I guess I could have worded the one part better. It seems hardness is the main factor (certainly not the only factor); most consistent with those upper midrange severe peaks in the FR, that I believe have resonant qualities. I still think paper cones are more a product of what they're treated with than the paper itself, not that that is necessarily a bad thing. But I could be wrong.
IINM "paper" encompasses a very wide range of formulations and manufacturing processes, and "treatement" can have widely different meanings - and many have none until they get into the field.
I'm more of the opinion that as far as wide-band "Full-range" drivers are concerned, the profile shape of the cone and dust cap, as well as the type and amount of adhesives by which they are attached to the rest of the drive train and suspension are at least as important as the actual material - be it "stock" or factory treated paper (such as Vifas), metal, polypropylene, bextrene, carbon or glass fibre, reconstituted wood veneer ( Airborne), Ceramic, or irradiated spider silk 🙄. I've heard moving coil cone drivers made with most of the above listed materials, and used to have a favorite (i.e. paper), but with the latest generation of metal cones by Mark Audio, I'm not so sure.
I'm more of the opinion that as far as wide-band "Full-range" drivers are concerned, the profile shape of the cone and dust cap, as well as the type and amount of adhesives by which they are attached to the rest of the drive train and suspension are at least as important as the actual material - be it "stock" or factory treated paper (such as Vifas), metal, polypropylene, bextrene, carbon or glass fibre, reconstituted wood veneer ( Airborne), Ceramic, or irradiated spider silk 🙄. I've heard moving coil cone drivers made with most of the above listed materials, and used to have a favorite (i.e. paper), but with the latest generation of metal cones by Mark Audio, I'm not so sure.
There's spider silk drivers? 
Isn't that Yamaha NS-10 / NS-50 paper? The cone material comes from a tree.
Apparently those speakers sound so unattractive that you have to keep mastering until the music sounds half-decent, then it sounds wonderful on any other speaker? Well, that is not my area but that's what I've heard.
Isn't that Yamaha NS-10 / NS-50 paper? The cone material comes from a tree.
Apparently those speakers sound so unattractive that you have to keep mastering until the music sounds half-decent, then it sounds wonderful on any other speaker? Well, that is not my area but that's what I've heard.
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Depends what you glue and dope the paper with. I am sure you could nullify the differences between many paper blends by using certain glues and doping compounds. Then again you could use something very benign that would let all of the differences between blends show through.
The main trouble with people talking about 'paper' cones is that it doesn't really mean anything any more.
The bottom line is that all drivers have to be considered in isolation and for the job they are expected to perform.
There's spider silk drivers?
not yet? - that was just silliness
not all paper comes from tree pulp
there are probably some experienced recording / mixing engineers frequenting these forums who could pipe in on the reasons for the ubiquity and relative sound quality of the NS monitors - I've never heard a pair myself.
Some of the loudspeakers I've enjoyed the least and the most utilized paper cone drivers - exactly how of each experience could be attributed to the particular formulation of the paper(s) used, compared to all the other factors in the design of the drivers and enclosures would I suspect be rather a gordian knot to unravel
Check page 11 / 12 — www.soundonsound.com/pdfs/ns10m.pdf
You can see the time decay is really fast in the low frequencies.
5th Element, please check that link as well, Yamaha NS10M versus the Tannoy Reveal for example, you can see a similar FR with different CSD.
You can see the FR and CSD is not linked.
I'd say, for my preferences:
For HF/upper mids = rigid material (eg. beryllium). More accurate and clear than soft domes/plastic membrane comps. Electrostatic speaker is an exception, plastic works wonderfully in it. 🙂
For lower mids/upper bass = light weight paper cone with controlled resonances for that nice paper midband that renders most instruments and the sound of an electric quitar "naturally". The true woody sound of for example Pantera is quite hard for other materials than paper to reproduce!
For low bass in a horn = rigid cone that does not sacrifice the sensitivity - paper/carbon fiber mix cone as an example.
Low bass in a "normal" (CB/BR/dipole) system = Lighter, less harder paper cone can be used. Lighter cone does not quite give the impact ( I don't mean "speed" by this) of rigidier cone in any application, but can usually sound more romantic and more "tonefull".
Basically it comes down to that one has to choose what one's after, regarding all bands.
For HF/upper mids = rigid material (eg. beryllium). More accurate and clear than soft domes/plastic membrane comps. Electrostatic speaker is an exception, plastic works wonderfully in it. 🙂
For lower mids/upper bass = light weight paper cone with controlled resonances for that nice paper midband that renders most instruments and the sound of an electric quitar "naturally". The true woody sound of for example Pantera is quite hard for other materials than paper to reproduce!
For low bass in a horn = rigid cone that does not sacrifice the sensitivity - paper/carbon fiber mix cone as an example.
Low bass in a "normal" (CB/BR/dipole) system = Lighter, less harder paper cone can be used. Lighter cone does not quite give the impact ( I don't mean "speed" by this) of rigidier cone in any application, but can usually sound more romantic and more "tonefull".
Basically it comes down to that one has to choose what one's after, regarding all bands.
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Go see an eye doctor, please. The FR's of those two speakers are not what anyone would sanely call 'similar'.
Which could be Thai silk, Japanese silk, synthetic silk, et cetera.
I looked up spider silk and noticed it's been used to make violin strings.
Here are some specs.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Either way, the point is that FR strictly alone can not predict the CSD, the Yamaha versus Tannoy pictures I linked are an example of this, correct?
Looking at what you wrote in post #82 now it seems like you agree that FR is not sufficient by itself right?
The thread linked earlier with the speaker designer "Danny" had many users with a different viewpoint to yours, they posited that FR strictly alone is sufficient, just another way of looking at the same data. Your position is that that's not true, right?
I think the only picture or example I posted which you think is irrelevant is the ADSR in post #77 — http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full...per-alum-titanium-poly-etc-8.html#post4002321
Since in that post I was implying that the attack and decay envelope will induce sound character.
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What exactly is it that you don't like about the two measurements of FR vs CSD in those two loudspeakers?
The FR plots show peaks and the CSD plots show decay ridges, that's what you'd expect.
What was written in post 82 says that the individual slices within a CSD plot are frequency responses taken with time specific windows, then plotted against one another vs time. An individual slice of the CSD cannot take one back to the impulse. But a complete frequency response that uses all of the impulse before the FFT is applied, can be reversed back into the original impulse response via inverse FFT.
The FR plots show peaks and the CSD plots show decay ridges, that's what you'd expect.
What was written in post 82 says that the individual slices within a CSD plot are frequency responses taken with time specific windows, then plotted against one another vs time. An individual slice of the CSD cannot take one back to the impulse. But a complete frequency response that uses all of the impulse before the FFT is applied, can be reversed back into the original impulse response via inverse FFT.
Nor does the CSD.
But one could argue that the stuff you're gating out of the measurement is useless anyway. So if you inverse FFT the FR you'll end up with the impulse response you used to create it in the first place. If you're not interested in the stuff you gated out, you haven't really lost anything.
But one could argue that the stuff you're gating out of the measurement is useless anyway. So if you inverse FFT the FR you'll end up with the impulse response you used to create it in the first place. If you're not interested in the stuff you gated out, you haven't really lost anything.
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