One Cone Mis-aligned?

[Squishman]

My RS-3000's just arrived via Fed-Ex and one may have been damaged in shipping. One cone is bent to the right. I was going to install new surrounds myself, Now it appears I'll have to bring them in to Midwest Speaker to have it diagnosed and repaired professionally. What are your thoughts on this? Does it look serious? @TLS Guy or anyone!

 

[TLS Guy]

My RS-3000's just arrived via Fed-Ex and one may have been damaged in shipping. One cone is bent to the right. I was going to install new surrounds myself, Now it appears I'll have to bring them in to Midwest Speaker to have it diagnosed and repaired professionally. What are your thoughts on this? Does it look serious? @TLS Guy or anyone!

It could be a bad surround replacement job, or the suspension is damaged. Remove the driver and examine the rear suspension. Likely this driver needs a total reconing.

 

[Squishman]

It could be a bad surround replacement job, or the suspension is damaged. Remove the driver and examine the rear suspension. Likely this driver needs a total reconing.

I removed the driver. The basket looks fine. The cone itself also looks fine. It's how it sits inside that is bent, although, that might be part of the cone for all I know. I do not know much about the internal structure of a driver. I watched about 10 different videos on repairing the surrounds. That was all for naught if I have to bring these in. They have such crap hours at Midwest. Tuesday-Friday 10 am to 4. Just heinous for me to get up there during that window of time. But if I must, I will. I'll look into shipping them to Roseville. Anyone else have a clue what's going on here structurally? If that one needs re-coning, I'd have to do them both obviously.

 

[Verdinut]

Most of the suspension is missing. Those drivers had foam suspension that dried. New foam suspension would need to be installed, and it would require to have the exact compliance as the original. That's about impossible to find nowadays. IMO best thing to do is to return them for refund if you can. The seller is a swindler.

 

[Squishman]

Most of the suspension is missing. Those drivers had foam suspension that dried. New foam suspension would need to be installed, and it would require to have the exact compliance as the original. That's about impossible to find nowadays. IMO best thing to do is to return them for refund if you can. The seller is a swindler.

Suspension? The surrounds? Those only last 20-25 years. Of course I bought them knowing that. I am referring to the cone being bent to the right. He is not a swindler. Bad packer, yes probably. Fed ex beat the h. e. double toothpicks out of the box. But you should anticipate that and pack them accordingly.
But this damage has nothing to do with the surrounds being deteriorated.

Hoping someone pipes in here to tell me what they think is going on here. You cannot simply move the cone leftwardly. It moves in and out like it is supposed to of course, but it is imoveable (is that a word?) to the left to make it straight or centered. I am not forcing it. Because something I do not understand is going on here.

 

[Squishman]

Oh, by the way, I know something happened during shipping. Based on minor cab damage also (that I fixed) and the condition of the box.

 

[Squishman]

TLS Guy looked them over and he says the cone and voice coil appear to be in fine shape. It just got shoved over a bit and was slightly jammed a bit but does not appear damaged. Then he offered to repair the surrounds for me so I left them there I am going to order the parts.

 

[MrBoat]

Set them on their backs and see if that centers the cones.

 

[Squishman]

Set them on their backs and see if that centers the cones.

I was able to push it to the left and it popped back in place. Seems fine now.

 

[highfigh]

It could be a bad surround replacement job, or the suspension is damaged. Remove the driver and examine the rear suspension. Likely this driver needs a total reconing.

Bad surround replacement? They're gone! They should never have been shipped without stabilizing the cones!

 

[highfigh]

Suspension? The surrounds? Those only last 20-25 years. Of course I bought them knowing that. I am referring to the cone being bent to the right. He is not a swindler. Bad packer, yes probably. Fed ex beat the h. e. double toothpicks out of the box. But you should anticipate that and pack them accordingly.
But this damage has nothing to do with the surrounds being deteriorated.

Hoping someone pipes in here to tell me what they think is going on here. You cannot simply move the cone leftwardly. It moves in and out like it is supposed to of course, but it is imoveable (is that a word?) to the left to make it straight or centered. I am not forcing it. Because something I do not understand is going on here.

Don't expect the spider to provide a lot of support when the surround is missing- it's cloth, impregnated with something and pressed to form concentric rings that allow it to follow the cone's movement in & out. Once a surround is glued to the cone and frame, it should be fine. If the spider has separated from the frame and/or voice coil, THEN, you may need to recone. That may be repairable, though- it depends on how much is separated.

 

[highfigh]

I removed the driver. The basket looks fine. The cone itself also looks fine. It's how it sits inside that is bent, although, that might be part of the cone for all I know. I do not know much about the internal structure of a driver. I watched about 10 different videos on repairing the surrounds. That was all for naught if I have to bring these in. They have such crap hours at Midwest. Tuesday-Friday 10 am to 4. Just heinous for me to get up there during that window of time. But if I must, I will. I'll look into shipping them to Roseville. Anyone else have a clue what's going on here structurally? If that one needs re-coning, I'd have to do them both obviously.

It's a small operation- let the guy determine his own hours. They may have time set aside to do repairs, too- that's really hard when people are coming in the door. The cement used for some of this is often Acetone-based and the time window for working with it is very short. The other contact cement can't be left to sit, either.

There's only a small number of companies that repair drivers well- it's not like the old days, where you couldn't help tripping over them. We had one here in the Milwaukee area and he sold because he was old and the solvents/cement was affecting him. The guy who bought his inventory and business was young and suffered from the chemicals, too. Another company was ging fine, then something happened (I suspect the same problems), so he sold and the buyer went off the deep end- the company was open for awhile, but he was AWOL. Then, random people started advertising speaker repair and most did a bad job because they didn't really know how to do it the right way.

 

[highfigh]

Oh, by the way, I know something happened during shipping. Based on minor cab damage also (that I fixed) and the condition of the box.

If the seller provided photos that DON'T show the damage, you can file a damage claim. I have done this when I worked for a music store and stereo store, as well as for myself when a motor arrived with a bent base flange- they (UPS, mostly- just because of the shiping volume) were always very responsive.

Bad packing causes most damage, but sometimes, the shipper takes everythng as a challenge.

 

[-Jim-]

TLS Guy looked them over and he says the cone and voice coil appear to be in fine shape. It just got shoved over a bit and was slightly jammed a bit but does not appear damaged. Then he offered to repair the surrounds for me so I left them there I am going to order the parts.

@TLS Guy is doing you a great service, and should be rewarded with a Bottle of ?

 

[Squishman]

So I mentioned that I ordered Infinity RS-2000 and 3000's for a couple of different rooms. I was really only looking for one or the other, but I came across both and they were what I thought were great deals, so I bought them. The 3000's came yesterday and you know the saga there (obviously). The 2000's came today via Fed-ex Ground. Packed so well, it was just incredible. Perfect size box with perfectly placed styrofoam sectioned in all the right places. That was encouraging. Also, the cabs were 10 out out of 10! Getting somewhere now! But.... one neg terminal on the back was broken. So I soldered a lead from the inside. Tried to find a plug of some sort in a my misc. box of connections and what-not. But for now, I just went with a lead out the back. Oh yeah and the surrounds were good in the photos. Well, in person, I could tell it was redone. I thought "oh-oh". And yep, one woofer buzzed! I asked the seller about it and he didn't explain, he just offered me $20. I told him that it would cost $40 each to get them repaired. And they'd both have to be re-done even though one sounded ok. You would not want two different surrounds on them. So I said $40 would be better. So I got that (actually around $43 with tax) back and then went on Midwest's site and ordered direct replacements for $100 instead of the repair, because of the faster turn-around, shipping to them and no real clue why it was buzzing. Likely a bad surround repair, but maybe worse! I am happy with all that. But sheesh, here I was excited to get both shipments and both went all to (temporary) heck. I had just ordered the surround kit from Midwest only a few hours previous, so I could have saved on some shipping charges had I ordered everything together, but that's fine. If anyone is curious, I ordered these: https://www.midwestspeakerrepair.com/product/mw-audio-mw-5060-6-5-woofer/
The listing does not say it fits RS-2000 specifically, but Midwest's listing on ebay for the same woofer makes it more clear that it actually does fit them.
Both sets will be nice eventually thanks to TLS Guy and finding these replacements that look really top drawer.