Fake Beryllium drivers

[s44]

Interesting read, though the format (a Word doc!) is sort of nightmarish.

Bottom line: Focal, Revel, and others do use real Beryllium in their drivers, but Usher and others use metallic blends with trace amounts of Be that have none of Be's special properties whatsoever.

Caveat emptor.

 

[JSt0rm]

cool find

 

[sdifox]

This kind of stuff is the norm, not the exception in basically all industries. The only thing worse than AV is your infomercial grade products.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

YAY thanks for giving me something interesting to read.

Yet another reason to add to my "reasons Focal is a great company"

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
YAY thanks for giving me something interesting to read.

Yet another reason to add to my "reasons Focal is a great company"

Focal has always made excellent speakers. Their UtopiaBE is crazy. Same with Revel.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
YAY thanks for giving me something interesting to read.

Yet another reason to add to my "reasons Focal is a great company"

Focal has always made excellent speakers. Their UtopiaBE is crazy. Same with Revel.

They do make excellent speakers, but I still think you can find better deals. A bit overpriced, IMO.

Though I have heard the Utopias are extremely good...I wish I could test them out. 🙁

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: hans030390

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
YAY thanks for giving me something interesting to read.

Yet another reason to add to my "reasons Focal is a great company"

Focal has always made excellent speakers. Their UtopiaBE is crazy. Same with Revel.

They do make excellent speakers, but I still think you can find better deals. A bit overpriced, IMO.

Though I have heard the Utopias are extremely good...I wish I could test them out. 🙁

Different people are willing to pay different amounts for different features - especially at the price ranges these esoteric speakers are at. I might venture to say that "better deal" holds very little meaning in this "class" of equipment. They certainly are a treat to hear and see in person, but yeah, in terms of price/performance, you can look elsewhere.

 

[cheesehead]

I might point out that Focal still uses paper cones in many speakers. In theory, paper should be horrible. In reality, it works beautifully - many of the most expensive speakers in the world use Scan-Speak Revelators/Illuminators, Seas Nextel, or other high-end paper drivers and work almost obscenely well. Similarly, many of these speakers use Seas, Hiquphon, or Scan-Speak tweeters based around old-school textile domes, mostly because they dampen harsh resonant frequencies far better than metal domes and it's easy to make them light enough to play high frequencies. (Single-cone Fostex setups still suck, though.)

We've a long way to go yet before beryllium makes a big difference and, IMO, focal drivers and speakers simply are not worth the huge sum of money asked - they're a bit like B&W in that respect. Usher, OTOH, offers brilliant speakers at a very low pricetag, even if they are old-fashioned paper cone/aluminum dome 2-ways.