Favorite Tube Speaker Match


Two arguements - paper is too dark for tubes, and actually metal cones give some life to the music that isn't there otherwise. Arguement two: the smooth rich sound of paper cones always is a cut above.

Has anyone ever heard ceramic cones with a tube amp? If so what were the components?

Anyone have a favorite combo they have heard? I heard an Airtight with Opera Piega which I thought could not be beat.
biomimetic

Showing 3 responses by biomimetic

It's funny how everyone has mentioned the paper vs. metal or kevlar debate. Or electrostat's/ribbons, although I guess it's not really applicable to what I'm about to ask.

Which is:

Why in the cone speaker debate does everyone leave out the differences between nickel-cadmium and neodymium magnets?

Anyone have better experiences with one or the other? I know neodymium is supposed to be "faster" sounding, but I don't know that I have ever heard it with paper cones.
I can always tell a difference in magnets, but I have never done a "pull the speaker out of the system, plug in a different one with different magnets" test.
Thanks man, I couldn't have said it better myself. Ceramic, kevlar and carbon fiber (all useful cone materials) are amazing, but I sometimes wonder about production methods and companies using what's cheapest instead of what's best, although uniform production should count for a lot on dB matching speaker to speaker. I have heard that ceramic is a perfect material for this, so you get thousands of speakers off the same line that test nearly identical. Notice the key word there being test... I have heard a few neodymium drivers and they are amazing, but it seems like the implementation is usually with metal cones and gold silk tweeters, and they don't test as uniformly, but sound really transparent and silky in application. So yes, I was wondering if anyone had done any side by side testing with paper, which usually use more common types of magnets, or knew of any paper cones being used with more exotic magnets like neodymium. Or why it is not a good match, if in fact there aren't any made this way.