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Through the years, speaker designs have been constantly refined, though the basic configuration still remains the same. These days, some speaker manufacturers use paper pulp mixed with cloth or graphite for the cone materials to strengthen the stiffness and durability. However, the paper cone has been criticised right from the beginning as it sounds like paper.

In order to obtain natural sound with no colouration, a high-end graded paper cone is delicately and naturally hand fabricated. This paper cone appears to have a rugged texture comparable to paper cones manufactured through mass production. But it guarantees to offer more natural sound. The paper cone material is light and easy to mould, but it is not too stiff and active, whereas exotic materials such as polypropylene and kevlar are light and stiff with no colouration. In addition, paper has its major flaw in matching phase, resonance and time alignment, as well as heat and moisture.

To cope with these flaws, some paper cones are coated with chemical solvents that lessen the resonance as well as matching phase and time alignment. Some manufacturers such as JBL invented a convex, textured cone to better lessen resonance and phase and time alignment, which is a situation where low and high frequencies do not work well in tandem.

Today, paper cones coated with different kinds of materials are the most popular among manufacturers. This is because the paper cone easily adheres to rubber or foam suspensions while lessening the resonance and unmatched phase and time alignment.

Cones made of an injection moulded synthetic polymer called polypropylene are most commonly used as they provide excellent sound and can stand up to the heat, cold, and moisture that car speakers face daily. Polypropylene is also light, stiff and durable with least the colouration despite the fact that it does not offer an outstanding bass region as that of the paper cone. Therefore, polypropylene is now coated with ceramic to reinforce rigidity and low frequencies.

Kevlar is another alternative for cone material. It is a synthetic aramid, yellow fibre and probably best known for its use in bulletproof vests. Indeed, those same mechanical properties of strength and the ability to dissipate the energy of a bullet have benefits in speaker cones. In particularly, Kevlar offers swift cone movement at the least distortion but has a slight drawback in the low frequency range, which can be compensated for by a speaker's construction.

Instead of the conventional paper cone, the speaker utilises an aluminium cone.  Due to its thickness, aluminium has to be manufactured out of a thin sheet so that it can stay lightweight and respond quickly to the signal inputs.

However, because of stiffness, the aluminium cone is difficult to adhere with rubber or foam suspensions. In general, the aluminium cone has a flair for clarity, integrity and mid-bass region.

In fact, there is a lot more to driver construction than just cone material. The frame or basket, voice coil, spider and crossover are among those.

Ultimate in Luxury

The Luxury LS 460 is a wonderfully comfaortable car fitted with all mod cons, althoough not necessarily the most fun vehicle to drive.