"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
Orthodynamic speakers -- ie, a conductor on a flat plastic substrate.

What!???

They're fairly common. Several companies sell them, including one in
Seattle.

Basically, they're ribbons backed with Kapton, Mylar, etc. (A true ribbon
is a
pure metal strip, with no backing.) The backing eliminates the ribbon's
fragility and adds mass that lowers the driver's fundamental resonance.

The classic Infinity EMIT and EMIM drivers are orthodynamic. The drivers
in
Apogee speakers are orthodynamic, not ribbon (except for the tweeter used
in the
Diva and one or two others). There have been orthodynamic headphones, such
as
the Yamaha YP-1 [sic] of a few years back.

Orthodynamic drivers have much of the "speed" and low coloration of
electrostatics. Having owned Acoustat Sixes and Apogee Divas, I actually
find
the latter to be (subjectively) more accurate -- and the Sixes were hardly
chopped liver.


Hi William,

Do you still have the Divas? If not, I'm curious to know what speaker
bettered them...

Cheers,

Margaret