Sorry if this topic has been discussed here -- please point me to it?
I'm asking about an age-old topic, but I am still trying to understand it. How does the cone material impact the sound, in general, for a midrange or midbass driver?
I used to believe that "given all else being similar" a good metal cone driver will have a more problematic cone break-up resonance area, but will reproduce details better and have less distortion. A paper cone (or poly cone) driver will have smoother SPL curves, will have less of the cone break-up challenges, but may have slightly more distortion. "All else being similar". I am not so sure now.
I am currently playing with Dayton RS 180 (metal cone) and RS 180P (paper cone? three-part sandwich cone?) drivers, both mounted on identical enclosures at identical locations. I'm attempting to build two different MTM speakers (homage to Jon Marsh' Cauer-elliptic MTM done a decade ago). I measured their SPL, with the same measurement rig and mic at roughly the same distance in both cases.
This does not tell me anything about distortion, but at least dispels the myth that paper cone drivers have benign and smooth cone break-up jaggies. If anything, in this case the paper-cone break-up region starts earlier, forcing more demands on a crossover to suppress that region. If anyone is interested, I can upload the ARTA PIR files for these measurements too.
My basic question is: what differences does a speaker designer expect to see when he chooses one cone material over another, "all else being roughly equal"?
One common misconception is that metal cone drivers give a "harder", more "hyper-detailed" sound, and paper cones sound warmer. This may be true of raw drivers without crossovers, but with competent crossovers designed to suppress non-linear and resonance regions, I think good metal cone drivers can sound clean, detailed, without any excessive edginess or hardness. I gathered confidence from Jon Marsh' work with that MTM and used metal cone drivers for my Darbari 3-way system, with steep xo slopes, and the sound has no hardness or edginess at all.
I'm asking about an age-old topic, but I am still trying to understand it. How does the cone material impact the sound, in general, for a midrange or midbass driver?
I used to believe that "given all else being similar" a good metal cone driver will have a more problematic cone break-up resonance area, but will reproduce details better and have less distortion. A paper cone (or poly cone) driver will have smoother SPL curves, will have less of the cone break-up challenges, but may have slightly more distortion. "All else being similar". I am not so sure now.
I am currently playing with Dayton RS 180 (metal cone) and RS 180P (paper cone? three-part sandwich cone?) drivers, both mounted on identical enclosures at identical locations. I'm attempting to build two different MTM speakers (homage to Jon Marsh' Cauer-elliptic MTM done a decade ago). I measured their SPL, with the same measurement rig and mic at roughly the same distance in both cases.
This does not tell me anything about distortion, but at least dispels the myth that paper cone drivers have benign and smooth cone break-up jaggies. If anything, in this case the paper-cone break-up region starts earlier, forcing more demands on a crossover to suppress that region. If anyone is interested, I can upload the ARTA PIR files for these measurements too.
My basic question is: what differences does a speaker designer expect to see when he chooses one cone material over another, "all else being roughly equal"?
One common misconception is that metal cone drivers give a "harder", more "hyper-detailed" sound, and paper cones sound warmer. This may be true of raw drivers without crossovers, but with competent crossovers designed to suppress non-linear and resonance regions, I think good metal cone drivers can sound clean, detailed, without any excessive edginess or hardness. I gathered confidence from Jon Marsh' work with that MTM and used metal cone drivers for my Darbari 3-way system, with steep xo slopes, and the sound has no hardness or edginess at all.
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