Interesting post by Roy of GMA on the effectiveness of cones in dealing with resonances in the thread "Green Mountain Europa hupe" - sez that cones don't damp or transmit many vibrations.........This from a well educated designer involved in making speakers.
Sean & Tom, while I would agree with you that reducing the level of resonances or vibrations could make a system "sound" better, and I would agree that causing the resonance of any particular component to increase due to a failure to control the resonance, might increase its apparent amplitude, it strikes me that if you were to successfully eliminate all resonances and vibrations, externally or internally, you would have optimized the equipment's ability to deliver its maximum undistorted signal but you would not/could not have increased its actual gain. With all due respect to you Sean, neither you not Tom have actually explained (to my understanding) the mechanics (electrically speaking) of the phenomena of increased gain due to elimination of distortions caused by vibrations or resonances.
But I have enjoyed reading this very interesting thread (as well as a few others) on the issues involved in these controversial matters. Sean, thanks for your good faith contributions.