Introduction  •  Epiphany in Vienna  •  The Drivers  •  The Crossover  •  Aspherical Propagation Delay  •  Specifications

A cone at rest tends to stay at rest, and a cone in motion tends to stay in motion. Based on what he heard in Vienna, it was immediately apparent to Dave Wilson that, if he was going to achieve the clarity and alacrity of musical events in the same way they were presented in the Musikverein, he would need a midrange driver that could start and stop quickly enough to reveal information occuring within 20 milliseconds (twenty thousandths of a second) of a an initial cone excursion. He needed a driver able to start and stop on the proverbial dime.

For years, Wilson Audio, like many speaker companies, has sourced its drivers from outside, specialized manufacturers. These units have never been off-the-shelf drop-ins. Once the raw drivers arrive at the Wilson factory, they’re extensively modified, or, in some cases, essentially “re-manufactured’ on site to Wilson’s precise specifications and tolerances.

With this new driver, Dave and the Wilson team, have, in strategic partnership with a new driver manufacturer, co-designed a new product from the ground up to raise the performance bar in the critical midrange. To meet the design challenge of a highly rigid but low moving mass cone, we co-engineered a special blend of carbon fiber and paper pulp.