# DIYMA Tweeter Audition Reviews + others (Subjective)



## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

Sorry for some of the poor pictures. I never have a good camera when I need it.









Top row: Vifa DC26NC05, Alpine/Vifa XT19, Dayton ND20, Vifa XT25
Bottom row: Vifa DC26NC55, DIYMA, Seas Neo, LPG26NA

Other DIYMA audition Reviews:
Arc100
SQ_Bronco
tdgesq
Shinjohn
jearhart

Equipment:

Alpine CDA-9833
A/D/S P850 amp 50Wx8
Test towers, one tower with two 3” Aura NS3’s LP crossed over at 2kHz @ 12dB










Music: Two tracks were used for testing each tweeter from the CD "Sheffield - Drive". Sorry no test tones.

Track 3-“It's Just The Motion - Clair Marlo” Female/male vocals overlapped 
Track 8-“Sanford & Son - Harry James & His Big Band” Nice horns section

Testing Method:

We sat about 2.5~4’ feet away to mimic a near-field environment similar to a car. The speaker was placed in the middle of his basement, on a slab of carpet facing the couch we were sitting on during listening. The tweeter in his tower was disconnected and we placed the test tweeter(s) on top of the tower with NO BAFFLE. Crossover point of 3.2kHz @ 18dB was used except in a few cases we tried 5kHz as noted in addition to 3.2kHz. We did this in a little over 3 hours with breaks in between each tweeter.

Disclaimer: In no way are my methods scientific but we tried to keep a few things constant through the entire test. Some people may not agree with our results, but this is subjective review and everyone has their own tastes.



Not in any particular order:

Vifa DC25NC55
Very Directional, off-axis response drops of like a steep cliff approximately around 8Khz. Overall a very simple sounding tweeter. Nothing really stood out so I would call this one kind of dull or mellow, laidback. Not much to say about this tweeter, kind of sums up how I felt about it. The depth on this tweeter makes it harder to install in certain locations.

Vifa DC26NC05 (from my own personal stash)
This was from my own personal collection. I had used this tweeter for close to three years and it served me well. It’s a very mellow laidback tweeter as well. Some might call it smooth, but I would describe it as it lacks detail. Very non-fatiguing and easy to listen to. I would say it can get spitty at higher volumes.

Dayton ND20TA-6
Very Direct and full sounding. There is a little too much emphasis in the “s” and “h” areas ~5-6Khz we thought. Off-axis <45deg this thing was pretty decent and response held true to on axis. Past about 45deg, you will notice how it drops out. Not bad for a $5 tweeter. I was expecting much less. Nice small tweeter makes it easy to find locations to install.

Alpine/Vifa XT19 Deriv (from my own personal stash)
I know other have described this as silky smooth, but I have other thoughts. It is easy to listen to but I think that is mainly due to the null or void around 7Khz and then slowly drops off in the high end. It’s as if this tweeter takes a 3 day weekend, comes back to work on Monday and decides to take the rest of the week off. The nice thing though is that the off-axis response and detail fades away very slowly the farther off-axis you go. If I were to use this tweeter, it would be better used at or above 8-10Khz. Super tiny size is great for installs.

Seas 27TAFNC/D Neo Aluminum
A forum favorite here and NpDang’s response graphs might show why. However this was a very unpleasant experience for me, I couldn’t get them unplugged fast enough. I found the vocals to sound nasally, and a little harsh. However off-axis response remains strong. This sounds like a typical metal dome tweeter to me-lots of metal coloration to the sound. My friend’s exact words and he wanted me to quote him, “Jimmy says they sound like S#%T!”. Typical neo mounting size.

LPGNA26 Aluminum 
After our Seas experience we were expecting a similar metal coloration sound from the LPG as well. Wow were we surprised. It had excellent top end and tonality was great. Downfalls were that they did sound a bit grainy and you could easily hear the dropout of vocals off-axis. If these were crossed over higher they would probably clean up the graininess and the vocals dropout would not be a problem. I regret we did not try to cross these over higher to hear the effects. Typical neo mounting size.

LPG25NFA Silk (from my collection)
This was from my collection and is what is currently installed in my car. I ripped one out so we could compare. (I might be biased towards this one, but I use it in my car above 7.1kHz so running this at 3.2Khz was a different experience for me). Excellent top end detail. Tonality was good and similar to the Aluminum version.When you start to go off-axis there is a slight response and detail loss, but it doesn’t seem to really drop off like s steep cliff, but seems like it is just attenuated at the same level the farther you go off axis. So if you find them too bright, go for an off-axis install and you won’t lose much detail and it just sounds attenuated. We did notice some ringing in the vocals but that might be distortion and why others suggest using it crossed over higher. Typical neo mounting size.

Vifa XT25 Ring Radiator
Cymbals sounded fantastic, horns just belted out the tunes and the upper vocals were nice all around. Running them at 3.2Khz made them hard to listen to, they were almost over powering. We found them more pleasing to listen to crossed over higher at around 5kHz. The off-axis response is pretty much lacking. Better keep these on axis if you plan to use them. Rather large for the car, but I am sure they would work in some locations.

DIYMA Silk
At first I didn’t know what this tweeter was, I thought it was the one that had an “accident” as Npdang put it, but I later realized it was the DIYMA. This thing was extremely efficient. We had to turn this one down a bit because it was so efficient. I really loved the details; the instruments were very easy to distinguish. You could tell the high rolls off, but not in a bad way. They were pretty directional in the midrange section, but above 5kHz the off-axis response was not as bad. I think this was actually my favorite tweeter out of the bunch. I don’t drive my tweeters that hard so I didn’t really push this guy to the limits so I didn’t experience what others call noisy at loud volumes. A little deep on mounting depth and the mounting method looks a bit cheesy, but makes it fairly easy to install IMO.

Focal TN-26? (my buddies collection)
My buddy had these lying around and they are one of his favorite tweeters and they are extremely hard to find now. It’s an inverted Kevlar neo tweeter. It was the least efficient of the bunch and when the cymbals would hit they had this strange crunchiness to them. They had been in his wife’s car for years so they are not in new condition, so I don’t know if that had any factor on the sound. Upper vocals were top notch and overall a great tweeter to listen to, but definitely had their own unique sound none of the other tweeters even came close to. They seemed to emphasis 8-14K which might help them in the off-axis area. 

If I were to rank them based on sound preference/tonality/detail here is about how it would go:

1)	DIYMA
2)	Focal TN26
3)	LPG25NFA, LPG26NA
4)	Vifa XT25
5)	Vifa DC26NC55
6)	DC26NC05
7)	Dayton NC20
8)	Alpine/Vifa XT19
9)	Seas 27TAFNC/D

My buddy ranked them roughly as follows:

1)	TN26
2)	Vifa XT25
3)	Vifa D26NC55
4)	DIYMA
5)	DC26NC05
6)	All the rest except the Seas
7)	Seas 27TAFNC/D

He wanted to rank the DIYMA higher but since it is not available he felt reluctant to give it a higher rating.


----------



## iyamwutiam (Nov 20, 2006)

Thanks- especially for the off-axis stuff.
Did you have them sitting flat on top of the tower (horizontally)? Or did you prop them up against something so they would be inline with the tower (vertically)? Not sure I understood that part.


----------



## azngotskills (Feb 24, 2006)

thanks for the review....nice to see varying opinions amongst some popular tweeters used here


----------



## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

iyamwutiam said:


> Thanks- especially for the off-axis stuff.
> Did you have them sitting flat on top of the tower (horizontally)? Or did you prop them up against something so they would be inline with the tower (vertically)? Not sure I understood that part.


We used the lip of the tower to stabilize them and just propped them up using the cardboard. If you look at how shinjohn did his it is easier to see what I am talking about. I would have taken a picture but my camera phone sucks in low light.



azngotskills said:


> thanks for the review....nice to see varying opinions amongst some popular tweeters used here


It goes to show there is no right or wrong and how everyone has their own tastes. I was expecting better results from the seas.  I am more of a silk guy, but the LPG alum just didn't have the same coloration the seas had I guess.


----------



## kappa546 (Apr 11, 2005)

i added some of those felt pads (used on feet of furniture you know?) to the motor right beneath the dome of the lpg 26na's and it really cleaned the lower trebble up. i saw the mod at http://forum.elitecaraudio.com/showthread.php?threadid=128282 . i wish i had sent them to dang for testing but i sold them. i probably wouldnt run them down to 2.5khz like he said but 3.5khz shouldnt be a problem with them. i kinda miss those tweeters actually


----------



## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

kappa546 said:


> i added some of those felt pads (used on feet of furniture you know?) to the motor right beneath the dome of the lpg 26na's and it really cleaned the lower trebble up. i saw the mod at http://forum.elitecaraudio.com/showthread.php?threadid=128282 . i wish i had sent them to dang for testing but i sold them. i probably wouldnt run them down to 2.5khz like he said but 3.5khz shouldnt be a problem with them. i kinda miss those tweeters actually


Nice find!. Thanks! Makes me want to possibly try a pair of the aluminums instead of the silks. I have always been a silk fan but the LPG aluminums could alter my perception.


----------



## kappa546 (Apr 11, 2005)

you wont be disappointed, it really is a great mod.


----------



## shinjohn (Feb 8, 2006)

durwood,
Nice review. Thanks for taking the time to express your opinions.
I remember reading that the Seas Neo got damaged somewhere along the way during shipment from one party to another. Did the tweeter ever get replaced? I guess people were saying that it didn't impact the sound, but now I really wonder.....


----------



## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

If it was damaged I couldn't tell or didn't look hard enough. It seemed like it was in good condition. I still have them so I'll look again when I get home.


----------



## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

Ok, the seas tweeter was damaged.  So anything we said about it throw it right out the window. The dispersion ring must have creased it during shipping. You can see it in my first photo in this thread but here are some closeups.










That is how it should look.










and here you can see where it was creased.


----------

