Cone material can increase power handling?

[SineWave]

I saw this claim from a company that does service on cone speakers: "carbon fiber is good material, rigid carbon fiber cone to increase the power handling of the woofer." Your thoughts?

 

[somebodyelse]

Context matters, as does wording. That doesn't look like the wording of a native english speaker, so something may be lost in translation or quotation. Do you have a link to the source so we can judge based on its proper context?

 

[Zvu]

Carbon fiber is very good insulator but if cone is made out of aluminium or magnesium, it can serve as a heatsink for the voice coil and increase power handling.

 

[Vini darko]

I would say no. Resonance, moving mass and break up yeah. Most big power subwoofers are still using paper cones dispite having high KW power handling.

 

[somebodyelse]

This is why I wanted context - high modulus carbon fibres are good thermal conductors along their length, but not across, especially when embedded in an insulator like epoxy as they often are. Radial fibre arrangements have been proposed, but they're usually too expensive to manufacturer. If someone is manufacturing them now then they may be good thermally as well as structurally. It's about the only way I could see it increasing power handling though, as the more common woven carbon fibre, or carbon fibre loaded paper, won't have that possible thermal advantage. BS from the marketing department seems much more likely, but we'd be in a better position to judge if we could see the original source.

 

[hardisj]

This seems like it fits in this conversation, to some degree, at least. From the Elac Uni-Fi 2.0 Review, post by Andrew Jones:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-0-review-bookshelf-speaker.19216/post-690938

After a short while I went to push on the midrange cone to see if it might be rubbing on a potentially off-center tweeter, but was surprised that the midrange cone was very hot. The midrange driver has a voice coil wound on an aluminum former bonded to an aluminum cone. This gives quite a good heat transfer from coil to cone.
I let it cool down, and repeated the experiment. Same result. In just a matter of 10-15 seconds the cone became very hot.
This is a lot of power being dissipated in the driver. On music I have never noticed that cone getting warm, despite playing at loud levels even in show conditions.

 

[dfuller]

Well, yes, but actually no.

Cone material can sometimes act as a heat sink (see: aluminum or titanium) but more likely they're referring to improved distortion at higher power inputs.

 

[jonfitch]

Power handling I imagine is mostly to do with the motor structure. Just cone material to me is dealing with breakup. Be able to play louder without audible distortion or ringing modes.

 

[hardisj]

If the cone can help dissipate heat from the VC then that increases power handling. Thermal compression is a big issue with drive units.

 

[SineWave]

I was on a Rythmik Audio FB page where someone started a thread about a service they can do for your existing speakers. I asked how their cones can increase power handling. She replied that it was her customer that told her that is what it did for his speakers. Then I asked a few more questions ( such as: "how was it measured? who is the customer so I can ask them? are the pictures of your products [cones, finished speaker -it was an Adam Audio monitor] ? ). Then the next time I looked, her complete thread was gone. Probably moderators took it down.