Drivers and how to clean them: Notes from ScanSpeak

Don't you put the grill covers on the speakers between uses?

I saw a interview with a Dynaudio engineer and he recommendsled treating speaker surrounds with a product called Sonax... It was like $15 on Amazon, I used it on my surrounds and it worked great, my speakers are pretty old and the rubber was getting a little dry, now they soft and shiny and very pliable, it did improve the sound too.

Sonax is from a German company, it’s for restoring dried out rubber on vehicle door seals I think, but it works great on speaker surrounds... I was just careful not to get it on the area where the rubber meets the woofer cone just in case it would cause the glue to fail, but I don’t think it would, I was just being extra careful. I cleaned the woofers first with a damp cloth and dried them.

I've no need to dust speakers, since I don't give them a chance to collect such. :)
As for any other surface other than horizontal....

We live near a rail yard that services a concrete plant.  They regularly 'dust' the interior of hopper cars that deliver powder cement to said plant.

Previously, they applied buzzy 'vibrators' to the cars' sides to knock off what would 'stick' to the interiors of the hoppers.  Ran around 300hz, and somewhat annoying.  But only during the day...

Made sense....if left on and in the hoppers, and what with day/night temp and humidity changes concrete dust would 'glaze' the stainless interiors.

Not good product for commercial projects or your driveway, noooo...

A month ago or so, they switched to a 'shaker' that creates a 'bass vibe' (15hz?) that rattles windows an 1/8 mi. away.  All the local 'car bassers' have got to be jealous....but rail car hoppers are welded vs. car parts are bolted for the most part....

Nothing like having your ride have a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly on the interstate... ;)

To clean the dust off of your woofers: Tchaikovsky 1812.

Thanks Eric,

 I’ve been having work done on the house and I’m sure one of my speakers got attacked by drywall dust. I was waiting for the construction to be finished before I went in to see the damage .

JD

Compressed air works great: 2 cans for $10.00 at Best Buy.

I have never rotated drivers, but, it is probably a good idea to do it.  I know that Lowther driver owners do this regularly because the gap for the voice coil on Lowther drivers is extremely narrow and the slightest sag will result in scraping.

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. :)

I had a 2004 Porsche Cayenne with a subwoofer under the spare tire. There was a leak (they never could find) that filled the space with water. 
In spite of the “blub-blub” bass, the driver was extremely clean 😜😂😂😂

I take all my speakers into the shower for an intimate cleaning session 😎

Do you rotate larger drivers to mitigate the effects of gravity? I'm my 40 years of playing bass in many bands, I did this on a regular basis as did the sound companies I worked with. I never blew a driver, unlike a lot of other bassist I knew.

I use one of those swiffer duster things on all my gear, works really well.

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.

Never had to worry about cleaning a speaker driver, never heard of such a thing....I would not touch them with anything...leave em alone....

How about a low pressure air blast to remove any dust buildup ? 

I use a dry cotton cloth on my Revel aluminim drivers. Just enough pressure to dislodge dust, usually a gentle swipe.

I use Pledge grab-it duster on the exposed bass drivers of my Kii Threes, not sure what equaliviant would be outside Australia. like a feather duster but claims made from special grab-it fibres to attract, trap and hold dust, allergens, dirt and hair. They do pick up and don’t leave any dust behind. In fact I use this on all my hifi gear to regularly clean and dust.

Thanks Erik.
Surely it's about time to reintroduce activated water for the benefit of the many snake-oil customers here?

Oh.  I just searched for information about it and find it's already back with hits on suppliers and phoney tech stuff on 'the science'.

Selling water for big money is way ahead of selling fuses and cables for big money.

What goes around.....

Do drivers become dirty when grilles are left on? Mine are difficult to remove/replace, and some take offense when guts are exposed. Same ones who think cookware should be hidden away as though one had an invisible chef or only dined out.

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.

Thanks Erik.

Great info thanks very much.

Excellent. Thank you.
I would imagine using distilled water when dampening a cloth would be advantageous.

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. :)

Thanks, very helpful.