Not really. The cone is 4" in diameter. The total moving mass is only 6.4 GM, which is less then a quarter ounce. So the cone is basically foil.
Despite the light cone, the Fs is in the neighborhood of 40 Hz. In a TL very useful output is possible with these speakers down to around 40 Hz.
Most of the production of these speakers went to the Far East. They have maintained cult status in the Far East for half a century now.
Not surprisingly there is a Chinese knock off, or may be development.
Mark Audio based in southern China, have a line of drivers that are very close to my JW Mk III. The 6" cone is closest. These drivers have a standard suspension and the cones are not quite a tactrix. However they do not have the troublesome suspension resonance that colors the lower mid range of the JWs. Their sensitivity is lower, but power handling double, so spl turns out a wash.
I have not purchased one of these drivers, but they are available from Madisound.
If you look at the frequency response curves, they are very promising. Not surprisingly they are getting an increasing number of devotees in the full ranger community.
The issue is now timely, as there are radical changes afoot in the recording process, that will require a huge increase in the performance of loudspeakers.
This is a complex story, but phase and time coherent recordings with very wide dynamic range and low noise are now possible with multi miking. Digital algorithms are on the horizon to avoid microphone bleed.
The watch word of the cutting edge, is digital right after the microphone capsule, staying digital all the way right to the loudspeaker drivers.
Lots of drivers displaced in time with phase and time shifts will negate benefits from this technology.
I have harped away for years, that the development of high power wide band drivers is essential, especially right across the mid band.
So what is required is to have drivers like this under discussion, to handle 100 to 200 watts, with minimal thermal compression, low distortion, and a bandwidth of at least 200 Hz to 6 kHz.
I'm rattling some cages right now. The current crop of drivers are way short of what will be required in the very near future. Heck very few speakers have made the transition from analog to digital media. Very few speakers are actually fit for media that hit the market 30 years ago.
I think that is a big reason for the analog devotees. Analog does not expose speaker faults nearly as harshly as good digital media. Now the current crop of speakers are about to be found even more wanting.
I think history will judge Ted Jordan to have been one of the most important speaker engineers of the 20th century.
Really the giants are Kellog, Olson, Voight and Jordan, and everybody else way in the distance.
