Drivers and how to clean them: Notes from ScanSpeak

Do you rotate larger drivers to mitigate the effects of gravity?

Generally not something the average audiophile should do! :)  The size of professional drivers is so different from what I have in my home. I have a single 15" subwoofer, and everything else is 7" or smaller. I'm sure they will outlast me. :)

Do drivers become dirty when grilles are left on

@hickamore :


A little, but the only reason to really clean most drivers is aesthetic. My main speakers have no grills and the dust was apparent.  If you leave your grills on all the time, then I would not bother.

Using distilled or "activated" water makes no difference to the paper cones it seems to be a bad idea, with the amount of "bad" being proportional to the amount of water.

PS- Activated water was a scam from at least the 1980s that you could make water better than water by having it activated in some magical way.

Sorry, I meant to link to the specific document:

https://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/tech/Scan-Speak_Technote09_Cleaning.pdf

One thing I didn’t fully realize was to avoid getting paper cone drivers wet at all.  This also means you should not use so much as a damp cloth. Fortunately a soft, clean painter’s brush works great in my case. :)