i think that those speakers would sound different day to day if humidity levels change,my guitar speaker cabinet is made out of plywood and the amp has to be adjusted when conditions change,so i guess,with wood drivers it might be even more extreme..just a thought...ron

Lawn mowers?

Yeah, perhaps these speakers may need a substantial break-in period, too.

How much different do you think wood drivers (especially at the thickness we're talking about) than paper drivers? Both are basically the same thing, but one has been processed more than the other.

Those speakers wouldn't have a single protest when it comes to the WAF test... They are absolutely beautiful!!

I would love to hear them, lets just hope they come stateside.

Peter,

According to their PR that I linked above (unfortunately, the badly translated version), the native wood is quite different from paper as speaker cone/dome materials. Here is a paraphrased summary:

(1) Wood has an ideal combination of high sound velocity ("fast" transients) and high intrinsic loss (low resonance) as a material for speaker diaphragm.

(2) Acoustic characteristics of wood are highly anisotropic (direction-dependent) due to the natural grains, which effectively prevents unwanted standing waves in the diaphragm.


ZeN,

Unfortunately, the maximum cone size they can manufacture is ~10cm (4") at this time. So, don't expect a beautiful 12" woofer just yet. Perhaps, a line-source array using a multitude of the 3" mid-woofers / 1" tweeters with a cabinet finished in matching birch wood veneers would look just awesome.

Wow, I hope they come out with 'simulated wood, black vinyl' drivers next!