Will a missing centre "dome" of a speaker cone affect sound reproduction much?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Will a missing centre "dome" of a speaker cone affect sound reproduction much?

Asmodeus

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#99374 18-Mar-2012 10:49

See picture for an easier explanation. They guy selling these claims it hasn't affected the sound. Is it likely to have?

johnr

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#596706 18-Mar-2012 11:00

not to the human ear

Asmodeus

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#596714 18-Mar-2012 11:44

johnr: not to the human ear

Ok cheers. Is it literally just a cover and not involved directly in the sound reproduction process?

Anyone know if it's easy/cheap to repair?

RunningMan

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#596718 18-Mar-2012 11:54

It's primarily a dust cap to keep dust (strangely enough!) out of the voice coil.

As johnr noted, it will have almost no impact on the sound, but if you are an audiophile and sit down to concentrate on listening to music, then you may notice a slight difference between the left and right speakers.

The impact will be at the higher end of the frequency response for that particular driver, but given a 2 or 3 way system, this will likely be above the crossover frequency at which the next (i.e. midrange or tweeter) kicks in, so unless you are really critical, you probably won't notice.

BUT - if it's been like that for a while, and dust/dirt has got in where it shouldn't, then it can damage the voice coil pretty quickly - this will come across as a scratchy noise as the cone moves, with lots of sound distortion.

RunningMan

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#596719 18-Mar-2012 11:55

See this also

B1GGLZ

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#596737 18-Mar-2012 13:04

Asmodeus: See picture for an easier explanation. They guy selling these claims it hasn't affected the sound. Is it likely to have?

Probably not.
But it would pay to find out what happened to it as other parts may have been damaged in the process.

gzt

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#596755 18-Mar-2012 14:31

Repair is not expensive.

richms

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#596951 18-Mar-2012 23:22

It will also be venting into the driver, so could change its response substantially acting as another port depending on the internal construction of the driver.

They are an easily available part and just glue on, but they shouldnt come off on their own so it may point to the speaker being "repaired" - I had a pair that was fixed and the dustcap on one was on crooked

Richard rich.ms

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stevenz

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#597197 19-Mar-2012 15:19

It depends on the design of the speaker a little bit, if that section is supposed to be semi-sealed then the missing cap will reduce the cushioning of the cone. Unless you intended playing them at very high volumes, it'd be unlikely to be an issue even if this was the case though.

They're usually damaged by small children playing with them, which is a prime reason for leaving the covers on them if such creatures are about.

Any reasonable audio shop could sort out getting them repaired, but they'd probably charge a disproportionate amount. If you're in Wellington then WT Audio in Lower Hutt would be the guys to contact for a reasonably priced job.

@KnightNZ

rhysb

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#597204 19-Mar-2012 15:22

Or Axent Audio if you are in auckland

richms

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#597235 19-Mar-2012 16:04

rhysb: Or Axent Audio if you are in auckland

If you want them crooked and a large visible glue line, yeah ;)

Richard rich.ms

supasparky

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#599829 25-Mar-2012 19:29

those look like infinity speakers.

you can buy the dust caps and the rubber cone surrounds from the US for about $50. just glue them on yourself. there are loads of how to's on the net.
i have a set of 8" infinity refernce drivers that i will re condition when i get around to it using those parts

Asmodeus

1015 posts

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#600799 27-Mar-2012 15:54

supasparky: those look like infinity speakers.

you can buy the dust caps and the rubber cone surrounds from the US for about $50. just glue them on yourself. there are loads of how to's on the net.
i have a set of 8" infinity refernce drivers that i will re condition when i get around to it using those parts

Yeah they were infinitys. Guy was selling them for $500. I didn't get them in the end though.

Got some pretty nice JBLs instead. Guy set a low $200 reserve but set his auction to finish at a crappy time (10:35am Tuesday). No one had bid with 2 mins to go so I thought wth and got them at reserve. The guy said he had over 50 watchers and was expecting them to go for around 500. Doh!