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Originally Posted by JaZZ  Yes, technically it's *almost* the same. But the expectable sonic result is quite a bit diffrerent. With dome drivers, the dome is the main producer of sound waves, the roll/donut mainly has the role of a suspension (at least with speakers). With ring radiators, the rolls themselves are the acoustically active components. And as it seems, this design allows for better transient control. With speakers it also involves the disadvantage of worse sound dispersion -- whereas I don't see a clear drawback with headphones.
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Right, but if you look at the design of any modern headphone driver - or even a really old one like a Koss HV/1 - it's clear that the roll is an important radiator surface on all microphone-dome style dynamic headphone drivers.
Only the inner 2/3rds of the roll really does any work. So lets be generous and say the hole in the middle of the HD800 driver is 20mm. That means we have an 18mm ring to work with, and only 12mm of it is really moving a lot of air on bass notes. I think this may turn out to be a 'polite' headphone.
Which isn't bad. I have plenty of those.
Tweeter manufacturers work hard to keep the surface of a dome driver in line, but in order for it to be light, you can't get as crazy with the surface geometry as you see on the roll of a K500 or an HD800. Some have gone as far as to use beryllium domes.
If you look at a K1000 driver you can clearly see what sennheiser was deriding as a 'duofoil' attempt at stiffening a dome. The driver membrane is actually two membranes quilted together - presumably by heat-fusing it or gluing it. Ask any K1000 or K701/702 owner if it works.
The ring radiator is another way of solving the problem, which comes with some other tradeoffs. I anxiously awate multiple impressions of how much bass slam this driver has.
