The Whole Truth About Beryllium Diaphragms

 An interesting read, worth slogging through to the bitter end.
 
In essence several products are being marketed as Be, that are not Be.
 
 

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 I read Mr. Mowry's article with interest, too, noting that he quotes from my review of the Usher CP-8571 MkII (although he inadvertently got the spelling of my name wrong--a common mistake). I contacted Usher Audio's US distributor for any comments they might have on the article and received an in-depth reply. With Usher's permission, I am sharing the text of that response with AVguide forum readers, below

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Response from Usher Audio

AudioXpress contributing editor Stephen Mowry, has been threatening Usher Audio over the past 10 months regarding the composition of Usher's Be drivers.  Mr. Mowry threatened Usher with the "widespread" release of his article, "The Whole Truth about Beryllium Diaphragms", unless his demands were met:

“If you fail to reply to me in a reasonable manner, then I will do the following.

1.  Work with Brush Wellman and FOCAL; they will purchase Be-718's and perform physical tests on the "Beryllium" tweeter diaphragm.

2. Publish the results within a discussion article on Beryllium and the Loudspeaker Industry and utilize the Internet to distribute the results.”

Mr. Mowry’s latest demand/deadline: 

"Contact me for a quick solution to your PROBLEM on Monday, 8 June 2009 at +6676 378051".  

Mr. Mowry’s e-mail tone wafts of papal syndrome.  Answer to me or else!

We are posting Mr. Mowry’s article (on the Usher Web site) so you can decide what his motivation is.  We have also catalogued all of Mr. Mowry's e-mail threats from the past 10 months and will supply the entire exchange on request.

Per the quote above, Mr. Mowry implies that he is working in conjunction with Focal/JM Labs and Brush Wellman, a U.S. maker of beryllium products, (we have not verified this) in his quest to eradicate "fake beryllium" speaker drivers from the world market.  Mr. Mowry has been very thorough in describing all the positive aspects of pure beryllium and why it's the best speaker driver material currently available.   Mr. Mowry's article reads like an infomercial for beryllium and evidently, like ShamWow, beryllium needs a paid spokesman to deliver the “truth."

On the other hand, Mr. Mowry is so intent on the materials aspect of speaker drivers that he seems to have left out some very important aspects of speaker driver performance; specifically, speaker/driver measurements and listening evaluation.  Not once does Mr. Mowry offer any laboratory measurement comparisons of Usher's Be line speakers and Be driver-equipped speakers from Focal/JM Labs or any other brand.  Isn’t the ultimate performance of the speaker what really matters?  In addition, Mr. Mowry cites materials tests of a "fake beryllium" driver, but those tests were not performed on a driver specifically manufactured for Usher.  The remainder of Mr. Mowry's "truth" article is based on hearsay, a mysterious "source" and inference: pretty flimsy stuff from a seasoned speaker designer with Bose cube speakers at the heart of his Hi-Fi credentials.  Now there's some irony!

The following are the facts:

1.  Usher's original Be driver material was supplied by a major Taiwanese supplier.  Upon being notified by Mr. Mowry of possibly suspect materials being offered by this supplier, Usher had several samples of the original Be driver material tested by an independent materials content lab.  The results, as disclosed earlier in our "News" section, showed a smaller beryllium content than their supplier's claim.  Testing confirmed that the original Be driver is composed of titanium and a smaller portion of beryllium than claimed. 

2. Usher's main concern in this matter is the ultimate performance of their speakers.  Therefore, Usher also re-tested the acoustic performance of the original Be drivers and found it to be superb and to easily meet Usher's minimum criteria for the Dancer Series.  In short, there was no performance deficiency in any of the Usher Be models.  Usher Dancer speaker models, along with the original Be drivers, have received rave reviews by nearly every relevant audio publication in the U.S. and abroad, including Stereophile and The Absolute Sound.  In fact, the Dancer Be-718 was probably the most scrutinized stand mount speaker on the U.S market during 2007-2008.  All independent party laboratory measurements were superb including complete testing done by Stereophile's John Atkinson and the National Research Council of Canada.  Their test results are are available online at the following addresses:

(http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/speakers/usheraudio_be718/)

(http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/508ush/index4.html).

Bottom line: measured speaker performance cannot be faked and is not an issue here.  Mr. Mowry's so called "beryllium placebo" effect does not apply.

3.  Despite superb test results, and due to what’s been described by Usher as “broken trust,”  Usher elected to drop their original supplier and try driver material from another supplier.  Usher is currently working on a "pure beryllium" driver, but has run into several issues regarding the performance of the new drivers.  Specifically, there is ringing present in some regions of the driver bandwidth.  Mr. Tsai, Usher's CEO, (not “Usher’s transducer engineer,” as Mr. Mowry incorrectly describes him) tells us that as soon as the kinks are tuned out we will be receiving the new drivers.  However, we are skeptical about any performance increase.  We are concerned with the "ringing" issue and have heard complaints from several of our dealers regarding this same issue with other Be drivers from brands we won’t name. Upon arrival of the new drivers, Usher customers will have the option of trading in their original drivers at no cost.  We'll keep you posted.

4. Converse to Mr. Mowry’s opinion cost was not a factor in Usher's original driver supplier choice.  The cost difference between beryllium driver diaphragms provided by Brush Wellman versus Usher's original source is negligible, especially in speakers starting at $2795/pair.  (Focal JM Lab Micro Utopias retail for $7500.00/pair as opposed to the Usher Be-718s, which compete in the same class but are priced much lower at $2795/pair. That’s a fairly significant difference, but not because of the beryllium driver.)  Usher chose their original supplier based on measured performance of the materials supplied and location logistics.  Usher had no reason to doubt the content validity of their original supplier’s materials.  This particular company has been in business for many years and supplies drivers to some of the largest and best-known speaker manufacturers in the world, including some of the companies offering purportedly “legitimate” Be drivers, as mentioned by Mr. Mowry.

5. Usher has obtained one of the “pure” or “legitimate” Be drivers offered by one of the manufacturers Mr. Mowry endorses, and had it tested for material content. The result: it turned out the diaphragm contained less than 14% Beryllium. Our point: it would appear that even the diaphragms Mr. Mowry suggests are made of pure Beryllium are, in fact, alloys of one sort or another.  

6. Mr. Mowry’s claim that “You (Usher) have gone to great lengths to misrepresent your products” is pure bunk.  Besides cost/performance, what motivation would Usher have to use “fake beryllium?”  Conversely, our question to Mr. Mowry is this:  What’s your motivation?  And, who’s paying you for your time?  Could it be an angry competitor that continues to lose market share in the U.S.?  

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With apologies to Skakespeare, it sounds like there are more dimensions to the "to Be, or not to Be" question than first meet the eye (or ear).

Best,

Chris Martens

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I read the reply.  Very interesting.  My single comment aside from the fact that I find Usher's to sound great for the money (and own Wilson Maxx IIs so no bias in my reply) is that the Ringing in the Be tweeters mentioned above is in fact 100% true.  I honeslty feel that some people are not sensetive to this ringing while others such as myself are.  The comments above are 100% correct that performance is much more important than what material the tweeter is made of.  I happen to find the current generation of Wilson's titanium tweeter not to be "hot" sounding if partnered with the right electronics. The Usher having a large composition of Titanium in their tweeters falls in line w. my personal sonic bias as I indicated above.  I have found both Focal and TAD tweeters to have a ringing sound that I could not listen to for more than a few minutes.  I think TAS should look into this but with younger reviewers or with maybe a female reviewer.  It is possible the older reviewers w. less extended high frequency hearing might not be able to hear the ringing.  I have heard the ringing as well w. 2 different speakers using Plasma tweeters.  Again, the people I notice that gravitate to these speakers tend to be older. 

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Chris,
Mr. Mowry states in his reply he was quoted out of context regarding his association with Focal and Brush Wellman.  In the spirit of proper context here is his entire e-mail:
Gentlemen:
 
 
I have not received reasonable answers to my questions.  Please answer the following.
 
1.  Why did Mr. Tais tell Chris Marten that USHER purchases Be foil from Brush Wellman when in fact USHER does not purchase Be foil form Brush Wellman, http://www.usheraudiousa.com/files/downloads/mr-tais-answers-to-chris-marten.pdf?
 
2.  Do you purchase your Beryllium from SONIC (88.47% Ti + 0.6075% Be) or their former distributor Taiwan Carol, http://www.yingpo.com/english/index.htm?
 
If you fail to reply to me in a reasonable manner, then I will do the following.
 
1.  Work with Brush Wellman and FOCAL; they will purchase Be-718's and perform physical tests on the "Beryllium" tweeter diaphragm.  We have already identified false Beryllium claims from SONANCE (SONIC's Be tweeter dome and plated/painted PP cones) and TANG BAND (CuBe2 dome) through x-ray fluorescence analysis.
 
2. Publish the results within a discussion article on Beryllium and the Loudspeaker Industry and utilize the Internet to distribute the results.
 
If and only if you can provide me with a reasonable explanation of your "Beryllium", then this can be avoided.  As you know, Acoustic Grade Beryllium (98% or better) Foil domes are available from Brush Wellman for about US$30 each in reasonable quantities.  As Mr. Tais correctly indicated, this material is not available from any other source.  If you respect the industry, then please do the right thing.
 
 
Yours,
 
Steve Mowry
 

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The article had me worried initially as I am an owner of Be-20. Luckily as soon as I turned on
my stereo system,that anxiety went away very quickly.
When I bought Be-20, I did not really care much one way or another if it has Beryllium drivers or Eaton
woofer or who was involved in the designing nor country of origin. I based my decision on what I heard
and I have to say that, at its price point, I did not find anything else that I would prefer and I would have to
spend significantly more to get better speakers.
If Usher actually uses Titanium or plastic or whatever  instead of Berylium and it sounds the way it is in my room right now,
I would still buy it over other speakers that I had a chance to audition and could afford.
As far as Usher's possible offer to change drivers, I suppose I would consider that if it improves
the speakers' performance. If the drivers offer the same performance but the upgrade is just for the sake
of more Berylium content, I am not sure that I would bother.

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I too own Be-20. I was at first quite rattled by Mr. Mowry's Dan-Rather-like sales pitch/expose... My dealer assured me that Usher would have an appropriate response to Mr Mowry's claims, and I am glad to see the response from Usher. I too have no problem with the sound of the speakers, They are breathtakingly detailed, and smooth and fatigue free. Let's not forget Revel's Salon2 drivers except the tweeter are also 100% titanium.   Thanks Stan, keep up the good work...  And thanks to Chris Martens for encouraging this conversation.
Rich

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 JLeeMD,
 
I think the proof of the pudding, so to speak, is always in the listening and so would I encourage you to hear the Be-718s to see what you think.

To my ears (and apparently to Robert Harley's ears, judging by the Be-718 review he published in TAS), the Usher Be-718's sound great and offer excellent value for money. 
 
Best, Chris Martens
 

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 JLeeMD,

I don't know the status of Usher's possible swtich to a different diaphragm material supplier, though I imagine the decision would be gated by the requirement that the new diaphragm material performs as well or better than the original material did.

For more information, may I suggest that you contact Usher's US distributor, MusikMatters Inc., at this address: info [at] musikmatters [dot] com. Alternatively, you could contact them by telephone: Phone: (214) 638-3500 or (214) 704-6082 (they are in the Central Time Zone in the US).

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Well I guess there is something on how honest or reliable a company is.   In Canada we received a lot of usher speakers and specifically the BE 718.  At one point we received a speaker that was damaged.   The speaker  was cracked and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the box.   Despite the fact that the box was shown to be perfect Usher wanted to issue a freight claim.   They eventually sent a replacement speaker and  the driver on the speaker was missing a screw.  Also the finish of the speaker was different than the other speaker.   Later we found out that the crossover in Canada was different than the one being advertised and that we were shown in a trade show.  Also there was no JPS labs wire in the speaker as advertised.  Now we asked Usher to explain these instances of failure to us and we received absolutely no response.   We are a company that makes our living from our reputation so this kind of switcherooo and blatent misrepresentation is not welcomed.  Sure the speaker can sound good but try and answer why is the Berylium tweeter not Berylium..???? Why is the crossover not the same as the one advertised??  Why is there no JPS Labs wire in the box???     We waited for some answers from Usher to these fairly simple requests with no response or explanation to be given to our customers.   We took back speakers for a fraction of the cost and resold them at a loss.   So when someone is asking for an "industry right thing"  try and keep this other information inline with the other BS on the Berylium.   The difference to keep in mind is that if someone tells you say that you bought a leather chair and you actually bought a vinyl chair...  the chair may still feel fantastic but you did not get what you paid for or what was advertised.  
 

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Tom's correct AFAIK. The Be 718 with JPS, etc., is U.S. market. There's also a lot of gray-market 718s for sale in the U.S., but an honest seller will tell you they don't have the special U.S. mods. The U.S. version is a total delight.

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