Hi,
The Japanese have been experimenting with wood cones for years. I saw a very expensive 3-way system on a trip to Japan in the late '80s and early '90s. It might have been a Pioneer speaker for the domestic market in Japan.
Paper, which is made from wood pulp, was the standard cone material for decades, and it's still found in lots of speakers, so going to wood isn't all that farfetched. The wood cone drivers I heard didn't sound all that good, but that may or may not have been related to the cone material. During my visits to companies there, carefully controlled listening tests of loudspeakers were virtually never done.
JohnK is correct re the 10% distortion figure. The latter was often chosen to rate power output for the amplifiers in after-market car audio units for years to jack up the power figures. And distortion in deep bass from speaker can certainly reach whole percentages easily. It often goes unnoticed until it becomes really excessive. It gives bass a warm, fat, bloated coloration.
Regards,
