Do Speakers Wear Out?

[konajoe]

Do speakers wear out? If so, what happens? Can they be restored to original sound quality? What would one have to look out for when buying used speakers?

 

[ImcLoud]

I have seen worn out pro speakers and a friend of mine had an old htib type setup that when we pulled one of the covers off there was hardly any surround left, it was a yamaha system and he had is for around 20 years, they used to wake up in the morning put the tv on and shut it off when they went to bed so it was on from 7a to 10p every day for 20 years!!!! He was on his 3rd avr and the speakers still worked, the center channel was the worst, the front left and right were pretty bad but the surrounds looked OK, he replaced the front 3 with some similar ebay speakers and called it a day, lol... We did the math and figured around 100K hours of use!!!!

I know HT systems get a lot more use than music systems, since they are often turned on and then shut off 8-10+ hours later, but a well made speaker should last way longer than we have any business wanting to keep them my wharfedale evo2's get used a good amount and are a couple years old, maybe 500 hours on them, they sound great and look brand new, when I asked a friend of mine that works for WD how many hours the drivers and tweeters should last, he told me that material played, amount of distortion, and level it is played at has a lot to do with how long they will last, but the climate in which they are kept is just as important. My short answer was 25 years, lol...

 

[Swerd]

+1 to what he says.

The only worn out speakers I've seen were more than 20 years old, and were heavily used and/or abused, or had polyurethane foam as the flexible surround material around the outside of the cone. In the past, polyurethane rotted after 20-25 years exposure to sunlight. For at least the last 10 or 15 years (maybe longer?) polyurethane has been made with antioxidants and UV blocking additives in it, and foam surround decay isn't a problem.

 

[konajoe]

Thanks. It sounds like used speakers can be a pretty good deal.

I see that you can buy after market surrounds. Do those surrounds affect sound quality compared to the original surrounds?

 

[ImcLoud]

Thanks. It sounds like used speakers can be a pretty good deal.

I see that you can buy after market surrounds. Do those surrounds affect sound quality compared to the original surrounds?

Find the installation of the surrounds is more important than the quality of it, if you install the correct material or comprable, prep it correctly, do a good job installing, ect it will last a long time...
A friend of mine has a set of old infinity towers that he loves the sound of I believe they are RS3's, about 2 years ago he decided to have them gone through, they had seen a ton of use growing old in a house with cats, dogs, kids, and they used to smoke... So after doing a little research he found a set of 4 nos tweeters and bought them {I think he paid $500 for them}, he took them all apart sent the other drivers to PE and had them gone through, he refinished the grilles, refinished the cabinets, and the baffles, ect. They came out gorgeous, he did it a little different than they were originally, he did the baffles high gloss black, the grilles in a lighter gray material and the wood with a super high gloss poly, he updated the connectors and they originally had this weird material around the tweeters made out of some kind of foam like old car headliner, he redid that with a suede leather material, it took him a couple months doing it on weekends, but man did they come out perfect, but he spent as much as a nice new set of speakers would have cost him and IMO I am not crazy about their sound, he loves it and swears by it, but to me the high end is cluttery {undefined} and the mids almost dont exist compared to how strong the lows try to come in...

ANYWAY the moral of the story is, if you keep a set of speakers long enough for them to "wear out" you most likely will have some sort of platonic connection with them and be willing to fix them no matter the cost...

As far as value in used speakers it can be great, but there is something about being the one and only person to open the box and plug them in the first time I like.. Although if I could get a nice pair of 802 diamonds for $1000 I wouldn't mind being the second owner...

 

[shadyJ]

I would say speakers do not 'wear out' so much as they age. Like Swerd said, with the newer materials used in speakers, it isn't going to happen as much as it used to. I would't worry about wearing out any speaker made nowadays, they will be good for years, unless they are used in a harsh environment like high humidity or big temperature changes.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks. It sounds like used speakers can be a pretty good deal.

I see that you can buy after market surrounds. Do those surrounds affect sound quality compared to the original surrounds?

Yes, used speakers can be a good deal.

After market surrounds are sold as repair kits for speakers that no longer work because of surround rot. In that sense, they have a profound effect on sound quality – from no sound at all – to working again.

I don't know of anyone who replaced surrounds on working speakers and could compare the before and after sound quality. I strongly suspect the affect will be little if any at all.

I've never used one of these repair kits, but they are apparently easy to use.

 

[Tbone289]

Another factor in the aging of speakers are electrolytic capacitors used in crossover circuits. Many mass-market speakers use electrolytic capacitors in high and low-pass circuits, and they have a useful lifespan of approximately 10-15 years in well-used speaker. They will usually still work at that age, but their specified value will likely be off 10% or more. Refreshing and upgrading the crossover circuit with metalized film capacitors goes a long way toward bringing the original sound quality and frequency response back, and can make a dramatic improvement. A good quality film capacitor will likely last a lifetime.

 

[Swerd]

I often see this repeated as widely accepted internet wisdom. It’s really a case of both yes and no.

Many mass-market speakers use electrolytic capacitors in high and low-pass circuits, and they have a useful lifespan of approximately 10-15 years in well-used speaker.

Although some electrolytic capacitors made many years ago have been known to drift in value over time, it probably took more like 30 years for significant drift to occur.

They will usually still work at that age, but their specified value will likely be off 10% or more.

If someone tests capacitors in an older speaker, and finds them off by 10% or more, it may or may not be true that time caused this. The reality is that cheap electrolytic capacitors (of the sizes used in audio crossovers) are likely to be off by 10% or more when they are new.

Refreshing and upgrading the crossover circuit with metalized film capacitors goes a long way toward bringing the original sound quality and frequency response back, and can make a dramatic improvement. A good quality film capacitor will likely last a lifetime.

Metalized film capacitors are much more likely to actually deliver the capacitance values printed on them, as opposed to electrolytic caps. Whether or not replacing electrolytic caps with metalized film caps of the same value makes a dramatic improvement in sound depends on many things. Was the original crossover actually a good design? And did the original capacitors actually drift in value?

So, I agree that metalized film caps in speaker crossovers are a better choice. But that doesn't automatically mean that older speakers with electrolytic crossover capacitors will be out of spec.

 

[Tbone289]

I often see this repeated as widely accepted internet wisdom. It’s really a case of both yes and no.

Although some electrolytic capacitors made many years ago have been known to drift in value over time, it probably took more like 30 years for significant drift to occur.

That is not the case based on my experience, and that is what I am basing my comments on--not by "widely accepted internet wisdom". I've replaced many 10-20 year old 5% rated (labeled) electrolytic caps in loudspeaker crossovers that were well over 10% off spec. OTOH, I also have purchased many new (large value) 5% electrolytic caps for other projects, and none of them were off spec by nearly that margin. Spec on the crossover schematics of all of these loudspeakers was 5% of value. In all cases where I've updated these aged crossovers, there was a dramatic improvement in sound quality, usually in the form of improved midrange/high-frequency detail. Again, that is strictly speaking from my own experience, with loudspeakers that I've serviced.

I suppose it comes down to what you qualify as "significant drift". I did not state that all speaker crossovers with electrolytic capacitors will be out of spec in 10-15 years. Much of the drift depends on the environment that the speaker has served in, and how many hours that speaker has been in use, much like that other factors that have been mentioned in this thread.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Speakers should last 30+ years unless you abuse them like RichB abuses his Salon.

 

[Swerd]

That is not the case based on my experience, and that is what I am basing my comments on--not by "widely accepted internet wisdom". I've replaced many 10-20 year old 5% rated electrolytic caps in loudspeaker crossovers that were well over 10% off spec. OTOH, I also have purchased many new (large value) 5% electrolytic caps for other projects, and none of them were off spec by nearly that margin. Spec on the crossover schematics of all of these loudspeakers was 5% of value. In all cases where I've updated these aged crossovers, there was a dramatic improvement in sound quality, usually in the form of improved midrange/high-frequency detail. Again, that is strictly speaking from my own experience, with loudspeakers that I've serviced.

I suppose it comes down to what you qualify as "significant drift". I did not state that all speaker crossovers with electrolytic capacitors will be out of spec in 10-15 years. Much of the drift depends on the environment that the speaker has served in, and how many hours that speaker has been in use, much like that other factors that have been mentioned in this thread.

If that's your own experience, fine. I don't have any problem with that . I have run into others who do claim that all electrolytic caps drift, and I confused your comments with theirs.

My own experience with non-polar electrolytic (NPE) caps, such as those sold by Parts Express or Madisound in the range of 5 to 15 µF, is that they quite often vary more than 10% from their printed values, when new. I might have to buy 10 or 20 NPEs just to find two with the same measured capacitance. The metalized polypropylene (MPP) caps (from the same sources) almost always measure exactly what their printed value is. So, there is no question which I would choose for new builds. I think we agree on that.

 

[j_garcia]

No, because you will upgrade long before that matters

When GR sends components for your kits, he sends the measured values of everything, including the drivers. That way things are as close to the same as possible.

 

[Tbone289]

No, because you will upgrade long before that matters

I wish I could say that! My "newest to me" set of speakers is 15 years old. I just bought them last week.

 

[j_garcia]

I wish I could say that! My "newest to me" set of speakers is 15 years old. I just bought them last week.

that doesn't mean there's a problem My previous speakers are almost that old too, and I still have them... Heck, I have a pair of bookshelf speakers I bought new over 25 years ago and I still use them.

 

[Tbone289]

that doesn't mean there's a problem My previous speakers are almost that old too, and I still have them... Heck, I have a pair of bookshelf speakers I bought new over 25 years ago and I still use them.

True, but they'll be really old by the time I'm done with them!

Actually, I did already go through the crossovers, with great results. This pair of RT55s is one of the ones I was referring to above. They sounded "fine" before the upgrade, and might have for years to come.

 

[PENG]

Everything else being equal, good quality caps in speaker crossovers are going to last much longer than those in amps and AVRs.