Absorbtion in Forte IIs

[Japhy]

Dear DJK....

Okay....I very rarely jump into the foray on these types of things but here goes.....

"Paper is better than plastic. Fiberglass, Kevlar, and Carbon fiber are all similar sounding because the rigidity comes from the plastic resin holding things together."

This is about the silliest thing I've ever heard.

If stiffness is a design goal, then the matrix (resin) doesn't get you anywhere....it merely holds the fibers (kevlar, carbon, etc) in the appropriate orientation to best resist the strain that attempts to take place as the structure built from it is being loaded....ie it is in fact the fibers that make up the bulk of the stiffness....the resin is no less than a order of magnitude less stiff than most common fibers it holds.

Now the possibility of providing some type of damping is another topic of potential merit.

As far as the plastic vs. paper thing goes.....I'm all for being green but don't you think leaving it up to the ears of the beholder might be a better idea? You may prefer paper, and so might your friends, but thankfully this hobby is about a broad cross section of people that have different goals for their ears.

" I liked the metal ones better. They ring, but you can damp them. The plastic lacks rigidity"

Hmmmm.....just about everything that makes sound resonates.....violins, drums, pianos, guitars, etc. how nice they sound is a personal warm and fuzzy feeling when the sound they make hits our ears. Saying that plastic molded horns are crap because they are plastic and somehow by default lack rigidity is nonsense. All the ribbing along their surfaces are attempts to tune and reinforce the main throttle surface of the horns. You could say that the resultant use of material and design doesn't please your ears, but a layperson perspective on how terrible the execution of a design they are is reallllllly sticking your neck out.

"Unsturdy woofer/passive basket (thing resonates)"

Hmmm.....of course it resonates....if you have a closed volume and the woofer diaphragm is moving back and forth, it is changing the internal volume of the speaker. By so doing, the radiator provides some resistance but still moves as a result....it is fact designed to do just that!? The fact that it is screwed down at 8 locations makes me hard pressed to think of it as not sturdy either, unless somehow your beef is with the basket design that acts as an interface between the mounting ring and diaphragm?

Speak of what you know about, and listen/learn about what you don't. One persons Gremlin is another person's Mercedes.....be happy in knowing that there is room for everyone in this world please.

[wuzzzer]

Brick of text + digging up 3 year old posts = no read.

[DrWho]

Dear DJK....

Okay....I very rarely jump into the foray on these types of things but here goes.....

"Paper is better than plastic. Fiberglass, Kevlar, and Carbon fiber are all similar sounding because the rigidity comes from the plastic resin holding things together."

This is about the silliest thing I've ever heard.

If stiffness is a design goal, then the matrix (resin) doesn't get you anywhere....it merely holds the fibers (kevlar, carbon, etc) in the appropriate orientation to best resist the strain that attempts to take place as the structure built from it is being loaded....ie it is in fact the fibers that make up the bulk of the stiffness....the resin is no less than a order of magnitude less stiff than most common fibers it holds.

Now the possibility of providing some type of damping is another topic of potential merit.

As far as the plastic vs. paper thing goes.....I'm all for being green but don't you think leaving it up to the ears of the beholder might be a better idea? You may prefer paper, and so might your friends, but thankfully this hobby is about a broad cross section of people that have different goals for their ears.

" I liked the metal ones better. They ring, but you can damp them. The plastic lacks rigidity"

Hmmmm.....just about everything that makes sound resonates.....violins, drums, pianos, guitars, etc. how nice they sound is a personal warm and fuzzy feeling when the sound they make hits our ears. Saying that plastic molded horns are crap because they are plastic and somehow by default lack rigidity is nonsense. All the ribbing along their surfaces are attempts to tune and reinforce the main throttle surface of the horns. You could say that the resultant use of material and design doesn't please your ears, but a layperson perspective on how terrible the execution of a design they are is reallllllly sticking your neck out.

"Unsturdy woofer/passive basket (thing resonates)"

Hmmm.....of course it resonates....if you have a closed volume and the woofer diaphragm is moving back and forth, it is changing the internal volume of the speaker. By so doing, the radiator provides some resistance but still moves as a result....it is fact designed to do just that!? The fact that it is screwed down at 8 locations makes me hard pressed to think of it as not sturdy either, unless somehow your beef is with the basket design that acts as an interface between the mounting ring and diaphragm?

Speak of what you know about, and listen/learn about what you don't. One persons Gremlin is another person's Mercedes.....be happy in knowing that there is room for everyone in this world please.

I think a better way to look at it is that no matter what, there will always be some low level "ringing" or natural response to a stimulus that is different between materials. So when you have a very good room and sound system, those miniscule differences become audible.

In other words, I don't think it is so much an issue of structural rigidity, but rather that of a natural sonic timbre. Maybe a better way to put it is that I agree that the paper cones typically sound better.

[pzannucci]

Dear DJK....

Okay....I very rarely jump into the foray on these types of things but here goes.....

"Paper is better than plastic. Fiberglass, Kevlar, and Carbon fiber are all similar sounding because the rigidity comes from the plastic resin holding things together."

This is about the silliest thing I've ever heard.

If stiffness is a design goal, then the matrix (resin) doesn't get you anywhere....it merely holds the fibers (kevlar, carbon, etc) in the appropriate orientation to best resist the strain that attempts to take place as the structure built from it is being loaded....ie it is in fact the fibers that make up the bulk of the stiffness....the resin is no less than a order of magnitude less stiff than most common fibers it holds.

Now the possibility of providing some type of damping is another topic of potential merit.

As far as the plastic vs. paper thing goes.....I'm all for being green but don't you think leaving it up to the ears of the beholder might be a better idea? You may prefer paper, and so might your friends, but thankfully this hobby is about a broad cross section of people that have different goals for their ears.

" I liked the metal ones better. They ring, but you can damp them. The plastic lacks rigidity"

Hmmmm.....just about everything that makes sound resonates.....violins, drums, pianos, guitars, etc. how nice they sound is a personal warm and fuzzy feeling when the sound they make hits our ears. Saying that plastic molded horns are crap because they are plastic and somehow by default lack rigidity is nonsense. All the ribbing along their surfaces are attempts to tune and reinforce the main throttle surface of the horns. You could say that the resultant use of material and design doesn't please your ears, but a layperson perspective on how terrible the execution of a design they are is reallllllly sticking your neck out.

"Unsturdy woofer/passive basket (thing resonates)"

Hmmm.....of course it resonates....if you have a closed volume and the woofer diaphragm is moving back and forth, it is changing the internal volume of the speaker. By so doing, the radiator provides some resistance but still moves as a result....it is fact designed to do just that!? The fact that it is screwed down at 8 locations makes me hard pressed to think of it as not sturdy either, unless somehow your beef is with the basket design that acts as an interface between the mounting ring and diaphragm?

Speak of what you know about, and listen/learn about what you don't. One persons Gremlin is another person's Mercedes.....be happy in knowing that there is room for everyone in this world please.

I think a better way to look at it is that no matter what, there will always be some low level "ringing" or natural response to a stimulus that is different between materials. So when you have a very good room and sound system, those miniscule differences become audible.

In other words, I don't think it is so much an issue of structural rigidity, but rather that of a natural sonic timbre. Maybe a better way to put it is that I agree that the paper cones typically sound better.

Japhy, DrWho,

Several things concerning these posts. DJK over simplified the idea when he said paper is better than plastic and lumped all of those cone types together because of the binding resin. Unfortunately all of these cone types will typically have one type of signature that stands out, that is hitting resonance or breakup modes. Paper may sound better to a number of people because it allows simpiler networks and shallower crossover slopes due to not breaking up in the same way as the harder cones. Those paper based cones may not be as detailed many times, in the midrange specifically, but you don't need to have a 24db+ crossover slope to keep them from falling apart. Dampening the cone can kill it's detail and add weight. If you dampen say a kevlar cone, why use kevar in the first place when you have to fight it with a 24db crossover along with dampening the cone usually imparting some loss of detail?

People have recognized that paper isn't then end all that's why many cones are reinforced or paper/kevlar matrix. These can sound very good with rich detail and minimal problems with ringing. So maybe there was an over generalization but paper based cones will have less bad habits [] making them easier to use in systems getting an end result that they overall can sound better. As detailed and similar timbre, probably not but it is about music and not technology. Would you rather have cold and hard or soft and romantic. That's how I look at these different materials and its hard to get an in-between.

As far as the baskets, it was brought out many years ago in this forum by a Klipsh employee about how much better the dampened baskets were. If there was no validity in that then why do it? I think the real biggest problem with stamped baskets is reflected energy off the basket. Newer cast baskets have more narrow supports than stamped baskets thus minimizing reflections and since they are cast, will be less prone to ringing. This is why Vandersteen has their special midrange that removes the basket reflected sound.