I'm not sure what the real benefits of a wood cone vs a paper cone (made from wood). The cone itself is likely much heftier which in my mind would make it slower. I also don't quite see how the inconsistencies created by the wood grain would be a good thing.
I doubt that even a massaged piece of wood can present an even load around the coils of a driver, with uneven spacing and the resultant uneven load presented to an amp. Bogus. Busted. April fools.
I saw one a year or two ago in Brookstone or Sharper Image. People pushed holes in the drivers with their fingers. Sad, actually. I think they were probably trying to see if the wood was real or not.
Lol Chris, exactly what I thought in relation to the inconsistencies in the wood grain.
It could have been the uneven load presented to the amp Nuck that made what hifi rate them so low. But I had a thought earlier that wood must work to some extent..Dali use it in the form of wood fibre in some (if not all?) there lines!
Bizarre but interesting! If wood is used for speaker cabinets because its acoustic properties are as close to a human ears then I can see JVCs idea in theory. In practice I think they just got bored and released a gimmick.
It reminds me of a set of speakers from my youth. The fellow who left his band took the bass amps with him, the drummer (now passed away) who puth his considerable fist into a 15" marsland bass driver all cardboard. These drivers eventually found their way into oak cabinets, made by the same fellow, with dim's 24W. 30D and 30H. There were the classic Ratshack 5" softdome mid and supertweeters on the baffle. No crossover, the bass drivers (120oz) were fine full range, by design.
We called them the '300 lb bookends'.
Still in the group, as well, with the bass driver still sporting nail polish(pink) that I applied over 25 yrs ago...
Not all drivers are created equally...
These are the speakers that a Marantz receiver used to break windows in an apartment.
Sorry, Nuck. You know I don't ordinarily pick on either grammer or syntax, but i would like a clarification!
Were the broken windows the result of:: a. Excess SPL? b. Projectile vomiting from excess behavior? (fill in blank?) c. Projectile equipment? d. Some guy named Marantz (isn't he a contributor here?) with anger management issues?
Wood may make for asthetic beauty in a speaker cone - to each his own - however, I believe the previous comment were bang on, in that it will be nearly impossible to ensure a consistent level of performance given the natural variations in each piece of wood used. I can also see wood being terribly impacted by variations in temperature and humidity levels. Given the typical buyers market for the JVC speakers, I'd say more a marketing scheme than pure acoustic science. Shame on them...shame.