Beryllium and other exotic materials...

In my opinion, exotic materials do not make speaker performance.  A lighter stiffer material can offer an advantage but it is not a cure all solution to improved performance.  There are too many other factors involved to conclude that just because a driver uses an exotic material, its performance will be superior. 

It has been suggested that many dome tweeters and midranges using Beryllium are in fact other materials containing only a small percentage of Beryllium for marketing purposes only.  This may be true but as far as I’m concerned, Beryllium has more marketing value than sonic value regardless of the content.   I believe increasing the Beryllium content will at best improve the marketing value only.   

I personally believe we should also consider the health risk of using exotic materials.  I mean do we know for sure that materials like Beryllium are safe?  I don’t know!  Can it cause cancer?  Can it cause behavioral disorders driving one to write nonsensical accusations about certain manufacturer’s use of the material?  Or is that just more related to the conflict of interest that such an accuser may have forgotten to mention?    

So my conclusion is, use what works best!  My cones/domes could be made from recycled plastic bags for all I care.  Whatever overall package provides the best performance is all that matters to me.  In all my years of experience playing around with speakers I have discovered that there can be cues to suggest the level of sound quality a particular driver may be capable of.  Cone/dome material isn’t one of them. 

So I think when you read certain things on the internet especially those attacking any particular manufacturer for their use of certain materials you should just take it with a grain of salt…and an episode of, “The Sopranos”.