Fyne Audio have released a new baby version of their SuperTrax 'super tweeter' the S-Trax and I've borrowed a pair from my audio guy for the week after he demo'd them at the monthly music night on Sunday. Where, I must say, I went in with a lot of scepticism, how is a tweeter that is producing frequencies I can't even hear going to improve the sound! 
Having done a little reading up on them, it seems they are slightly controversial, with the differing camps for and against, arguing the science of what they do against the 'this is another snake oil' product.
I must say though, it did change the sound of the demo system and everyone in the room seemed to think it was an improvement. In the setup he had it certainly improved the bass response and clarity of the mids.
Having tried them at home for a couple of days now, the most striking difference I have noticed is the extra air/height/scale in the upper frequencies, the choral intro to Lorna Shores Sun//Eater is quite a pronounced difference to me.
Also the widening of the soundstage, and the Fyne F700's I'm running have great dispersion anyway, but with say Tools Chocolate Chip Trip, the width the drums go when moving side to side across the soundstage is just great.
Here they are in situ
Using the conical Trax system Fyne have patented, which they put to good use with the downward firing bass port - the theory being it reflects the bass in a 360* wave rather than directly out of a port, these have the same idea, where the HF are reflected 360* to evenly fill the room.
I'll admit, aesthetically they don't look as good as the full fat SuperTrax version, but with those at £3k you need to have a money no object attitude to life lol. But then even with this baby version at £1k thats not to be sniffed at and we're not talking any night or day changes here, just that last bit of refinement to the sound.
I was worried that adding more HF to the mix could already make the quite forward (not bright!
) F700's a bit too edgy, but it hasn't and in a way overall I've found the HF just that bit smoother. Though for example with say Nick Caves Red Right Hand, there's a lot of in your face treble at the end and this accentuates that even more, though still doesn't make it too sharp.
All in all I've been fairly impressed with them, especially as I started out thinking they would be a bit pointless anyway, since they start well above my hearing range nowadays which tops out at around 14Khz! Also, afaik, CD quality digital music only goes to ~22khz and these super tweeters can go up to 80khz for the full version, so there's something they are doing in the 16-20Khz range to reduce overall distortion, increasing overall clarity.
Having done a little reading up on them, it seems they are slightly controversial, with the differing camps for and against, arguing the science of what they do against the 'this is another snake oil' product.
I must say though, it did change the sound of the demo system and everyone in the room seemed to think it was an improvement. In the setup he had it certainly improved the bass response and clarity of the mids.
Having tried them at home for a couple of days now, the most striking difference I have noticed is the extra air/height/scale in the upper frequencies, the choral intro to Lorna Shores Sun//Eater is quite a pronounced difference to me.
Also the widening of the soundstage, and the Fyne F700's I'm running have great dispersion anyway, but with say Tools Chocolate Chip Trip, the width the drums go when moving side to side across the soundstage is just great.
Here they are in situ
Using the conical Trax system Fyne have patented, which they put to good use with the downward firing bass port - the theory being it reflects the bass in a 360* wave rather than directly out of a port, these have the same idea, where the HF are reflected 360* to evenly fill the room.
I'll admit, aesthetically they don't look as good as the full fat SuperTrax version, but with those at £3k you need to have a money no object attitude to life lol. But then even with this baby version at £1k thats not to be sniffed at and we're not talking any night or day changes here, just that last bit of refinement to the sound.
I was worried that adding more HF to the mix could already make the quite forward (not bright!
) F700's a bit too edgy, but it hasn't and in a way overall I've found the HF just that bit smoother. Though for example with say Nick Caves Red Right Hand, there's a lot of in your face treble at the end and this accentuates that even more, though still doesn't make it too sharp.All in all I've been fairly impressed with them, especially as I started out thinking they would be a bit pointless anyway, since they start well above my hearing range nowadays which tops out at around 14Khz! Also, afaik, CD quality digital music only goes to ~22khz and these super tweeters can go up to 80khz for the full version, so there's something they are doing in the 16-20Khz range to reduce overall distortion, increasing overall clarity.