How do different cone materials affect sound? 

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@Emmett Matthias instablaster =)

all my drivers are paper.pioneer cs.

Paper cones are the best actually

@@Synthematix nah electrostats are the best

Some of the nicest sounding speakers are still paper.

@@djshumon Hard to beat paper cones. Some of the best sounding speakers .

mike young Thanks for sharing! Would love to find some content online which speaks on this process. Either reading or videos if you know any would be lovely, have a great day!

Joke: Poly cone Broke: Aluminium cone 50% woke: Coated paper cone 150% woke: Bare paper cone

What the hell is "woke"?

It's called softsell marketing pal.

pioneer cs ,all my drivers are paper.they sound natural as I have used many speakers over the years.

Exactly. Cone isn't all that matters

I loved my model 3’s.

I have some JBL 4311s, great sound from those cones, better than the poorly set up $30,000 Focals I had access to a while back. Focals might be awesome properly integrated, I never had the option to do that with them 😭

That what I've got for my speaker project monacor carbon fiber 6.5 drive for woofer b&w 6.5 kevlar for mid an a fountek ribbon for tweeter the magnet on the monacor is 6 inch nice drivers.they go low for a 6.5

Go look at bmr drivers. Being used in the philharmonic speakers to GREAT effect.

Besides sound quality..endurance and durability.. resistance to humidity.. and lastly..something that glue will stick to.

Car audio and outdoor speakers use materials that work in wide temp ..humidity..and sunlight.

The sensitivity of a speaker (i.e. loudness) is highly dependent on the area of the diaphragm - you actually want as large an area as you can get to push the most air! Theoretically any shape could work, but to maximize linearity and lower the harmonic distortion, you need something that is rigid even at higher frequencies, and the common speaker cone design is pretty good at that. The reason for the orientation is that the voice coil needs to be in the magnetic gap while also driving the cone. Usually the voice coil former is glued to the inside of the cone neck, and this common orientation keeps the size and mass of the moving assembly low (which maximizes SPL as well). The concept of sound needing to come from a single "point source" is important when designing systems with multiple transducers. Often times you'll see loudspeakers with a high-frequency driver embedded at the center of a low-frequency driver, and yes this definitely improves the sonic image!

Gary Karlin silk dome use for damping properties High mass stiff material hard to control damp at high frequency and Dome use to give structural strength to soft silk.

Innocent soul I understand, but it still seems to me that a soft dome would still break up =distortion ... more than a stiffer metal diaphragm. Is there a hard choice between good damping and good (low) breakup?

The 3 most straightforward ways to increase sensitivity are 1) increase the area of the diaphragm 2) decrease the mass of the moving assembly and 3) increase the force factor Bl, which is the magnetic flux density in the voice coil gap times the length of the voice coil wire. Force factor and mass have a frequency-dependent effect on SPL whereas the diaphragm area affects all frequencies the same (assuming perfect linearity). The shape of the cone can drastically affect its strength. A stronger cone is more likely to act like a piston (meaning every point on the cone experiences the exact same displacement), and will therefore respond in a linear way to the input signal. A weaker cone will start to flop around at higher frequencies (different points on the cone experience different displacements), which is a non-linear response to the input signal. You can hear these non-linearities in the form of harmonic distortion, known as "breakups".

For the most part and most of us it is a bad thing but in instrumental applications, the smear and distortion effects it creates are often desirable. Kevlar is interesting. Focal does that in some of their higher end 3-way car audio stuff. It is actually aramid fibre which I am told is only very slightly different and I have the 2-way set in my car. The high-frequency driver hates 4 Khz. I heard a woven carbon fibre dome mid recently and it rocked!

I don't think there's much point going above 4-way (subwoofer, midwoofer, squawker, tweeter)

The issue is that crossovers create distortion and phase shift. In that regard, less is actually more. That is why we have 2-way designs. It isn't just a cost-saving thing. The problem there is that the drivers don't usually cover the entire frequency range easily. Designers have a tough job. A lot of trading bad for bad going on. It becomes a decision as to what is worse in that instance.

Active crossovers fix the issue of passive crossover non-ideality, but you start to need rather a lot of power amplifiers - 3-way is probably enough - you want to keep each size of driver from encountering frequencies that cause break-up or phase-cancellation of the driver those frequencies are intended for.

There is the issue of the waveforms, not all coming from the same space as well. It isn't just a time thing. Tannoy used to use the analogy of ripples on the water when you drop a stone into it. You see how even they are when there is one stone but when you drop 2 as they can't occupy the same space at the same time the ripples inevitably end up deformed even if they impact the water at exactly the same time. As it was all still really theoretical at that point I don't think they really understood how much of that upevil was caused by the drivers not being in time. We can fix that now but as the sources are still different we still have measurable annomalies.

Well no shit

Scott Hartman Yeah, I wish you could thank him for answering it.

I'd imagine balsa as a flat panel might be quite good, light, stiff...

THATS CORRECT, i am taking that kind of risk, applying a couple of layers of resin. at the time, i have good results

sometimes plastic cones can ring

All cones ring, some ring worse than others. Hard thick cones are worse for ringing.

Have soft ones then

As Peter says, there's nothing stiffer and lighter than paper! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xz45IYZQMf0.html

Why paper in a stage rig? Like stage monitors or instrument amps? I can't count the number of times I have seen old JBL drivers with paper (reinforced) cones that have "shit the bed". Not to mention never sounded good in their prescribed application. Aside from the fact that paper flexes a ton causing massive unintelligibility issues it is also usually used as the low driver in a 2-way monitor (2 way to maximise intelligibility. Crossovers create phase shift and distortion) and in that case in order for it to go low enough and loud enough has to be a bigger driver. It can't usually go high enough to mate with the high-frequency driver well. I have yet to hear a high SPL, high-frequency driver that sounds smooth at 1500 Hz. Kevlar is kinda good for that. Fibreglass is more common though.

Instrument amps are a different thing. The flexing is part of the sound of the instrument. That said there are a lot of variations on driver designs there too.

hmmmm....something's missing.

I was waiting for you to reply as to where you would use it in a stage rig.

terrywho22 - Yes! Once upon a time I had installed Blaupunkt kevlar speakers in my car and it was the worst mistake.

Nikhil Gee - Thanks, glad to read that I'm not the only one!

terry...kevlar is an unforgiving but accurate material. if there's a flaw in the chain...it will uncover it in an unforgiving fashion. much like titanium h.f.drivers. silk h.f. driver...very forgiving. titanium....dreadfully unforgiving. clean,accurate power is the order of the day for such materials.that isn't a budget friendly proposition to be sure.

I don’t think the problem is with its unforgiving nature. I think the problem lies in the fact that the cones are made from woven Kevlar strips/fiber that, when they vibrate, produce a self-abrading resonance that result in an audibly scratchy sound. Its subtle, but I can hear it on certain passages of music with the handful of the existing Kevlar drivers I have heard. Those same passages when played on highly resolving speakers (like Focals that have the W composite woofers) sound clear and resolved without the scratchiness.

Gizmo Thewytchdoktor sometimes I think that these unforgiving and revealing speakers /drivers are just sounding good when you don't excite their problems. Some songs just don't excite resonant problems, others will by nature of content. It seems you either go heavy material for less resonance and clean but heavier, less dynamic sound, or you go for the lightweight dynamic and transient sound that will have resonance in some way or another that gets to you. The struggle is finding a compromise imo. Some people can live with the shortcomings of livelier drivers and hate the heavy boxy sound, some like very little resonance peaks, others try to get the balance of both. And then there's people who just like a certain colouration of the sound that is pleasing to the ear. For HiFi listening, get something you like. For studio, get something that translates and that you can live with wrt sound. No point getting a revealing monitor if it also grates your ears.

Hmm. I can't speak for DALI and Triangle but both Focal and Tannoy are near and dear to my heart. Tannoy in the home market only uses paper cones for low drivers but in their high res studio monitors where accuracy and hyper intelligibility rule paper is not even an option on the board. Only the cheaper Tannoy monitors used silk dome tweeters and for the most part, theirs were Titanium. Actually since Behringer (now call "Music Group" bought them a few years back Tannoy dropped their dual concentric line of studio monitors and only make their cheap ones now. Maybe they have changed metals most recently. Focal uses and has for as long as I remember ZERO paper anything and their high-frequency drivers are mostly metal as well. I have a pair of Focal in my car that are Aramid fibre and yes I found that they resonate strangely compared to other drivers and it took me some time to tune (DSP) out the bothersome tones but I have to tell you there are no silk dome tweeters that can reproduce detail on that level and now that they are set up well they sound really good all be it a bit edgy and not quite as airy as I would like them to be. They can't do 20Khz. That said neither can most silk drivers either. The whole point of using different materials is to get closer to speakers becoming inaudible. Our old ways are just that. Paper and silk were materials used to make speakers since almost the beginning. Engineers have revisited them and tweaked them a thousand times. We just can't get any more out of them. Paper and silk have their own sounds too but because they are "HOW SPEAKERS ARE MADE!" many people find them inaudible. I assure you they are completely audible which makes them equally suspect. The fact that their comparative performance is now lagging so much behind all of the more recent designs has pretty much sealed their fate. I know this might make you feel bad but honestly, they are obsolete techs. Look at all of the top speakers available today. The best rated. Nevermind what you and I say here. "The People" are not idiots and are not deaf. What do they say is the best? Focal Grande Utopia tops almost every list I have seen for years. No paper and no silk. In fact, go down the list. Infinity IRS? Magnaplanner? It's pretty clear. They are your speakers and you can do what you like. It is like owning an old car. "It is a classic". Yup, but time marches on and we do learn new things. Contrary to what people say we do learn how to make things better over time too. Cars used to rust out in a couple of years in Canada. Now we don't see rust for over 10 years.

jfbaquero i have metal ( ceramic coated aluminium) woofers and same ribbon tweeters in my Monitor audio speakers. Voices sounds way way better than on my previous Dali with paper woofers. Metal drivers dont sounds bad, its bullshit

Yup. In pro audio re-coning is a regular part of the maintenance process. Drivers are worked as hard as they can day in and day out. If they don't die from abuse they eventually sound so different (mostly bad) from their like parts either in the same cabinets or like cabinets that we just have to re-cone them anyway. Common is subs that "fart" at higher output levels. The cones test and look fine but when you hit em they sound broken. Funny thing I have 2 sets of studio monitors from the 90's. I am sure they have not really seen any abusive level run through them so that could be a factor but all 4 sound pretty close to one another still and I was afraid I was going to have to have a friend re-engineer the drivers as re-cone kits are now unavailable for them.

gold doesn't corrode so in fifteen years there isnt a wad of copper oxide and iron oxide at a connection which will decrease sound quality or cause it to not work at all

@@timthepoolman3313 you would have to keep it in a very damp basement or something to make copper corrode so badly. I've never seen copper corroded at all in normal household application. Gold plating is just an audio-voodoo for audio-voodoo fanatics. You can sell them gold plated steel or even gold plated shit and they will still think it can conduct better through that thin layer than entire thing made out of copper.

We have a house on the water and the salt in the air oxidizes everything at my house also I own a swimming pool service company and i have a stereo in my chemical storage building full of chlorine

@@bluef1sh926 we dont have basements here

@@bluef1sh926 im no audiophool dont get me wrong im just saying i see a reason for gold plated stuff

It is becoming more common but I saw a chart recently and it showed that fibreglass for instance in many cases outperformed it.

Carbon fiber is light, but not the epoxy/fiberglass resin/hardener needed to stiffen it.

@Dave Micolichek Ya, when it comes to speakers we are really still futzing with Epoxy resin as a binder regardless of the other components. BTW there is "fiberglass" and "Glass Fiber". To this day I am trying to figure how they are actually not the same material other than how they are set up. By that I mean fiberglass is actually just the resin and the glass fibers mixed together usually where in terms of what Infinity refers to as "Glass Fiber" it is a woven mat which contains some amount of binder somewhere but in the case of my sub in my car the resin is not visible to the naked eye.

AND glass fiber!

I guess someone has already tried it. There is a third factor Paul didn't mention. Some materials tend to swing (a little like a bell) May be that is a problem. If it is a suitable material we will see a lot of drivers with that material in the near future.

Gold is used to reduce oxidisation of the contact. Gold is fantastic for transfering heat, it is not the best for conducting electricity, For that you need to look at copper unfortunatley copper just loves to oxidise.

What about pure silver?

Visonik speaker separates creates above par car audio. They are no joke.

" It's no coincidense that the only truly wide range (and decently to greatly sounding) dynamic drivers have (guess what)... paper cones!" Of course, this is why the top 5 rated speakers in the world today all use "paper cones"? WRONG!!!

Out of curiosity would you be referring to the manger msw driver as one of them.

Not exactly. Mostly I had in mind the german physics and ohm drivers.

Exposure. This is the first I have ever heard of them. I see there are zero distributors in North America. I see as a manufacturer they have focused on home audio only and in keeping with standard North American home audio theory that "there could not possibly be anything better than what we already have" (like paper cones) Manger would have a very hard time gaining any traction here. Now, that said not everyone here is so arrogant to think that we own the rights to all of the knowledge. Focal has been gaining a lot of traction but I think it is because the old guard just can't bamboozle us their lies and half-truths any longer. Of course Focal is French which for some stupid reason I don't understand makes them more acceptable than if they were from many other countries. My instinct says it is a racism thing and as a Canadian, is yet another source of great embarrassment and shame. The good news as we uncover all of these wells of woeful acts we do sort through them. In my country, we mean that we do not wish to judge people like that. We will leave that for the judge and jury to figure out. In looking at their stuff it appears that they often use a conventional cone in conjunction with their driver. Is that an indicator that they are not so good in the lower register. I also see that they are not particularly powerful so high SPL applications would not be an application where we could use them at this point. What is the word on what they sound like? Are they super clinical? I find that people often dislike hyper-accuracy and often desire something that generates a more smeared image. I think that is just because that is what they are used to. It is kinda like analogue video vs 4K. There is no question that 4K is so much better of a picture but the odd guy still rants about their old blurred out analogue Betacam crap.

Ah nice,germans do well on advancing loudspeaker design,ironic drivers seem to be one of the slowest in advancement unlike the CPU .

😂👍