ah yes the age old question of ST200 vs ST400 !
first of all there are YouTube videos where you can listen to the difference between them for yourself but, spoiler alert, the difference is not in the sound.
that isn’t to say they sound the same ( they don’t ) but that’s not what you’re paying for with ST400 over ST200.
you’re also not paying for the slightly higher rated power of ST400.
you’re paying for BUILD QUALITY.
and by build quality i am not just referring to the fact that ST400 is physically larger, has aluminum front ( versus plastic on ST200 ) and weighs TWICE as much - those are mostly intangible - rather i am referring to the fact that it is just built RIGHT whereas ST200 is NOT.
the best way to understand their construction is by watching the disassembly videos for both of them:
as you can see the ST200 has a plastic top / front that twists off without any screws. the ST400 has aluminum top / front that bolts in with 4 screws. this is large part of the price difference.
now let’s consider the difference in diaphragm assemblies …
ST400:
ST200:
the moving parts of both diaphragms aren’t very different. it is the MOUNTING mechanism that is different.
ST400 has proper terminals whereas ST200 must be soldered. ST400 has higher quality leads whereas ST200 just has voice coil wire glued to the diaphragm.
also the ST400 assembly is LARGER so it’s easier to grasp / handle without accidentally damaging the voice coil. the idiot in the video still somehow grabs the voice coil directly but that’s the problem with car audio folks - they’re fucking dumb.
but more importantly there are THREE METAL RINGS in the diaphragm assembly of ST400 whereas there are NONE in ST200. these rings, combined with the 4 screws, help clamp the diaphragm in place in a firm and air tight manner.
whereas on ST200 there are no rings or screws and the diaphragm is just vaguely pushed into place with quite a lot of unsupported area of plastic just hanging in space and with a large volume of air behind it … a fairly radical compromise in an effort to save cost ! you would never see such shoddy construction in a product designed for the Prosound industry. the ST200 is firmly for Car Audio idiots who accept BS like this because they’re dumb.
essentially the situation is this: ST400 is supertweeter done right and designed by JBL for the prosound market. ST400 is JBL / Selenium asking " we have a great supertweeter, now we must build a version for half the price so we can sell it to dumb Car Audio kids " and they just eliminated everything that cost money like aluminum front / top, screws, those metal rings, cut the magnet size in half and replaced the binding terminals with just tabs you solder to …
with the exception of the back not being air tight and thus allowing unchecked diaphragm movement resulting in more midrange output and less power handling none of this really impacts the sound that much. sure the smaller magnet would have to have some effect but it would be marginal.
the real difference is that ST200 is simply not a professional quality product while the ST400 is. the ST200 is built to a price point while ST400 is not.
the one difference between the two that is likely to have an effect on sound is ST400 has CCAW ( copper clad aluminum wire ) voice coil while ST200 has copper voice coil.
CCAW is a higher performance choice because Aluminum is 1/3 the weight of copper and for high frequencies moving mass matters …
although in general Copper is more expensive than aluminum in voice coils it reverses and Aluminum voice coils are the higher-end option versus copper …
but this doesn’t seem to bear out in frequency response measurements. they both reach 20 khz without issue. if anything the cheaper ST200 actually looks better on the frequency response chart, but both look good.
instead there is just this pervasive cheapness about ST200 in every aspect - from cheaper VC material, to cheaper VC leads, to what looks like a more sloppy glue job of attaching VC to diaphragm to cheaper diaphragm assembly to cheaper front housing to cheaper motor to cheaper terminals - it’s just CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP
but again, you’re not really paying for better sound or even higher output with ST400 you’re really mostly just paying for properly made product versus a product that has cut every corner possible to shave off every single penny off the price possible in order to compete with the cheapest of Chinese junk.
essentially the ST400 is intended for Prosound and i believe it was actually used in JBL Marquis series dance club speakers. it is a market segment that is more sensitive to quality than price.
the ST200 is basically intended for Car Audio which is a market segment filled with cheap chinese trash and since vast majority of supertweeters are purchased for car audio JBL / Selenium knew that to compete in that market they had to take their proven ST400 and bastardize it to the point where it competed directly against cheap chinese junk - and that’s what ST200 is.
again, the sound quality between the two should actually be fairly comparable ( though listen to YouTube tests for yourself, don’t take my word for it ).
it’s just that ST400 is built for people who want a product made right and know that it is going to cost more than Chinese trash.
and the ST200 is built for kids who want “value” ( cheap trash ) that is loud and sounds good and they don’t care about build quality because they don’t even know what that means and they will crash their riced out Honda Civic before the driver even fails, and if not then they will get a different hobby before it does.
i would still buy the ST200 over ACTUAL chinese trash because cost cutting is better than incompetence, but if you can swing the cost / size / weight of ST400 then you will get something that is PROPER but frankly it would be an insult to the ST400 to install it into your shitty Honda Civic.
hope that helps.
Tschuss !
