Why we chose a paper cone in 2027
Speaker cones are made from aluminum, Kevlar, carbon fiber, ceramic, polypropylene, and paper. Paper is the oldest and, in some circles, the least fashionable. We tried most of the others and came back to it.
The job of a woofer cone is to move as a perfect piston up to its crossover point and then get out of the way. Stiff materials like aluminum are excellent pistons but ring like a bell when they break up, usually just above the crossover, where you can hear it. Soft materials don't ring but flex too early.
Doped paper sits in the middle. The pulp gives it internal damping, so break-up is gentle and smeared across a range rather than a single sharp peak. A thin coating stiffens the surface and seals it against humidity. With a steep DSP crossover at 2.2 kHz, the One's woofer never gets near its break-up region in normal use.
The result is a midrange that sounds like voices and instruments rather than a hi-fi demo. That's the whole point.