash cymbals and the system had much better dynamic range. Except for the later powerline compression driver versions these things were really only good for lower power levels.
I remember there was a guy down the street with a Traynor or Peavey 2-way system, 15's with the big white horn something like the old Yamaha 4115 but with and separate super tweeter box on top with 8 or 10 piezo units in an arched horizontal array. This system definitely worked better but it still had too much of the frying bacon sound at higher drive levels, I quickly came to dislike this characteristic after switching my own system to proper compression drivers.
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #14 on: June 20, 2019, 04:45:19 PM »

All of the original Motorola piezos were super tweeters and any type of deployment that didn't use them as such ended badly. I used them in a few DIY projects of mine back in the '80s, for home audio apps they delivered a lot more topend than the cone tweeters that were common at the time but they didn't have the power handling capacity to survive PA applications in singles or even doubles. I still have some with holes burned through the piezo element from my first DJ cabs, after blowing these up twice in 2 gigs I substituted regular bullet super tweeters and gained a massive increase in sound quality, instead of everything sounding like frying bacon from moderate drive levels up I could actually discern the difference between ride and crash cymbals and the system had much better dynamic range. Except for the later powerline compression driver versions these things were really only good for lower power levels.
I remember there was a guy down the street with a Traynor or Peavey 2-way system, 15's with the big white horn something like the old Yamaha 4115 but with and separate super tweeter box on top with 8 or 10 piezo units in an arched horizontal array. This system definitely worked better but it still had too much of the frying bacon sound at higher drive levels, I quickly came to dislike this characteristic after switching my own system to proper compression drivers.

All sizzle, no steak.
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Dennis Wiggins

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #15 on: June 23, 2019, 07:05:19 PM »

Peavey had the same sort of "array" in the project series.

That would have been in the early to mid 80s I remember.

I experienced a demo of this in the early-mid 80's, sponsored by Guzzardo Music at a local hotel in Rockford, IL. The "impact" demo last only a few seconds. The midbass/lower midrange (100-600hz) was astounding; the rest was just very loud. I was literally breathless, in a good way.

It did have the piezo tweeter "array" on the top. I think it was called the Project 4.

p.s.>  At the time, I was running what was later called the Project 1 (Mf1-x over Mb2 over Mf1) with 2 CS400s and plug-in crossover cans. My favorite component was the MB-2 as it did what no trap could do.

-Dennis
« Last Edit: June 23, 2019, 07:30:14 PM by Dennis Wiggins »
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Dennis Wiggins

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #16 on: June 23, 2019, 07:20:26 PM »

I believe the "array" had 5 of these stacked, for a total of 10 p-drivers.

-D
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Paul Miller

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #17 on: July 10, 2019, 05:44:57 AM »

Peavey had the same sort of "array" in the project series.

That would have been in the early to mid 80s I remember.

Here's a Reddit post showing several vintage Peavey cabinets including that piezo array.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2019, 06:19:45 AM by Paul Miller »
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Rory Buszka

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2019, 01:26:04 PM »

Duane,

Sounds more like the Klipsch MTM tweeter array than anything Meyers, though I do remember piezos used in MSL-3 for a short period.


Purdue's Hall of Music had a portable system of MSL-3s (used for outdoor festival stages and at one time supported on the low end by 650R2s, then later by VT4880s) and I saw/heard the piezos. They were never very good sounding, mainly because of a horrible resonant peak at 6kHz that is the resonance of the PZT disc.

An example (not the Purdue system):
« Last Edit: August 20, 2019, 01:28:56 PM by Rory Buszka »
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Brian Bolly

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Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #19 on: August 25, 2019, 02:51:42 PM »

Does anyone here remember the old Meyer tweeter array?
The piezo array disappeared when the MSL-3 turned into the MSL-3A. The (IIRC) XM3 filter was disconnected and the MS2001A driver was fitted in place of the original MS2001N to make it an MSL-3A. As well, on the M3T processor, the TC circuit was supposed to be switched off.
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Meyer tweeter array
« Reply #19 on: August 25, 2019, 02:51:42 PM »


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