Q1.What does Murata do?
Murata is an electronics ceramics component manufacturer. Please go
to http://www.murata.com/ to know
more about Murata.
You can find components for variety of consumer electronics products.
Several years ago, one of the laboratory of R&D department developed
a spherical ceramic ball with a grapefruit size letting it work as a omni-directional(or
one point source)loudspeaker. This was origin of ES103A,spherical tweeter.
Q2. What are the characteristics?
Please go to Overview and Specs ES103A/B, ES105.
Q3. Sound of 15kHz and higher? Can I hear? What is the advantage?
This question has been most frequently asked since we put this into
market. However,most of them were convinced after they added ES103A to
their speaker systems. 15kHz is hard to hear for most human kind. However,
you can recognize the difference of the sound when you hear music with
combination with other speaker systems. You feel the improvement in your
bass and middle sound as well as the high tones. The soundstage certainly
become clearer, larger, deeper, and closer.
Q4.Why is the transient faster than other tweeters?
Different from conventional dynamic type tweeters, ceramic spherical
tweeter is designed to have self-resonant frequency at the higher side
of its working frequency range. As known well, the vibration system that
has higher resonant frequency shows faster transition characteristics compared
with the one having lower resonant frequency. Thus, ES103A is able to achieve
excellent transient response.
Q5.Why does this have wide dispersion?
This is what the breathing vibration of the spherical tweeter does.
The spherical figure vibrates just like a lung swell and shrink, breath.
Thus, the sound energy is dispersed into wide angle in breathing vibration
mode.
Q6.What is the transient? How fast is the transient?
Transient is a characteristic, which designates the time delay of
output to the input. Actuality is the diaphragm movement to the input signal.
Refer Q4 for more.
Q7.How should I place the tweeters?
If your speaker system has a flat surface on top, just place where
you like the total sound best. If the top surface is not flat, place near
by the speaker using appropriate speaker stand. Or, you can apply with
a microphone stand hanging down tweeters instead of microphone.
Q8.Does the sound get better for all kind of source?
Yes. They work well for all; CD, vinyl, SACD or even DVD audio. Naturally,
the better-recorded album gives better sound. In any case, you will see
the improvement by the tweeters.
Q9.What’s the difference between the new ES105 and
the ES103?
The ES105 retains the superlative characteristics of our flagship
ES103, but offers a significantly new design at an even more attractive
price.
New Design
The ES103 used a cylindrical tweeter enclosure screwed onto a cast
pedestal, whereas the ES105 integrates the enclosure and pedestal. This
new design is a great fit for modern speaker systems both large and small.
The ES105 utilizes a die-cast enclosure of zinc alloy with a glossless-coated
front, whereas the ES103 had a pure wood and aluminum glossless enclosure.
Materials and structure have been carefully selected and designed to ensure
superlative acoustics. The ES105 integrates the enclosure and pedestal,
and for this reason uses a relatively heavy zinc alloy enclosure with excellent
vibration characteristics. Because of the integrated design, the ES105
has fewer parts than the ES103. There are no major performance differences
between the two models, although the difference in the cabinet materials
and the finish may lead to subtle sound differences depending on the speakers
they are used with. Note also that the ES105 is priced lower than the ES103.

Photo
of ES103A and ES103B

Photo
of ES105
Q10.What’s the difference between the ES103A and the
ES103B?
Both models have identical electrical and acoustical characteristics.
But there are two main differences: the two models have different finishes,
and the ES103B includes a microphone-stand adapter as a standard accessory.
1) The Finish
The ES103B has a buffed stainless steel enclosure finished in a high-quality black
anodized matte, and is a perfect fit with dark-colored speaker
systems. In contract, the ES103A has a silver-colored, stainless steel enclosure.

2) Microphone-Stand Adapter
The ES03B includes an adapter for mounting directly to a microphone stand.
Because these tweeters are compact, lightweight, and cylindrical, they
work very well when mounted on a stand. Once the tweeter is mounted you
can adjust it's height and position at any time. Since the speaker is cylindrical
it is not always easy to mount it directly onto speaker systems that have
rounded top panels, but by mounting on a microphone stand you can now use
the tweeter with these systems as well.
The ES103A tweeters have been on the market since April 2000 and have not
included the adapter. An
optional adapter is now available for this model as well.
contact our distributors
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