If you have ever rebuilt your own speakers, how did it go? Was it something you got right on the first try?
I have a pair of Boston Acoustic A400 speakers, and the foam rings around the cones have decomposed and completely fallen off in some cases. Serious bass notes come out as rattles. I YaGooJeevled “speaker repair,” expecting to have to by new speakers to replace the old ones in the cabinets.
I found some sites who sell refoaming kits. I also found sites which will do the work themselves for about twice the money. I’ve never done this job before, so I’m a little leery of turning it over to a complete rookie (myself.) :eek:
I have an old pair of Advent loudspeakers that needed this done. In my opinion, they just don’t sound the same as they did originally. Nothing I can quite put my finger on, but they’re missing something. Of course, the entire system is 25 years old, so that may be part of the problem.
Beware of the issue of damage already having been done. If the speakers have been used with damaged rings, the coil dragging around inside can create permanent problems.
Two big tricks: Use the right glue. Electronic repair shops sell a special speaker glue (that’s great for a lot of other repairs too). Keeping the coil centered with shimming is critical.
(But I never got my old Smaller Advents working right. Had to replace the woofers. Sigh.)
I’ve done some reconing jobs. It is tedious work getting the old glue off, but if you just do the foam surrounds, it’s a lot easier than if you have to replace the actual cone…then you have to remove the dustcap and the spider (flexible cover over the back of the voice coil). The hardest part is keeping everything centered while the glue dries.
If you’ve been using the speakers with the foam deteriorated, you might have damaged the voice coils. There is a small gap between the magnet and voice coil, when the foam deteriorates, there is nothing to keep the voice coil centered and it starts to rub. This can damage the voice coil, and also leave debris in the magnet gap. Both are bad and will make the speaker have a scratching sound and eventually fail. Likewise, if you just replace the foam surrounds and don’t keep everthing aligned, it will rub.
I had a really great step-by-step website to guide me through the process, I had always sent them off to be reconed and wanted to try it myself. I will try to find the DIY site I used as a guide.
This Site has both foam kits with detailed instructions, as well as an excellent reputation for speaker repair. I also have used Freeman-Tuell in Dallas. Not sure if they do BA, they don’t have a website.
Back when I was a PA guy we had to get blown drivers***** re-coned all the time and took them to a specialist. The whole coil/cone unit has to be exactly aligned and I don’t know if it is something you could do for yourself even if you could get hold of the re-cone kit.
However. It sounds like your situation might be a bit different. If they sell re-foam kits then I suppose that just replacing the foam surround is a valid thing to do. The bit that needs to be aligned properly is the coil and its suspension, the cone support wouldn’t need to be so accurate. I say get a kit and try.
BTW those rattling bass notes are chaffing away at the coils, get 'em fixed or you will be looking at re-coning.
***** with burned out coils but the coil, suspension and cone came as a unit.