New B&W Patent Sheds Light on Kevlar-Alternative Speaker-Cone Material

Bowers & Wilkins about three years ago began commercializing a speaker-cone material it calls Continuum as a lower-cost alternative to Kevlar, but has said little on the technology behind it, except for a January 2017 blog post. More technical details about Continuum are now available from a U.S. patent application (2018/0184208) published June 28, based on a May 2015 filing made at about the same time that the first Continuum speakers went on sale. The patent rights have been assigned to EVA Automation of Redwood City, California, the company that bought B&W in 2016. The unnamed material has “the same or better acoustic performance” than Kevlar, and is made from woven glass fiber, embedded in resin and coated with reflective aluminum, which in turn is protected by a layer of lacquer, said the application. When illuminated with light, a speaker diaphragm fashioned from the material appears to have a sparkly “unusually striking” appearance, it said. Phenolic, epoxy or melamine resins are suitable, but “many layers may be required to achieve the required thickness,” said the application. Tuesday, B&W didn’t comment.