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Do paper speaker cones sound less neutral?

The reality is that they are speakers which were designed by the BBC to act as 'near field studio monitors', with... I believe.. particular attention the reproduction of the human voice. They were designed to be used in cramped studios, in order to let broadcasters hear what was 'going out'.. as it were. They are not full range, they do not have big power handling and they are not very sensitive.. but in the right setting.. they are excellent.

Agreed. They were designed 50 years ago and in the design spec. unsuitability for listening to music was explicitly stated:

"There is a need to monitor sound programme quality in circumstances where space is at a premium and where headphones are not considered satisfactory. Such circumstances include the production-control section of a television mobile control-room, where the producer responsible for the overall production of the programme needs to monitor the output from the sound mixer but at levels lower than those used for mixing."

50 years later speakers with a better technical performance from Genelec, Neumann, and the like are generally used for this task. The fact that people today pay ridiculous sums of money for them given what they are certainly supports a case that they are excellent at something although it doesn't seem to be the original job they were designed for or as high fidelity main speakers for listening to music.
 
Implementation is everything, different materials perform differently depending on design requirements.

I wish I'd said that. :)

And there is the Jordan Watts type of speaker cone to consider as well....

Yes, Ted Jordan designed metal cone drivers in the mid sixties. The Bandors I use (see the photo above) are a direct descendant of them. And there are still derivates of these designs in production today. Paper, plastics, metals - they've all been used for decades, and all still have their advocates. Using them in the right application is the key. What I can't accept is the sweeping dismissal of one material or another.
 
I'm sure they sound lovely and I wish I had the time, patience etc.. to build something.

Now.. just a coat of Dulux.. or maybe some nice Fablon.... ;)

Yes, they need work. :) The bass boxes are just test enclosures - they're only screwed together, without any damping or fill. But I haven't got round to fixing them up, because they sound so good just as they are.
 
Interesting thread........
Generally speaking, I prefer paper overall as they are sweeter to my ears than other materials. Don’t really know if they are more natural but can live with it pretty well for several hours of listening.
Nevertheless, I may have one exception to the rule using metal woofers and really sounds natural and lively :

https://www.josephaudio.com/pearl3

They require a lot of power though, probably because of their impedance.
 
Speakers are always a compromise. They accelerate more slowly than the original sound demands. They also delay less accurately. From this point of view, drivers should be as light as possible.
Then they should always piston in the frequency band they use. If they do not, the breakup should be controllable. Also, the breakup should lead to massive distortion.
Laser measurements have shown that even titanium tweeters can not cleanly reproduce the entire frequency range. Not to mention aluminum. That is why metal has a bad reputation. With beryllium, however, the ideal high frequency material has been found.
With midrange and woofers the acceleration impulse is the problem. Lightweight and stiff is difficult to do at the sizes. The Chitin chassis from Podzus Görlich were a good solution. Very good, but also very expensive. I don't think the company made it into the current millennium either. Paper has nice properties when broken up. On the other hand, they do not always move like pistons. Especially with strong impulses. Not to mention simple plastic cones.
The ATC-MD accelerates well and breaks up "pleasantly" late. That is why it is so praised.
 
T
Speakers are always a compromise. They accelerate more slowly than the original sound demands. They also delay less accurately. From this point of view, drivers should be as light as possible.
Then they should always piston in the frequency band they use. If they do not, the breakup should be controllable. Also, the breakup should lead to massive distortion.
Laser measurements have shown that even titanium tweeters can not cleanly reproduce the entire frequency range. Not to mention aluminum. That is why metal has a bad reputation. With beryllium, however, the ideal high frequency material has been found.
With midrange and woofers the acceleration impulse is the problem. Lightweight and stiff is difficult to do at the sizes. The Chitin chassis from Podzus Görlich were a good solution. Very good, but also very expensive. I don't think the company made it into the current millennium either. Paper has nice properties when broken up. On the other hand, they do not always move like pistons. Especially with strong impulses. Not to mention simple plastic cones.
The ATC-MD accelerates well and breaks up "pleasantly" late. That is why it is so praised.
This mid-woofer here has a moving mass of only 13.5 grams, I have a 2 way floor standers made with these and I am very impressed with the transient and bass performance :

https://solen.ca/wp-content/uploads/sb17crc358.pdf
 
I think a lot of this is transference. Metal sounds metalic, paper is papery.

Agreed, in the same way that valves usually get described as sounding warm.

Kef's chief engineer nails this in an interview with Stereophile a few years ago.
Essentially, a cone/dome material has no sound character of its own if it doesn't bend (resonate) within its passband + a good safety margin either side.
It's the resonance that gives the flavour.

In hi-fi 'speakers using paper or plastic it becomes difficult to push the resonance outside of the passband, therefore damping is usually applied.
This reduces the impact of the problem but doesn't fix it completely.

A good modern metal driver is the answer coupled with a competent crossover. Then you can practically eliminate any audible driver material ringing without recourse to damping.
To use Kef as an example, their metal dome tweeters have the break-up pushed out to 40KHz and sound very neutral.
Contrast this with the metal domes from the late 80s and 90s when these things started popping up all over the place and many barely managed to push the resonance beyond 20KHz.

The advantage of paper is lightness but no doubt many superb 'speakers are based around paper drivers. It's all relative :)
 
I think there is a thinness to the sound that does not sound natural.
Thinness to the midrange? I know we all hear differently, but thinness is one description I've never heard ascribed to NS-1000s. Lean in the bass perhaps, but that is not the job of the beryllium drivers.
 
Speakers are always a compromise. They accelerate more slowly than the original sound demands. They also delay less accurately. From this point of view, drivers should be as light as possible.
Then they should always piston in the frequency band they use. If they do not, the breakup should be controllable. Also, the breakup should lead to massive distortion.
Laser measurements have shown that even titanium tweeters can not cleanly reproduce the entire frequency range. Not to mention aluminum. That is why metal has a bad reputation. With beryllium, however, the ideal high frequency material has been found.
With midrange and woofers the acceleration impulse is the problem. Lightweight and stiff is difficult to do at the sizes. The Chitin chassis from Podzus Görlich were a good solution. Very good, but also very expensive. I don't think the company made it into the current millennium either. Paper has nice properties when broken up. On the other hand, they do not always move like pistons. Especially with strong impulses. Not to mention simple plastic cones.
The ATC-MD accelerates well and breaks up "pleasantly" late. That is why it is so praised.
What he said.
 
To use Kef as an example, their metal dome tweeters have the break-up pushed out to 40KHz and sound very neutral.

Yet they had to fix some resonance issues in the original LS50 by developing the Meta version.
 
Yet they had to fix some resonance issues in the original LS50 by developing the Meta version.

I'm a bit dubious about Meta benefits. The tweeter is running hotter, the presence range pulled down a tad and the crossover point (and likely design) has changed.
I wonder how much of the HF character difference is due to Meta and how much is due to simply re-voicing the 'speaker.
 
What have they done to the crossover point?

PS FWIW when I have a problem with a metal dome tweeter it is always at the bottom, not the top of its range! When they are wrong the crossover point is made obvious. I don’t remember being annoyed with LS50s though, they sounded great (either the active or passive versions, I’ve heard both).
 
I haven't heard the Meta yet. I owned the LS50 for a while but it was a bit too lively in the 2-3KHz range for my tastes.
 
Harbeth don’t use paper drivers for starters. Nothing wrong with paper drivers some of the best speakers use them. But do like the look of those Zellaton drivers.
 
What have they done to the crossover point?

PS FWIW when I have a problem with a metal dome tweeter it is always at the bottom, not the top of its range! When they are wrong the crossover point is made obvious. I don’t remember being annoyed with LS50s though, they sounded great (either the active or passive versions, I’ve heard both).

A tiny change in frequency - 2.1 to 2.2KHz or might be the other way. No idea if the slopes have changed. Definitely a different HF balance though.
 
A tiny change in frequency - 2.1 to 2.2KHz or might be the other way. No idea if the slopes have changed. Definitely a different HF balance though.

That’s a rounding error! Barely microtones from a musical perspective. Is there anything physically different, e.g. horn/cone shape? A tiny change there could make quite a difference.
 
That’s a rounding error! Barely microtones from a musical perspective. Is there anything physically different, e.g. horn/cone shape? I tiny change there could make quite a difference.

Yes the small gap between the tweeter dome and the inner metal wave guide has changed. Not to the eye in photos but enough to make a difference according to KEF.
I'm sure there are myriad tiny changes.
 


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