From Hi-Fi World - January 2014  issue
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Diamond mini

In 2013 Usher releaesd a standmount loudspeaker with Diamond tweeter. Jon Myles is bedazzled.

Taiwanese company Usher manufactures a comprehensive range of loudspeakers at its purpose-built facility in the Far East (Taiwan) – one that has been attracting a growing number of enthusiastic customers here in the UK.
    We were impressed with the Usher Dancer Mini-Two reviewed in the November 2012 issue of Hi-Fi World – a £3,500 floorstander good enough to trouble ‘speakers costing twice as much. But that’s a big, imposing floorstander not necessarily suited to everyone’s listening space. Which is where the new Usher Dancer Mini-X Diamond DMD standmount comes in.
    Usher Audio is one of a select few speaker manufacturers that builds all the drivers it uses itself and the DMD in the name refers to its proprietary tweeter – an acronym for diamond-metal-diamond.
    Usher explains: “The DMD dome is effectively a diamond dome with a reduced mass and a well-controlled, appealing sound signature, resembling very closely a perfect piston in its behaviour. This is made possible by its laminated diamond-metal-diamond structure, which consists of a proprietary metal alloy base layer coated with an amorphous diamond-like carbon layer”.
    This 1.25in DMD tweeter unit is mated with a 7in bass/mid-range driver with a front-facing slot port underneath to augment low frequency response.
    As to the ‘Mini’ in the name? Well, it has to be said it’s a relative term as the Dancers are not exactly diminutive, standing 435mm tall and stretching back 370mm with a front baffle width of 260mm. That 50mm thick front baffle curves back slightly around the tweeter to help time-align the drivers and the edges are chamfered to lessen diffraction effects.
    The cabinet itself is a beautifully veneered layered-wood construction  that Usher says is held together with a special glue that creates multiple constrained layers to reduce cabinet resonances.