New High-Performance Cone and Diaphragm Technology

Always exploring all the latest information regarding cone and diaphragm technology, Voice Coil regularly publishes reports on key new materials with the potential to excite the loudspeaker industry. In this special focus article, Mike Klasco (Menlo Scientific, Ltd.) explores new approaches that explore thin ply carbon materials, like Swedish advanced composite specialist Oxeon is attempting with its TeXtreme Thin Ply Carbon Technology. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, February 2019.

With a very discreet announcement on their own website, SEAS Fabrikker has stepped ahead of many other major loudspeaker manufacturers with the commercial introduction of a graphene-coated 5-inch woofer. And the new W16NX003 model also signals the launch of a completely new series of Excel Graphene woofers, as the company confirms. "More than a thousand engineering hours and significant investments have been put into the Excel Graphene product line, and the W16NX003 is the first one," they state.

Mike Klasco explains the evolution of speaker cone materials, from paper to the first experiments in plastics and finally to Polypropylene (PP), which became the preferred resin sheet material for thermoformed speaker cones. The article also discusses recent trends in woven composite cone fabrication. This article was published in Voice Coil, February 2014.

Endumax, an innovative and superior cone material with performance beyond woven composites, has only recently been introduced to the industry. From a speaker designer’s perspective, it is possible for extremely wide cone body angles (shallow cone), smaller voice coil diameters, and/or smaller magnetic systems to achieve comparable or superior results to existing speaker cone solutions. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, February 2015.