Can you "hear" the difference between poly, paper, etc. and metal?

[fjhuerta]

Hi all!

This is going to be a controversial post (or not!) but I was wondering.

I had for more than a year an all-metal speaker at home, with a Duelund-style crossover, using the Dayton RS180, RS52 and a Vifa metal dome.

I gave the speakers away to my sister, and replaced them with a small T-B / SEAS speaker. The woofers are poly (W4's, can't remember the model) and the tweeter is the 27TBFC/G, using a 2nd order time aligned crossover.

I know it's very difficult to do a direct comparison, and even worse, the driver topology is very different (one was a TMWW, the other an MTM). But I find myself listening a lot more to music. As in, everytime I can, I turn on the stereo. With my other speakers, it got to a point where I didn't want to listen to them anymore because, I suppose, they hurt my ears.

It happened before. I also own a set of Monitor Audio RS8 speakers (beautiful things), and I vastly preferred my old Energy C-7's (with poly cones). But I assumed it had to do with the voicing of the speakers, and not the material of the drivers.

I know a properly designed metal-cone based speaker shouldn't be different from a properly designed paper or poly cone one, but from experience, I find myself preferring paper over metal, and poly over paper. The only notable exception so far is the Tang Band Titanium 4" woofer. I love that driver.

Am I imagining things, or has anyone else experienced the same?

[augerpro]

Were the reasons why you liked the soft cones the same? Ditto why you had issues with the hard cones? Same phenomenon, good or bad, is what I'm getting at.

[SpeakerGuy]

For years I just flat out thought I don't like speakers with metal cones, metal tweeters in particular.

But then, a few years back, I auditioned a bunch of high end speakers and one stood clearly above all the others and it was an all metal, woofers, mids, and tweeters (2nd "ambience" tweeter in the back). Perhaps it's just easier for metal cones to sound bad and you have to be extra careful with them to get the best out of them.

One related bit: I've seen more than a few people express dislike for the sound of speakers using the RS52, yet, in tests it measures beautifully. The Morel MDM-55 on the otherhand, I've seen very little negative feedback about and heaps of praise from those who have listened to speakers using it [such as the "Tzu Jans".

Would like to see updates on Brandon's "Metal vs Softy" project thread. That's the best thread I've seen in years, maybe ever. I'll have to go back and look, maybe its been updated.

Speaker [driver] tests are nice, but, actual listening tests comparing two or more different completed speaker pairs in depth, with both objective and subjective evaluation are far too rare on the DIY audio forums.

[cjd]

Listen to the drivers raw? You bet you can hear it, though it's not material so much as it is the general resonance properties, which happen to be significantly (but not exclusively) influenced by the material.

Given that many people like the even order distortion introduced by softer cones (note, this is NOT universal) and the softening of the critical upper midrange (where we're especially sensitive - when built into the response it's BBC dip) it's not surprising that folks like the softer cone materials.

[augerpro]

the softening of the critical upper midrange (where we're especially sensitive - when built into the response it's BBC dip) it's not surprising that folks like the softer cone materials.

I think that is a lot it right there Chris. An otherwise superior driver can still bother a person if that 1-4khz region has issues.

[Paul Spencer]

Did you ever measure those speakers? I wonder if they had some breakup that didn't get addressed.