Paper Cones in HiFi?

I have a pair of S.A.P. J-2001 speakers that have two 12" paper cone woofers. While some may view paper cones as "old" technology, that does not mean it is inferior in any way. This speaker also has a horn midrange, but the compression driver has a titanium diaphragm ("new technolog"?). Both the woofers and the midrange utilize old fashion Alnico magnets. I believe the designer utilized what works best, not what is fashionable and current. At about $22k, I don't think the "cheapness" of paper was a consideration.

A friend of mine spends a small fortune collecting as many Western Electric or Altec paper coned drivers (515 or 555 or something like that) as he can get his hands on. The cones are so old they crumble if touched. The sound, however, is very lively and articulate when these drivers are used in his full-range, multi-driver designs.

Paper is a low mass low loss material. Paper cones have better transient reponse ang higher mechanical Q compared to plastic/polymer alternatives. They have higher efficiency. But they may have resonances which must be taken care of at crossover side. The envoiremental robustness is achieved by surface treatments. But since it is a compressed material it will loose it's structural rigidity in time. High tech marketting jargon can also be applied to parper cones by giving exotic names to pulp mixtures etc.

Reinforced paper cones seems to be one of optimal choices, dont know to which extend slicing the paper etc. is just hype... ?
low-end would be poly-propylene materials... it has a smoother and deeper (comparable to paper), but clearity and precision is very bad - PP simply flexes too much when playing bass, making distortion the rule rather than the exception. Surprisingly many manufactures markets their pp cone woofer as quality - showing of their smooth response curves and low-end fs values... and only very very few gives you any idea of rated distortion and power compression, which is much more important in a bass unit.

from what I've heard aluminium is not optimal when it comes to timbre, i.e. it makes the sound less natural, and Kevlar tend to have a less uniform response curve than paper, but have a deeper fs value, ideal for non-vented enclosures, but who uses that for bass?
Anyways the point being that its a trade off (between many things, where paper still seems to posses the best of each.

I myself have two 15" paper cones - one $50 that sounds like crap compared to my $500 JBL 2226 G 15", but that would be expected - paper cones comes in many varities too...
A.

Used to have a pair of paper cone full range speakers. Spectrums, I think they were Dutch, taken over by Fisher at some point. Great speakers. They had been my grandfather's with an old NAD integrated. Both came out of a screening room at CBS 60 Minutes when they revamp'd. Wasn't sure about the ensemble when they got shipped to me... paper, 25 years old, etc. My intro to hi-fi after my grandfather passed away. Lasted me five years even so, 30 years total, and paper cones are supposed to be easy to destroy. After an hour with them I had been converted.

Bobby's response is beautiful as it is both to the point and technically excellent. Then again, he speaks from years of first hand experience in the field of speaker design and manufacturing, so he should know these things. Obviously, he does : ) Sean
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