Aluminum Speaker Concerns

 

SW
I saw in a previous post that the Axiom speaker line sometimes uses aluminum woofers. How differently would the speakers sound out of the box versus some other woofer on another speaker that was not aluminum?? And how would you break-in the aluminum woofer? Is the aluminum woofer even a good thing?
 

timn8ter
The idea behind using aluminum cones (most are actually metalized paper) is to control cone distortion while adding as little to the mass as possible. If done correctly it's a great benefit. If it's done for show, well, I think you know. Break-in is no different than any other speaker because you're talking about the surround and spider, usually. Doreen Bandor is the queen of aluminum driver manufacturing. Check out her website at
http://www.bandor.com
 

Rick
Yes, aluminum is good, titanium is better, maybe best (?). The reasons are paper cones flex during excursion which can cause distortion. So you want the cone to have 0 flex, so you use harder materials. Copolymers are the most common, with aluninum tweeters. So higher ends have aluminum woofers which is better but addss to the cost of course. The Axiom is obviously a high end speaker, and using the aluminum should have excellent sound rewproduction.
 

Bandor's web site is at http://www.bandor.co.uk
 

timn8ter
You still here Steve? Thanks for the correction.
 

timn8ter
Let's not forget the Nonsuch loudspeakers which use aluminum cone drivers.
http://www.seventh-veil.com/index.htm
;-)
Hey Steve, I went to the bottom of your page where it says "Bookmark this page" and it took me here.
http://www.italianbreaks.com/
Going on holiday soon?
 

Max
Hello,
haha thats funny. One thing I just wanted to add is that ALL Axioms use aluminum woofers.
How about glass-fiber is that good material?
Max
 

"Hey Steve, I went to the bottom of your page where it says "Bookmark this page" and it took me here.
http://www.italianbreaks.com/"

Whoops, only just noticed this post. I occasional marketing work for the Italian Breaks web site. Muddled up my Javascript. I've fixed it now (I hope).
 

Rick, I'm not sure that Titanium is better than aluminium.

There is an argument that it's not such a good thing to have a perfectly rigid cone at high frequencies. The dispersion characteristics can become less than optimum as the frequency increases. It can be better to allow natural break-up modes to occur but to ensure that they are well controlled.

Exponents of cone lacquer C37 would certainly be of this view as their 'magic potion' works specifically to modify the cone behaviour at break-up so that it sounds good.

'Break-up' is an ugly term but it's just a label for cone behaviour which isn't always ugly. I prefer the term 'controlled high frequency rippling'. What do you think? :-)

Steve
 

timn8ter
Quote"'Break-up' is an ugly term but it's just a label for cone behaviour which isn't always ugly. I prefer the term 'controlled high frequency rippling'. What do you think? :-)"

I like it, I've always hated breaking up. It's interesting and a contradiction to conventional thinking that "controlled high frequency rippling" is a good thing. I seem to remember reading about psycho-acoustics and high frequency and that too flat in that range somehow sounds worse to us than some distortion and harmonics. Is this what you're referring to?
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