Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?

@fleschler 

pulp and paper cones are outstanding - beautifully damped, stiff and light weight. They must not be driven in to breakup - so the operating bandwidth is less than more rigid cones. Provided the designer operates the cone within its ideal operating bandwidth then paper/pulp cones can be world class and as good as anything else....

@sciencecop 

 I agree with you about cone design. The ideal cone is perfectly rigid and perfectly and completely damped.

Yes aluminium and ceramic are nearly perfectly rigid and pistonic but they Rrriiiiinnnnnnggggg like a bell and are terrible materials for driver cones. The Rrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg is what I hear from these designs. Terrible waterfall plots in most cases. Magnesium is better. CF is pretty good. What Richard uses will also be good - carbon fiber and balsa - both these materials will dissipate internal energy.

The second video on the page I linked above shows that the Harbeth radial cone supports a 4.5 Kg weight - this is pretty good rigidity!!

A good driver balances rigidity with intrinsic internal damping. The use of a large diameter voice coil can also make a huge difference instead of the typical 1 or 1 1/2 inch consumer audio woofer voice coil (which offers little support to the diaphragm and places a lot of stress at the apex of the cone)

The radial cone in Harbeth speakers is quite rigid or pistonic.

Richard should not use a 4.5 inch cone at 5 KHz - it will beam severely. But the idea of pistonic is good provided the material is intrinsically damped. 

Watch the two videos on this page if you want to learn the difference between vacuum formed polypropylene and Harbeth injection molding.

https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/forum/the-science-of-audio/speaker-design/2215-real-world-drive-unit-and-crossover-issues/page2

Alan Shaw clearly has put a lot of effort into that mid range cone. It is superior to the large majority of designs. Like the ATC mid range - Harbeth have rightly acquired a reputation for excellent mid range quality.

+1 @audiokinesis

Total agreement. 6 inch woofer is simply too big for the mid range. B&W and countless other speakers never sound completely natural for this very reason. To sound natural a speaker must have wide consistent dispersion across the full frequency range.

I also don’t like early reflections as it collapses the sound to the vicinity of the speakers and reduces the stereo image effect

+1 @david_ten

Correct. The speaker should be as transparent and neutral as possible. It is not possible to remove resonance or euphonic syrupy timbre once you have it. However, starting with a speaker that is clean and neutral at all dynamic levels across the entire frequency range and you can then begin tailor the sound with your favourite SS or tubes.

My recommendation is neutral and clean, accurate speakers with an excellent highly accurate powerful SS power amp and then add coloration to taste using TT cartridge, phono pre, preamp and or DAC.

For me the OP has it all backwards. I agree with David 100%.