Soft dome tweeter

The soft dome tweeter is a particular type of tweeter invented and patented in 1967 by Bill Hecht, a renowned pioneer in the early days of audio engineering and the founder of Phase Technology.

Hecht states that he was confronted with what seemed a mundane problem: When showing speakers at various audio shows, onlookers often poked at the two-inch dome tweeters of the display models, sometimes cracking them. He set out to make a soft, mock tweeter that wouldn't crack when prodded.

“I brought it back to the lab, and I thought it might possibly make a good mid-range if I coated it,” Hecht recalls. “So I coated it with a thin rubber coating and put noise through it with a signal generator. To my absolute surprise, it went beyond 12K; that was quite a shock.”