JVC Wood Cone Speaker Technology Available In Tower And Bookshelf Systems

Sheets of birch are soaked in rice wine, then formed into speaker elements.

September 19, 2006

JVC’s exclusive wood cone speaker technology is now available in a pair of home audio speaker systems. Both the SX-WD10 tower speaker and the SX-WD8 bookshelf system use the company’s unique sake-soaked birch speaker drivers JVC pursued wood as a speaker cone material because it provides an ideal combination of high sound propagation speed and natural vibration attenuation (internal loss), allowing the speakers to naturally reproduce a wide frequency range. With conventional paper cones, sound spreads at the same speed in all directions, causing unnatural resonant points with limited frequency response. Wood cones produce few resonant points because of the grain, so frequency response is improved and sound quality is significantly enhanced. JVC engineers tried several types of wood, but birch proved to have the best acoustic properties. JVC’s wood cone speakers were 20 years in the making because forming the wood sheets into a speaker cone proved daunting – they would crack or split when stamped. The solution turned out to be sake – Japanese rice wine. A JVC audio engineer in Japan hit upon the sake solution while enjoying dried squid at a restaurant. He asked if anything special was done to make the dried squid so chewy. It was soaked in sake, he was told. Inspired, the JVC team tried the same technique with the wood sheets. It worked – after soaking in sake, the sheets could be pressed into speaker cones without splitting. Both JVC speaker systems are comprised of a pair of four-inch wood mid/bass drivers and a one-inch dome tweeter that uses a birch wood dome. Power handling is 150 watts. The mid/bass drivers feature a die cast aluminum frame and use an edgewise-wound four-layer voice coil. The tweeter uses a copper-clad aluminum voice coil and neodymium magnets. Both models feature real cherry veneer enclosures and include screw-type, gold-plated speaker terminals. Other specifications: SX-WD8 SX-WD10 Impedance 6 ohms 6 ohms Frequency Range 50Hz-50kHz 45Hz-50kHz Sensitivity 84.5 dB (1 watt@1 meter) 85dB (1 watt@1 meter) JVC’s new wood cone speakers are available immediately. The SX-WD8 will sell for about $1,300 per pair and the SX-WD10 will sell for about $1,700 per pair. About JVC Company of America JVC Company of America, headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, is a division of JVC Americas Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Victor Company of Japan Ltd., and a holding company for JVC companies located in North and South America. JVC distributes a complete line of video and audio equipment, including high definition displays, camcorders, VCRs, D-VHS recorders, DVD players and recorders, satellite systems, home and portable audio equipment, mobile entertainment products and recording media. For further product information, visit JVC's Web site at http://www.jvc.com or call 800-526-5308.

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