Repairing old speakers

September 12, 2007 [Articles Index]

Introduction

I'd been storing these old broken speakers for years now hoping that some day I'd be able to salvage them for something when my friend Ben told me he was able to replace the foam on some old speakers he'd picked up for our Burning Man camp. I immediately followed the link he sent me and bought an 8 Inch Speaker Repair Foam Kit Universal Pair from the same guy he did. At first, I was a little confused by the measurements provided in the item descriptions and had a little trouble figuring out for sure which kit was the right size, but Jim from Custom Speaker Parts sent me this measurements guide which helped me figure it out. The kit comes with some great instructions... here are some photos of the process so you can get an idea of what it is like.

Step 1. Broken Speaker

This is what my speaker looked like before I started. I've got a measuring tape in the photo so you can see the sizing.

Step 2. Clean off the old foam

The most time consuming and unpleasant part of the process. It took me about two hours to scrap and dissolve the foam off of the old speakers to get it to this point.

Step 3. Attach the replacement foam

Mostly painless, but slightly nerve-racking. This process was pretty straightforward and is described very well in the instructions, i.e. put glue on inner edge of foam and on cone.. stick on cone, then put glue on outer edge of foam and stick down. The part you have to be careful is that the alignment must not pull the cone any direction otherwise you may misalign it and cause it to rub against the metal part of the speaker.

Step 4. Reattach the gasket

The speaker came with a cardboard frame around the edge of the foam. The last step before putting the speaker back into the housing was to just glue this back on, making sure that the screw holes lined up. You can also see my second speaker in the background of this photo face down in the "drying position". I let these set for about 12 hours before testing them out and about 24 hours before little putting these babies to the test.

Conclusion

Overall it took just a couple days for me to get the repair kit in the mail after ordering it and it took one Saturday afternoon to complete and it was a pretty satisfying process to complete. Finally years of lugging those old broken speakers has paid off and I've been listening to them everyday since.