Do speakers wear out?
Mark Johlke -- Tue, 06/27/2006 - 19:43
I have a 20+ year old pair of JBL L10s as my main music speakers and while they still sound pretty good I have been dreaming of a replacement pair. While thinking about this, the thought occured to me: do speakers wear out? By "wear out" I mean does their sound degrade over time? If so, is there some way to estimate the usable life of a pair of speakers?
The answer to your question is: yes and no. When speakers are used properly and not subjected to adverse weather conditions or continual exposure to direct sunlight, they will provide many years of enjoyment as you have experienced yourself. The problem that does come up from time to time is the deterioration of speaker surrounds, or the area on the speaker that bridges from the cone to the outer frame.
You might want to pop the grills off of your speakers and see if there is any deterioration. If there is, you do have degraded sound (believe it or not, you can go through such degradation for a long time and never realize it, because your ears tend to get used to the differences).
Oh, one more thing. If you do have deteriorated speaker surrounds you don't necessarily have to go out and buy new speakers. You can have your existing drivers repaired if you like, or you can buy a kit and do it yourself. Another alternative would be to purchase a replacedment driver.
I hope this helps.
As Bruce points out, speaker surrounds can deteriorate. This is extremely common with drivers using foam surrounds, popular with many manufacturers during the 1980s. It's commonly believed that exposure to sunlight causes the damage, but in reality the foam material is chemically unstable and becomes dry and brittle over time. Bruce is correct that the drivers can be re-surrounded with butyl by any competent speaker shop. After that, they're good indefinitely.
Another common problem with speakers of this vintage is oxidation of tone control switches and input terminals. The switches can become so corroded that they won't pass a signal. If they are going bad, you'll hear crackling sound when throwing the switches. This can sometimes be cured by spraying contact cleaner on the contacts. If that doesn't cure the problem, you can try burnishing (polishing) the contacts with a burnishing tool. When all else fails, corroded contacts can be bypassed with soldered wire. Funky input terminals can be replaced.
Speakers that have been in storage a long time can have problems with their crossover networks. Electrolytic capacitors need to be charged and recharged periodically to maintain their electrolytes. If they dry out they can become useless. (This is also a problem for electronic components that have been stored for years. The power supply caps should be replaced.)
If they've been well-used (but not abused), speakers can be just as good today as the day they were purchased. My father has a pair of Jensen speakers that he bought in the early 1960s. He's listened to them almost every day since then, at fairly loud levels, and they are still in perfect shape. 45 years old and still going strong - now that's reliability!
Barry Willis
Thanks for the very interesting and informative replies. I've checked my JBLs (L96s, not L10 as I inadverdently originally stated) and the surrounds seem to be in pretty good shape. However, I certainly won't tell my wife this, as she'd just want to spend the money on something "silly." :wink:
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