Manufacturing a paper cone

[SunRa]

Now this might be an odd thread, however, do you have any idea where from the driver manufacturers supply their cones? Do they make them in-house, as some exotic companies like Lowther, Feastrex and Supravox, or is there a supplier for industry leaders like Eminence, PAudio and the rest?

Furthermore, if you have access to articles on cone/spider design, link them here, I think this area is often forgotten. I mean, there are some threads on this forum regarding motor design but not too much about the rest of a transducer.

Thank you!

[kstrain]

Originally posted by SunRa
Now this might be an odd thread, however, do you have any idea where from the driver manufacturers supply their cones? Do they make them in-house, as some exotic companies like Lowther, Feastrex and Supravox, or is there a supplier for industry leaders like Eminence, PAudio and the rest?

Look, for example, at

http://www.kurtmueller.com

You can use the information there as a starting point for searches too.

Ken

[SunRa]

Thank you, I wasn't aware of the site.

Here is another one: loudspeaker component .

[John_E_Janowitz]

There are 4 main cone vendors in the US. Rapid Die and Molding Company (RDM), Hawley Products, Nuway Speaker, and Loudspeaker Components LLC. They each comprise about 25% of the market. Most large companies in the pro audio industry end up splitting up their business equally among two or more of these companies. One product line from Emenince may go to RDM, another line to Loudspeaker Components. The reason being, it makes things more competitive between the vendors to do things quickly and correctly. Also it develops a good relationship with multiple vendors who could quickly pick up if one vendor had issues.

http://www.rdmco.com/

http://www.hawleyproducts.com/

http://loudspeakercomponents.com/

http://www.nuway-speaker.com/

Outside the US there are tons of companies who do paper cones. One main difference between US paper and Chinese paper is the difference in starch. We use corn starch for paper in the US and China uses rice starch. The corn starch creates much stronger paper.

Here is a good link to an old page talking about a few cone/surround materials:
http://web.archive.org/web/200310110...com/indext.htm

John

[cdwitmer]

I don't know anything about conventional paper building, but I find the mention of starch interesting, as I know one of the salient features of the paper used by Feastrex is that it contains no starch whatsoever. I was told that the long-term durability of paper is much better if it contains no starch. FWIW . . .

-- Chris

[cdwitmer]

Originally posted by cdwitmer
I was told that the long-term durability of paper is much better if it contains no starch.

By the way, that is not intended as a negative criticism of paper cone materials containing starch . . . the whole approach to papermaking is different with the Japanese handmade mulberry paper.

-- Chris

[Cal Weldon]

I haven't owned a driver where the cone was the culprit in it's demise.

[cdwitmer]

Originally posted by Cal Weldon
I haven't owned a driver where the cone was the culprit in it's demise.

I have owned and/or seen several drivers where deterioration of the cone paper was the cause of demise and/or deterioration in sound quality. One cone was eaten by bugs that were after the starch in the paper. Other cones had gone brittle, something which can probably be caused by other factors as well, but which (in some cases at least) I suspect was caused at least in part by starch in the paper. There are also a lot of old paper drivers where the paper seems to hold up really well, and I'm not sure exactly what it is that separates a REALLY long-lived cone from a cone that lasts "merely" several decades or a short time (less than two decades).

-- Chris

[rjb]

With older drivers, the cloth/varnish based suspension can go stiff so the paper flexes instead. If driven hard this fatigues and tears. I have several old Corals that did this, (not my me I hasten to add).

[SunRa]

Thank you for you links and answers, I'll start to check them out.
In the meanwhile, what do you think about these design?