Cone material sound

In this video I am sharing my experience with cone materials and they're general traits.
The cone material choice can be helpful as a guide to navigate the many speaker drivers you haven't heard playing, but is not the end all be all, but again very typical.
With numerous years of serving high-end audio clients under my belt, I am excited to offer a speaker repair and upgrade service that's sure to meet your needs. I apply the intricate process demonstrated in my videos, ensuring that your speakers are handled by an expert. For advice or packaging inquiries, please don't hesitate to contact me. If you're within the Las Vegas area, drop-off or potential pick-up can be arranged.
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[@JonDeth]

I have some amazing poly cones including large scale guitar and musician's pro audio speakers. *The damping quality to polypropylene and metalized polypropylene really cleans up the sound in general, not just the breakup of decay.* *Generally, I would favor paper cones of some kind particularly in the mids and highs, but strangely is for a shred and sweep guitarist like myself, the polymer cones provide a significant amount of damping that makes your playing clearer and more defined.* The fiber cones sound very "open" but they also aren't very forgiving to the imperfections coming out of guitars that we so often just regard as transient noises. *My metalized polypropylene cones for pro audio and musician's needs ultimately sound warmer and more intimate than paper.* Metalized polys are cheap and perform amazingly. I'm surprised I rarely see it anymore. My favorites to date are polypropylene that has been metalized with chrome. *It sounds so very warm, organic and intimate that it's literally a comforting color and texture added to everything coming out of it.*

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

Beryllium is an awesome material for tweeters. Hybrid materials are best at creating a light, stiff driver with good damping characteristics.

[@loudspeakerchefOriginal]

Its not just the material, but also the shape and thickness of the cone that makes the sound difference.

[@truthseeker2248]

hey man, that is absolutely good informative video, thank you so very much for making this

[@kelvineller9013]

I think if you build your own speakers you get much benefits of using exotic materials, because of the higher stiffnes and better sound at lower frequencies for example an alu or magnesium woofer, you could also use kevlar or carbon fiber, the lower frequencies just sound way better tho you need a good tweeter so you can crossover at 1,5khz to 3khz depends on your woofer size, I like the better lows and mid, from these materials paper is just not stiff enough. For tweeters use a 1,25 inch or a planar or amt tweeter to get the best results, and then try diffrent crossover designs to get the best sound. Enjoyed your Video, tho I think most people love Paper cuz most of the commercialy available speakers tend to cheap out at tweeters and crossover so then for example aluminium sounds worse than paper.

[@InspiredByBrad]

I owned vintage KEF speakers, one with paper cones, and the other “Reference” model had polypropylene. I found the paper cone to be much more transparent and detailed in the midrange compared to the dull, muted sounding polypropylene. This contrast was noticed in so many other speakers I’ve listened to, such as MB Quart. I can’t fathom why polypropylene became so rampant and popular. I find myself always seeking out speakers with thin, light, fast, musical paper cones now, which unfortunately has become terribly rare….

[@AudioTalk]

Me too, even Magnesium is not to my taste by comparison, but some people just love those, but most love paper I think.

[@accordv6er]

I have found this replacing even mid range OEM speakers when they aren't blown. It's actually really difficult to get the same midrange clarity with most cheaper aftermarket speakers I can afford.

[@linandy1]

Great video ! Thanks. Confirmed my thoughts on paper woofers but learnt something new about magnesium. I must try some.

[@AudioTalk]

Thank you for the comment, and yes magnesium is one of those materials where I have experienced people with no Hifi interest being wowed by the clarity. Same goes for Beryllium tweeters. But I will say that those same people have been almost fainting to here the price, but its still a good indicator that the sound is that evident

[@editorjuno]

Properly implemented -- implementation is crucial -- paper is the best for woofers and midranges, mostly because it has a built-in damping effect, whereas metals, ceramics, and synthetics like Kevlar tend to ring when they ought to be silent.

[@janeliu1420]

Hi, Bruce. How are you ?

[@editorjuno]

I am well, Jane -- although I've better and I've been worse. Thank you for asking. Yourself?

[@janeliu1420]

@@editorjuno Great. I am very well . Thaunk you for your concerning . Please give my best wishes to you and your family. I am seller and selling speaker spare parts and speaker units. Sorry to disturb you. My dear Bruce.

[@Tacet137]

Not true, stiffer material has higher amplitude of resonance indeed but its also shifted higher in frequency below which the driver acts more pistonic than soft fibers which results in cleaner CSD, crossover is everything as always and passive notch filter can further eliminate the resonant mode at given frequency with added benefit of reducing voice coil current induced distortion.

[@chrisnorrell7489]

@@Tacet137 voice coils don't create distortion until electrically saturated which won't happen on the correct power. Only need to worry about inductance in anything smaller than a an 8"

[@cychen9528]

thank you! learned a lot. very professional content!

[@cdbennett2332]

Focal has done wonderful things with metal dome tweeters. Their aluminum tweeters are coated with different materials and dampening that makes them loud, which I like, and accurate.

[@Acoustic_Theory]

Metal dome tweeters do one thing really well, which is dynamic impact. There is some dynamic compression in a silk dome tweeter because of the flexible material, so they wouldn't be my choice in a speaker that needs to really play loud. But they do help a speaker sound a little smoother at high volumes.

[@deuce-way1440]

Awesome content! Keep up the good work👍🏽

[@AudioTalk]

Thank you! Will do!

[@justforlaughs8988]

So I absolutely love your channel I just became a subscriber I'm a huge audio file kind of guy but also huge and SPL specifically for subwoofers this is mainly for car audio applications so for example my front stage it's all Audio Dynamics $3,000 and 4000 series I'm running a three-way fully active component setup with their DSP and their six channel amplifier the material that my cones are made of is a Wool pulp cone they weren't extremely expensive I think in total each component set was $1,000 I bought two of them and then bought their two three inch mid drivers but I cannot tell you how amazing and accurate and smooth like butter and silk they are the owner of the company Aaron White is a huge audio file and he spent a long time developing an amazing speaker that's very few companies come close to the quality at that price point

[@larrygaines7462]

I am using 2in vifa full range vertically (2) and open baffle 800 hz to 5khz ,kelivar carbon fiber, 70to 800hz. Sweet @ 100w per channel. Going to ribbon tweeters

[@Matrix...777]

👍🥇🏆

[@Enemji]

Great video! 6:43 confirms the “fun & entertainment” factor that was experienced by the audio community when Andrew Jones designed the Elac Debut speakers using these. He then moved to Woven Aramid fiber (ala Kevlar) with the Debut 2.0 and the community mourned the loss of fun & entertainment.

[@AudioTalk]

Indeed paper is popular, even when they are telling lies

[@Enemji]

@@AudioTalk - I love paper. But I was referring to the carbon fiber cones that evidently were used by Elac in their original debut speakers.

[@AudioTalk]

@@Enemji Oh yes carbon can have some nice warmth to it as well and good honesty alongside.

[@Enemji]

@@AudioTalk - can you identify the carbon fiber speaker at 6:44? Is that your favorite fun version?

[@AudioTalk]

@@Enemji That one is a Monacor SPH-135C and its a good little driver, but my 2 favorites from Monacor will be the SPH-200CTC and SPH-165C but last one i discontinued, but that one with a Morel MDT-29 tweeter and first order filter around 3,5KHz is incredible

[@jimmyg3855]

Just got my wife a mini van and I love the stereo very warm big stage nice highs all paper! Not excellent at very high volume but will play loud.

[@myboy051]

Hi, great video. Do you happen to have a video on phase plugs vs a standard cone cap?

[@Acoustic-Lab]

Thank you sir.. very good content 👍

[@bobavon6048]

With all this talk about cone materials and certainly different materials sound different, but in the end your amps should be of good quality to appreciate the sound. Also the beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

[@yo3429]

Great! Just want to mention, that ie peerless got some very smooth polyprops (I think 2 layer PP with different damping).

[@AudioTalk]

Oh sure, there are good PP cones out there, there is big differences between them, Harbeth and KEF makes great PP cones as well.

[@ericstefko4852]

Kent this was very interesting what do you think of beryllium mid and woofers?

[@9fiveb180]

The "diamond" variant is interesting. Is it just diamond dust which has been added to the polypropylene (or whatever substrate material that it's combined with) prior to the formation process? Is it then poured into a mould, or sprayed onto a form in layers, or by a process of injection moulding maybe? It wouldn't be a solid sheet or layer of pure diamond, because whilst diamond is very hard, it's also very prone towards breaking when suffering an impact or direct shock around it's thinest edge or point. At which time it breaks clean across to the opposite side. Right?

[@davidthom7127]

Ribbon tweeters ?

[@fraula1]

Very informative Thank you :)

[@blackwei3299]

So finally, what is better? Cardboard, or plastic? I think cardboard is better for bass, exactly like on the jbl flip 6, the GG has a cardboard cone driver and the TL has a plastic one. But i think they also have a bit of change in the amplifier's DSP.

[@RennieAsh]

I have speakers using aluminium even as mids , tweeters etc. It depends how it's implemented. No breakup heard when done right, though can sound "too clean".

[@AudioTalk]

Hi Rennie, they can be managed through the crossover, but they have loud break-ups that need to be avoided, but yes a fished good result is certainly possible

[@thepenultimateninja5797]

I don't know if it's my screen, or some distortion on the video, or just an optical illusion, but it looks like the cone of that speaker is moving!

[@SheikhN-bible-syndrome]

CF or Kevlar are my favorite

[@kuronekosan2830]

Hi i would like to buy in cieiling speakers for atmos..my bed layer speakers has kevlar cone and silk soft dome tweeter..i would like to timbre match my bed layer speakers as close as possible ..as they dont have the speaker from the lineup..im looking at buying ceilling speakers with same materials at least..but i keep getting kevlar cone speakers but with titanium dome which is too different..so now i got 2 options ..1 is carbon fiber cone and second Polypropylene Cone ..both with silk dome tweeter .what would be the closest pick to kevlar cone and which one would blend more with eq ?

[@AudioTalk]

The best is to stay with the same brand and series of speakers. However with Atmos speakers that doesnt contribute as much as center, front and back, so it would be less audible. Other than that I would point to B&W CCM662

[@kuronekosan2830]

@@AudioTalk my bed layers are all wharfedale speakers ..all kevlar and soft dome tweeters ..the in ceiling wharfedales are not from the same series and they have titanium dome which would sound totally dfferentl Instead im going for the monoprice 2 way carbonfiber and soft dome tweeter Its 15degree angled as well and fits my budget Would it be more easy to blend this speaker because of its kind of similar cone and similar tweeter? Or should i just buy the wharfedales even though the cone is polypropylene and twitter titaniium?

[@AudioTalk]

@@kuronekosan2830 its hard to say, I have not heard wharferdale speakers, but it sounds to me their ceiling speakers are a entirely different DNA, maybe they are private label from a factory a lot of brands are doing that. But its a tough one as far as which concept to go with here, but again atmos speakers are not the most important to match in the setup so the monoprice would probably do alright

[@Acoustic_Theory]

Question, what is the model number of the speaker you are holding in your hand?

[@AudioTalk]

Vifa XT15WK03, it was a OEM driver from a discontinued speaker model that I picked up the rest of when Dantax radio bought Gamut speakers a few years back.

[@mcgreedy01]

Paper is best. Great video!

[@navinadv]

Mark Audio makes wide range drivers using aluminium.

[@Acoustic_Theory]

You can learn a lot about the sound of a speaker by scratching the cone with your fingernail, or by tapping it with the back of your fingernail. Aluminum cones are very cost effective and excellent as the cones of dedicated woofers, but any midrange played through them will have the same hard unnatural character you hear in the sound of the cone itself. Fiber midrange cones are the best - whether paper, Kevlar, glass, or carbon fiber. A stiffer cone like Kevlar, glass, or carbon fiber is better for a 'midbass' - a woofer that needs to play up into the midrange - but for that effortless 3-way sound from a dedicated midrange, a paper product with kapok, reed, bamboo, wool, abaca, kenaf, or even chopped kevlar/glass fiber additives is desirable. Those additives modify the tensile strength and damping of the paper, and reed fibers also create randomly placed obstacles to traveling waves in the paper material. Graphite and mica powders can be added to paper to immobilize the fibers and make the diaphragm 'harder' in compression, and I think these will complement the use of other fibers that increase tensile stiffness. A bead of rubberized damping adhesive around the edge of the cone - usually behind it - will smooth the mass/damping transition to the surround material, and some rubberized damping adhesive applied to the inside knee of the surround will damp the 'whipping' tendency of a thin or wide surround to go out of phase with the cone, creating 'edge hole' - so that's one way to reduce it. The surround of a midrange speaker should only be as wide as it needs to be to support a small amount of diaphragm excursion, because an excessively wide surround experiences 'edge hole'; Scan-speak has also used large fillets in the inside and outside knee of the roll profile to damp the surround. Dedicated midrange speakers should not use a dust cap at all, because of the small cone excursions - instead, a phase plug made of wood or aluminum should be used. Plastic phase plugs are a travesty, but they do exist. For a mid-woofer, the dust cap should be kept small, but for a dedicated woofer, the dust cap should be larger - the larger dust cap creates a 'torque box' that resists folding of the cone by mechanically joining one side of the cone mechanically to the opposite side in every direction. For subwoofers, a fiber-reinforced paper is quite good, but aluminum is also excellent. Polypropylene is pretty much always terrible - it has too much viscoelastic damping to provide convincing detail, and it always needs an additive like mica, talc, or finely chopped fiber to stiffen it to restore any sort of sonic detail. Also, polypropylene and other plastic cones experience a softening of the material at the apex when the voice coil temperature is high. Plastic is only any good as a substrate for a planar ribbon tweeter, where the thin film keeps the plastic from being overdamped. These plastic films are also usually harder and resistant to high temperature, such as Kapton or Kaladex. Voice coils should be Kapton for 1.5" and smaller coils, and TIL for coils larger than 1.5", but aluminum and titanium can give good results in subwoofer applications (where the coil former needs to resist crushing) or midrange applications (where the coil former needs to have a high speed of sound to propagate detail from the voice coil to the cone). Aluminum also has a slight high-pass effect and electrodynamic braking effect due to eddy current that can reduce Qts. Materials are enormously important when designing speaker drivers - they are not just electrical devices.

[@gino3286]

"Aluminum cones are very cost effective" could you please name any brand ? i am looking for a 8" unit I see Visaton AL200 ... but is not that cheap I intend to use a metal one to replace a poly woofer in my active speakers Thanks and regards, gino

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

No no it is a question of damping as well as stiffness. Some metals store energy like a spring, and will ring like a bell. This has nothing to do with stiffness - this has everything to do with damping ratio. Whether silk or metal, coatings and surface finishes can do a huge amount to the resonance and decay, and it is not only the speed of sound in the material that matters, it is the decay rate, and it is very much design dependent whether a design will produce distortion.

[@JonDeth]

Vert well said. I've had every type of speaker design relative to pro audio that exists, and what I've found with metal is they need to be coated to prevent transient noise from the metal's decay and that aftershock bell ring. I've also had metal composite cones where it's metal, polymer and actually flexible. Metalized polymer has been my favorite sounding material even above fibers such as paper or even kevlar. I am a virtuoso guitarist of the shred and sweep style and found polymer and metalyzed polymer cone material sounds the absolute best. The damping qualities of it compared to paper gives you a very refined, sharp and accurate sound but they have just enough damping to reduce or flat out eliminate transients noise both in real time and the decay. *Most guitarists would be horrified of the thought of anything other than a paper cone lol.*

[@krowwithakay]

Odd that JL Audio would use so much polypropylene at such a high price point? I'd expect carbon fiber and Kevlar. Maybe even some higher end materials than that at the c5-c7 level.

[@AudioTalk]

Some mixes of polypropylene can be very good sounding and the manufacture has spend a lot on research on the chemistry side and therefore want that compensated. Harbeth is good example of this, maybe JL audio has a similar approach, I am not that familiar with car stereos . Besides that, the motor system and basket can have cost in how well thats made, creating that cost difference. And lastly if we are talking subwoofers with focus under 120Hz the materials becomes less important, because some weight is needed, and distortion is less audible. But sure there is also just pure branding, making consumers believe they are buying premium, through good looking products and adds.

[@lawrencedrozario4703]

Great

[@canadianwildlifeservice8883]

All materials have a resonant frequency and will color the sound based on that frequency. Anyone that says that one material does not color the sound is misinformed. Also the harsh SSS sounds of tweeters is called "sibilance".

[@RennieAsh]

A well designed driver used properly will be hard to discern material type on a test. Tweeter sibilance also tend to be more from implementation, diffraction/dispersion rather than material type. Plenty a soft dome can sound sibilant

[@fubartotale3389]

I've always felt that organic materials sounded most authentic, paper for drivers, silk for tweeters, but that's just me...

[@RennieAsh]

The silk is coated in plastic. Without that it would sound muffled indeed . Oh and they usually have aluminium voice coil formers. Same thing goes for paper. Newer woofers may use fibreglass voice coil formers. You may be able to find paper voice coil formers in old speakers

[@JosesBWK]

and silk tweeters? or am i offpage

[@RennieAsh]

Textile --> silk is one textile

[@peterpixo]

what about paper cone tweeters?

[@RennieAsh]

There's also paper dome tweeters if you are lucky to cover across one :)

[@KneppaH]

@@RennieAsh I have an old set of Philips MFB 544 active speakers from the 70's and it appears to have paper dome midrange drivers inside them. Very unusual.

[@godfreyd6017]

What about cone surround, spider,, magnet, d dust cap,... Could like to hear

[@janeliu1420]

Sorry Wechat /Whatsapp is [phone]

[@RennieAsh]

Purifi BMR

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

Actually paper is stiffer than kevlar and can be more "accurate".

[@AudioTalk]

For sure paper cones can be stiffer than kevlar, but not at budget level. If you pick a high-end paper cone driver like a Scan-speak Illuminator, then yes you get the best of both worlds. I myself love paper, even budget once like the M21 and C17 Vifa but prefer Revelators.

[@arande3]

Lol man aluminum at breakup sounds soooo bad it's scary. It just sounds super horrible lolol.

[@conchobar]

Simple solution, roll off the driver sooner. Plenty of aluminum drivers with wide bandwidth below fs.

[@arande3]

@@conchobar I appreciate your input, but I think it really depends on the specific driver. I have some Dayton sub drivers with a 2K resonance and even if I low pass at 120 I will hear that 2K blatantly if ANY kind of 2k gets into the cone, whether it be amp noise, pushing the driver hard, tapping on it. On the other hand I have a sb 6” mid driver that uses a rib structure and has very little problem with resonance.

[@MikeleKonstantyFiedorowiczIV]

to bad that interesting movie has not polish subitles.

[@chrisnorrell7489]

None of those materials are actaully expensive when I can go get diamond cutting wheels for $12 for a pack of 5 and there is much more diamond in a cutting wheel than a .75" tweeter that you charge $300 for. All audio companies profit margins of 4 times what they cost is ridiculous. Aramid fiber cost 2 cents a foot and focal charges $700 for a set. Insanity. None of it makes much of a difference. The material isn't what is making sound. What maters is the weight and rigidity of the material to effect qms and qes

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[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

Polypropylene is a garbage material for speaker drivers.

[@AudioTalk]

There is big differences between polycones. check out Harbeth, KEF and Proac, and for DIY Seas got the Curv cones. All highly acclaimed and not in the cheap section.

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

@@AudioTalk A lot can be done to stiffen cones, true, but all else being equal polypropylene is at the bottom of the list of cone materials. Too much self damping gives it warm, slow sounding characteristics. Paper is much better, even over Kevlar.