Don't forget about those classic car guys,
They have their shows and the 50 year old classic cars include the 50 year old classic paper cone speakers in the dash. The absolute worst environment for speakers is cars, incredible heat, brutal cold, a constant pounding from road vibration and speaker abuse from horny teenagers on hot humid nights. (You know who you are!) Those basic paper cone dash speakers were never designed to last for half a century but they keep plugging along--not bad for something that was an after thought. Those paper cone speakers stuffed in ceilings in malls, stores and buildings playing elevator music 15 hours a day for 30+ years with no problems.
Paper/pulp or doped paper is some tough stuff! Those huge cement columns you see are formed with cardboard tubes--people will use those basically paper tubes and install 18" subwoofers to make cylinder subs. Those things can be hammered at extreme high SPLs for many years with no issues as long as you don't get them wet. As another posted quoted, paper books last many centuries without issue and scrolls have been found that are well over 1,000 years old.
Paper comes from wood pulp and wood is still cool from the last time I paid attention. How long will more modern materials last? Well, foam surrounds were "modern" back in the day and millions of speakers died from foam rot. Since there is far more than just the cone, you have adhesives holding things together, spiders holding the cones, the tensile leads, the voice coil must stay in alignment so how long do those adhesives last? Many paper cones with accordion surrounds make it 50 years or more but how long will a rubber surround last in a boiling car?
A lot of doped paper cones have all sorts of materials holding them together to provide damping, make them stiffer and so on. My professional drivers tend to have a sheen on them which indicates some form of coating to prevent either water or UV damage. I was eyeballing a 21 inch touring grade arena subwoofer complete with neodymium magnets, dual spiders, 6 inch voice coils and all that jazz...give you over 130dB and it used a doped paper cone and cloth accordion surround. $750 just for the driver, the huge cabinet and 2KW amp is extra (of course!)
The reason doped paper cones are used is because they work. Why do they use aluminum baskets instead of titanium or carbon fiber--geez, aluminum is used to make beer cans! Freakin' tweeters are loaded with plastic and why don't they silver coat pedestrian lowly copper voice coils? Ya know, those stupid audio people use basic steel screws to hold in the drivers--same stuff you can get at Wally World! Actually, some fools purchase brass screws to replace the lowly steel ones and claim it improves the sound--and you can tweek the sound by loosening or tighting the brass screws. I was thinking I could sell them titanium bone screws $$$ since if they are so far gone off the common sense train with brass, might as well rob them of the rest of their money. My father told me the most dangerous thing is an idiot with money, I am helping the world by removing that money.
A lot of it has to do with marketing, plastic was superior, graphite in the plastic was even better, kevlar, aluminum or titanium cones (they do exist!) and of course carbon fiber gets it's buzz. If you want to be uber cool...wait until Graphene rolls out. That stuff can be made and configured to actually do something besides creating a buzz. Graphene voice coils are electrically and thermally superior to copper, graphene formers, graphene cones, graphene surrounds and of course...graphene cones--well, once they figure out how to make that material in mass quanities that is. In reality, by the time that happens you can get a Neural Link brain implant and transfer sound directly to the brain and bypass the ears all together. That should be rolling out in 2025 so best to start saving your money for that as in 10 years having an audio system that is transmitted through the air through your so low fidelity ears will be laughable. Don't forget the bull horn--yell at those pesky kids with their Neural Links and don't forget to scream get off my lawn!
In summation, quit wasting time worried about the things you can see--the magic is in the things you can't see! Since I am an electronics guy, I've fixed many fancy cone speakers over the years and they were pretty! Well, until you removed the drivers complete with small magnets, small voice coils, low Xmax spiders, thin stamped frames and fancy trim rings to hide the cheezy frames (of course) I fixed a Bose 901 back in the day--the guy was shocked with how cheezy those drivers were--I though the three screws was a nice touch to save pennies.
I love the smell of fiberboard and plastic in the morning--it smells like dumpster bait. At least the replacement 4.5 inch full range was only 14 bucks--the one thing Bose was reasonable with and parts were available. The oldest speaker I ever worked on was built in 1963... it was far older than me but the paper cone woofer was replaced in 1978. That old fully horn loaded speaker is still plugging along with a 57 year old compression driver tweeter and a 42 year old 10" paper cone woofer--with a fancy 12dB/Octave 800Hz metalized polypro passive crossover designed and build by me. (Chix dig metalized polypropylene 1% capacitors!) The end user stated it sounds better than it ever has (had a 6dB/Oct cap and coil crossover that caused huge compression driver distortion) That speaker is now so old it has been proclaimed "cool".... I told him I took the compression driver apart and it smelled like pot smoke and women with loose morals--yep, grandpa had a lot more fun than I did in my 20's!
The guy fell for it "Really, you can still smell that?" Those speakers are used in an HT system complete with plenty of parametric EQ, room correction and measurements. He uses a BluRay player and streaming--no record players, reel-to-reels, cassette decks, 8 tracks and whatever--he is not into "retro" because he IS retro!
Paper--it is not just for 420 anymore--enjoy your day!
