# Scan-Speak Illuminator D2004/602000 Tweeters



## snaimpally (Mar 5, 2008)

In an incredible stroke of good fortune, I was able to acquire a pair of these tweeters at a very reasonable price. My friend Glenn (GLN305) was kind enough to mount them for me and I have been enjoying them for the past few weeks and thought I would post a quick review. These replaced a pair of Dynaudio MD100 tweeters that I ran for most of last year.

These are the smaller, 3/4" tweeters in the Illuminator line up. The D3004/802000 is the 1" version while the D3004/802010 is the 1" with a deeper chamber.

The pair I purchased had been tested and then sold off and so did not have any significant playing time. Initially, the soundstage seemed flat. However, after being broken in, the soundstage really began to open up. So if you purchase a pair, make sure you spend an adequate amount of time breaking them in before judging them.

Glenn made tweeter pods for me and mounted them on-axis on the A-pillars.









After break-in the imaging was good, but I found the soundstage very constrained. I mentioned this to Glenn and he proceeded to do some tuning. The Pioneer auto eq/ta initially had kept my mid x-over at 2.5k and the tweeter crossover at 3.15k, whcih had worked well with the MD100s. However, because they initially sounded flat, I experimented with different crossover settings and eventually settled on 2k (mid) and 2.5k (tweeter). Glenn restored the 2.5k (mid) and 3.15k (tweeter) crossovers and brought the tweeter levels down by -2db which seamlessly blended the mids and tweeters. Now the imaging is quite spectacular.

The MD100s were also excellent when it came to imaging, but they had a somewhat "dark" characteristic. The acid test for me is Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer track. Manu Katche's kit has some really interesting sounding cymbals and the MD100s had a tough time playing this track. In particular, just before the song fades out, Manu hits a crash cymbal a few times and it just did not sound right with the MD100s. In contrast, the Scans are much more revealing than the MD100s and handled this track effortlessly. I ran the HAT L1 Pro speaker for a while last year and, while it is a very revealing tweeter, I found it obnoxiously so. I could not get it to blend in with my mids and present an adequate soundstage. The Scans are more revealing of the source material, similar to the L1 Pros, but they blend much better with my mids. The Scans have the imaging of the MD100s but are more revealing, like the L1 Pros.

Overall, I am very happy with the Scan Illuminators. Superb imaging and clarity. At close to $400/pair, they are not cheap, but are competitvely priced when you consider they compete with the Dynaudio MD102s, Morel Piccolos, Seas RT27F etc.


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## chijioke penny (Mar 22, 2007)

great review


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## WLDock (Sep 27, 2005)

Great job! Thanks for the review. With all the tweets around I can't believe that I am actually considering getting these. $400 bucks is just a ton of money to me for tweets but I heard these are some of the better sounding semi-small format tweets around....and your review is another that seem to say the same thing. Won't know unless I try them???

Also, the L1 Pro is another I was considering but it is nice to hear your thoughts on the differences. I REALLY wish I could have gotten a deal from Vance on ebay (Good for you!) or the ones that NPD sold but...Oh well...maybe by Spring I will go for it.


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## jimbno1 (Apr 14, 2008)

Thanks for the review. I am considering the Illuminators as a small format option in a 3-way with 12M mids. Do you feel that the initial impression of the tweeter sounding flat was due to the crossover and sensitivity settings? Or is there an issue with the top end?


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## snaimpally (Mar 5, 2008)

jimbno1 said:


> Thanks for the review. I am considering the Illuminators as a small format option in a 3-way with 12M mids. Do you feel that the initial impression of the tweeter sounding flat was due to the crossover and sensitivity settings? Or is there an issue with the top end?


They sounded flat initially just because they had not been broken in. I did not do a formal break in but just listened on the way to and from work. After 2 weeks, they got broken in and the improvement was very noticeable.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that the Dyn MD100s did an excellent job of imaging but the Scans image is much more 3 dimensional, i.e. there is more depth to the soundstage. I continue to be impressed, amazed, and surprised by the Scans every time I listen to them.


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## snaimpally (Mar 5, 2008)

WLDock said:


> Great job! Thanks for the review. With all the tweets around I can't believe that I am actually considering getting these. $400 bucks is just a ton of money to me for tweets but I heard these are some of the better sounding semi-small format tweets around....and your review is another that seem to say the same thing. Won't know unless I try them???
> 
> Also, the L1 Pro is another I was considering but it is nice to hear your thoughts on the differences. I REALLY wish I could have gotten a deal from Vance on ebay (Good for you!) or the ones that NPD sold but...Oh well...maybe by Spring I will go for it.


I got the MD100s on Glenn's reccomendation, but he spoke highly of the Scan 2904/6000 as one of the best tweeters he had every heard, so I had been looking for used 2904/6000s when I stumbled upon the Scan Illuminators. I'm sure some used ones will eventually trickle in for sale as people swap them out for the next great tweeter.

I _really_ wanted to like the HAT L1 Pro tweeters. I spent a lot of money on them, the frequency response looked amazing, and the tweeters themselves looked quite nice. They were very revealing, and in listening to familiar CDs I would discover subtleties I had not noticed before. But the spectral energy was overwhelming and I could not get them to blend in with the ID OEM mids I was running at the time. Little or no imaging. I experimented with lowering their level, changing the crossover point, etc etc. which helped somewhat but they never really blended in and I eventually sold them.

I was running the L1 Pros on-axis. If I had to advise someone who has a pair, I would advise trying them off-axis, higher cutoff (despite the freq curve, > 2.5k is good. I think I tried them up to 4k). Perhaps the L1 Pros mate better with HAT woofers.

The Scans are almost as revealing as the L1 Pros but they blend in much better. They are revealing without being brash or harsh about it. There is a subtleness to the clarity; the Scans don't overwhelm the listener the way the L1 Pros do.


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## nycsurfer (Mar 8, 2009)

Great review ,what do you think of this compare to MD102


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## snaimpally (Mar 5, 2008)

nycsurfer said:


> Great review ,what do you think of this compare to MD102


I haven't heard the MD102s yet. Glenn has a pair so once he gets his system up and running I ope to hear them. He said the diff between the MD100 and MD102s is fairly subtle.


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## mxl16 (Oct 2, 2008)

Instead of starting my own thread, I think I will just add to this one seeing as it directly relates.

I purchased a set of these Scan D2004/602000 tweets 2 weeks ago. I was able to install them last weekend and spend the week listening. I have them on axis in a 3-way with Scan 12M mids and sls 6.5 midbass. The Mids and Tweets have 100w per channel from my MC440M. I had the mids playing from 315 to 5k and the tweets from 5k up. This seemed to be very common x-over points on the forum so I decided to start there. I am still playing with these settings (x-over, slopes, gain..ect).

Just from initial testing, they sound absolutely phenominal. I haven't really gotten into final placement/aiming or time alignment yet. 

I don't really have much to compair them to besides the focal k2p components I previously had as I am new to the SQ side of car audio. Naturally, the scans are silky smooth compaired to the focals. Imaging is fantastic. Build quality is top notch. They do all the right things (within reason), plain and simple. 

The high price is a bit of a turn off but I decided to go for the heavy hitters right out of the gate as opposed to buying exponentially better and better components until i found something I liked. I find that you spend more that way.


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