I don't know the history of these funneled protrusions but they are a mechanical means of improving high frequency response, one that does not rely on an electrical crossover.
The whizzer cone is a small and separate cone attached to the voice coil. To be effective, designers must decouple the larger woofer cone by the addition of a small bit of flexible material. As the woofer voice coil moves faster, the whizzer cone stays perfectly synched while the larger woofer cone has reduced movement. The idea is that at the highest frequencies the whizzer acts as a tweeter, its small cone area pumping out higher frequencies, while the larger woofer cone relaxes and sticks with lower notes.
These types of cones have fallen out of favor for two reasons: most had a sound to them that wasn't all that natural, and designers had moved on to what is known as the coaxial driver.
Coaxial drivers are not new. This picture is of an Altec Lansing 601 from 1943. Unlike a whizzer cone, coaxial drivers require a crossover. They are, after all, a two-way loudspeaker, with a tweeter and woofer.
That's what we'll cover tomorrow.
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