Nearly all speakers are made with OEM parts. Many things are made this way. A lot of the technological sales talk is bogus. For example, all the interest in exotic materials for driver cones is often without mention of the size of voice coil, size of driver, size of drive motor, underhung VC, cooling of VC etc. and we haven’t begun to discuss driver integration yet...
Exotic materials (more shiny the better) sell speakers but motor design and driver integration is often far more important. A simple cone from pulp paper or doped fabric of appropriate size with an expensive drive motor (highly linear and built to extremely tight tolerances) will sound much better than your latest exotic material. The other challenge is to make hundreds of drivers consistently. The more exotic the greater the challenge to build with consistent results. A massive overkill drive motor is going to ruthlessly control a cone and maintain linearity under a broader range of conditions and dynamics. Extremely light weight material cones with small motors often have a narrower operating range - often you see mid range drivers of this type doubled up in MTM designs simply because the drivers aren’t capable enough on their own (yup - they can’t achieve the required loudness or dynamics individually without huge amounts of horrible distortion)
Harbeth is an example of successful marketing of proprietary cone material bla bla. The fact is that this extension of a BBC designed speaker was designed with a major goal - to sound good but to be really cheap to make (hence low cost cabinets). Harbeth do sound absolutely wonderful at lower volumes but crank them and the limitations of the narrow design focus (the radial cone) becomes all too evident.
Wilson make excellent speakers. Usually their mid range is very good. Driver integration is usually good too. And cabinetry is impressive! Often more bass than is necessary for accuracy (but this sells and others like B&W do it too). So many Wilson haters out there and yet their brand (like Mcintosh) has staying power (good resale) for all the right reasons!
Exotic materials (more shiny the better) sell speakers but motor design and driver integration is often far more important. A simple cone from pulp paper or doped fabric of appropriate size with an expensive drive motor (highly linear and built to extremely tight tolerances) will sound much better than your latest exotic material. The other challenge is to make hundreds of drivers consistently. The more exotic the greater the challenge to build with consistent results. A massive overkill drive motor is going to ruthlessly control a cone and maintain linearity under a broader range of conditions and dynamics. Extremely light weight material cones with small motors often have a narrower operating range - often you see mid range drivers of this type doubled up in MTM designs simply because the drivers aren’t capable enough on their own (yup - they can’t achieve the required loudness or dynamics individually without huge amounts of horrible distortion)
Harbeth is an example of successful marketing of proprietary cone material bla bla. The fact is that this extension of a BBC designed speaker was designed with a major goal - to sound good but to be really cheap to make (hence low cost cabinets). Harbeth do sound absolutely wonderful at lower volumes but crank them and the limitations of the narrow design focus (the radial cone) becomes all too evident.
Wilson make excellent speakers. Usually their mid range is very good. Driver integration is usually good too. And cabinetry is impressive! Often more bass than is necessary for accuracy (but this sells and others like B&W do it too). So many Wilson haters out there and yet their brand (like Mcintosh) has staying power (good resale) for all the right reasons!