Velcro on Wilson Audio Sophias diffraction pad

I removed all the Velcro from my Sophias 5 years ago and never replaced it, my grills fit snuggly around the defraction material and made me wonder why the velcro to begin with. Enjoy the music

Once the surface of the Neopreeene has lost its initial skin NO sticky Velcro will stay. Been there done that ! You need new pads if you want velcro.

When dealing with aging synthetic rubbers and the like: plasticizer outgassing/migration. One might say that all plastics are 'moving' in this fashion (like glass not being a solid but a slow moving fluid), and the best alter/change state very slowly.

Surface needs to be soaked then scrubbed with an aggressive volatile. In order to get the placicizer off the surface and leeched out of the surface of the material.

Then a glue or adhesive may work again. for a while. Maybe. Depends if the surface goes to powder or how long it takes for further degradation via further plasticizer migration.

Some aerosol based contact cleaners have aggressive enough volatiles in them. But they can also tear down other things, in an unwanted fashion, at the same time. Be careful. Small test areas, etc.

Thanks for all the advices.

You can try contact cement. That’s what I’ve used in the past with partial success. I would estimate half of the velcro strips stayed on the diffraction pads after pulling the grills off to test for adhesion. Basically, it’s a one time deal though. Use the cement, put the grills back on, and don’t take them off until you’re ready to replace the diffraction pads. I applied the cement directly on the back of the velcro and push them back onto the diffraction pad (I used the old velcro strips, not new ones).

Thanks, golfnutz