Cloth vs paper surround

What specific speaker/driver?

From my experience with vintage drivers (late 50's to mid 70's) paper surrounds survive and cloth surrounds get stiffer with age - changing the sound.

This said, I've never replaced the surrounds though I did try treating/softening some of the cloth surrounds.

DeKay

AFAIK, the majority of the suspension comes from the spider next to the voice coil, not the surround, so they should be interchangeable in terms of driver performance .  I don’t know which is longer lived however.

PS - Good question for DIYaudio

@johnto Wrote:

 

Cloth vs paper surround

See article below: Page #6 figure 3.

Mike

https://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/reference/notes/tech1-3a.htm