Preamble
The Sopraninos are electrostatic supertweeters with a very amazing look. They can be inserted in a listening chain without any aesthetic compromise: just place them on the top of your loudspeakers, connect the cable and enjoy a frequency range never heard before!
An electrostatic, differently from a classic magneto dynamic driver, has a very light and not stiff membrane.
The designing principles of classic drivers and electrostatic drivers are poles apart: in a classic driver, if we take ad example a woofer, the movement of the cone is generated by the moving coil. In order to ensure that the coil could transmit the motion and the cone could move at the same way in every point, it's strictly necessary that the woofer is stiff. Same thing also for a dome tweeter, either in silk or metal.
The stiffness is a typical feature of:
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the material (paper, propylene, aluminum, etc., they all have different stiffness)
Hence, a magneto dynamic driver will be always characterized by a stiff and quite heavy membrane. With high frequency solicitations, it loses some rigidity. The famous breakup is, in fact, the breaking of the rigidity of the membrane.
In an electrostatic driver, like an isodynamic one, as the air gap covers the entire area of the membrane, it's not necessary that this last one is stiff. Without this rigidity it's possible to use very thin an light materials - Mylar mainly - that are easily controllable by the powerful engine. The advantages are: the absence of breakup, the low distortion, the extension at ultrasonic frequencies and the great transient response, both in the attack and in the decay.
Measurements
In the underlying gallery, let us hand to some measurements. As pointed out in the abstract, these measurements are still partial, since my equipment does not allow us to go beyond 20 KHz. However, the manufacturer has provided us with impedance and frequency response graphs, which go up to 40 KHz. Graphs that we will further test with our associated Matrix lab.
Official technical specifications:
Nominal impedance: 4ohm
Frequency Response: (+/- 3 dB)8kHz – 50kHz
Sensitivity: (dB@1m/1W on axis) 86dB
Recommended Power: 50W
Crossover Frequency: 8/10/12kHz
Crossover Slope:12dB/Oct
Weight (Net/Box/Carton) 2.7/10.4/13.6 (Kg)
Dimensions: Speaker/Carton 181x193x207mm / 560x380x356mm (WxHxD)
Manufacturer: to ENIGMAcoustics website
Official price: 3,690.00 USD x pair
