Paper Based Speaker Cone Question

Yes, the stiffer cone materials tend to suffer from high frequency ring, and this temporal smear can be idealized by the brain as micro detail.

When in fact, it is just noise. It also masks signal, in that smear. false detail, and lost detail, as a pair. There are benefits via better tracing of details below those hf smearing bits, but a loss is a loss.


A paper cone suffers a different type of smear, a lossy wideband smear on the initial transient functions which kills motions toward transient resonant smear (the stiff exotic cone fault), in most cases... which can be combined with some of the problems that the stiffer exotic cone materials have (too stiff an impregnated paper, getting it back to the exotic cone problems). It depends on the cone design and implementation.

Basically, all materials in use have flaws, some more than others. It depends quite a bit on the driver designer and how mentally clear they are in what they re trying to do, and how good their hearing is. Of course, how intelligent they are in applying the given package of skills into driver design, is part of that....

I believe that paper is still the most life-like sounding cone material. No other material I've heard yet comes closer to creating the illusion of a natural tone. The vast majority of speaker cones still use it - from extreme budget to extreme high end. 

Implementation is critical of course, as usual. The only thing that would concern me is the durability of the cone surround. Rubber tends to last a lot longer than foam which tends to disintegrate after a number of years etc.

It's not obvious what material Walsh use 
in their surrounds from their website. Give them a call first if you're unsure.  

^ Paper cones are often paired with a doped paper or fabric surround. 

It may be considered a matter of preference but I myself often prefer paper cone material for its organic sound. I know that sounds like I'm a vegan or something but paper cones can do some things better than other material. Poly cones, kevlar, etc tend to provide a very black background and can be more punchy with electronic music but if you listen to jazz, classical or you prefer the "wooden" sound of John Bonham's drum kit, paper cones will give you a sound that is closer to the actual performance in my opinion. DALI even puts wood chips in some of their drivers for this very reason.