Papercones & boiled linseed oil.

[keantoken]

Hello all.

A while back I spied a lonely speaker enclosure sitting out on the street corner, all alone and facing oblivion. I was inspired by its peacefulness and bravery so I went to take a look.

All the speakers were papercones but both woofers were stuck, so I took the midranges.

Eager to see how they sounded, I put them in boxes previously occupied by my kevlars and had a test listen.

They did have a unique sound that I would have liked to explore, but they sounded fairly dirty and there was not as much clarity as with my previous speakers.

I didn't throw them away and until now they've been sitting in my room in a deep and peaceful sleep, waiting for another chance to shine.

Looking back, I decided to test out an idea I had:

It has been my opinion that generally papercone speakers don't sound as good as kevlars or even plastic speakers. However, I have recently been exploring the uses of boiled linseed oil. I thought that maybe If I applied this to the cones and allowed to dry, perhaps they would sound better to my ear.

They are currently sitting on my desk drying.

Any similar thoughts, experience or advice?

Thank you,
- keantoken

[badman]

Well, you're oversimplifying. Some of the best speakers are paper cones, and there are many terrible drivers with kevlar cones.

BUT!

Cone treatment is a well known way of tweaking drivers, particularly paper. Case in point, many commercial speaker drivers use coated paper cones, so experiment with the oil if you like. There are recommendations of cone mods including coating it with modge podge.

[TerryO]

I'll have to disagree with OP's statement about paper cones. Most of the best sounding drivers I've heard use paper cones. It's light, stiff, self damping and after several thousand years...pretty well understood.

IOW: Just about the ideal material for a cone.

That Bad person is correct, there are all kinds of Kevlar coned drivers in the audio boneyard, totally forgotten and unlamented. The less said about them the better

Best Regards,
TerryO

[keantoken]

Thank you.

I guess I would describe their sound as "scratchy". I figured it must be the cone since I could not feel any disturbances when I pressed the cone in. They sounded sort of like when you blow air over paper. The oil is already beginning to dry, it seems, and they sound more like what I like to hear when I tap on the cones.

I'm hoping to get a stronger sound: stiffer, but softer than with a plastic cone. Less higher harmonics. I figure this kind of sound is good for certain types of music.

- keantoken

[keantoken]

I've also been experimenting with carmax as a wood finish (don't laugh). I just took it and rubbed it in and I like the look a little bit better than the linseed oil. It would probably work better when heated. Also, carmax has a wax base, so it is naturally water resistant. Perhaps one could use carmax on papercones also? Vick's Vaporub is almost identical to carmax, except for the wax base. Perhaps it's worth trying if you don't mind the smell for a few days.

- keantoken

[GM]

Carmax? All I get from Google is the used car rip-off folks.

GM

[tomtt]

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q...-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[keantoken]

Oh, it's carmex... Thanks for pointing that out, Tom.

- keantoken