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If treated properly, speakers will work for decades although there can  be some wear and tear issues because they do have moving parts.  We get many perplexed customers with damaged speakers. How did it happen"  Common problems:

1-      Over or under powering. You can have a 1000 watt speaker, but if you use a 50 watt amp with the volume turned up higher that halfway, it will produce a square wave or clipping and it will be  the bad signal that damages the voice coil.

2-      Bad wiring: in the speaker cabinet, in the cabling to the speakers, from the amp, in the building- can all cause an intermittent signal and transients that can damage a speaker.

3-      Turning the amp on with the volume turned up- more transient damage

4-      Using outdoors. You cannot get the same volume from your speakers outside as you will inside. If you attempt to compensate by turning up the volume, you can go clip the signal. The techs at  Sweetwater have it right when they say “Outdoor           gigs require at least 12dB (16x’s the power) more sound output than indoors, and as much as 20dB (100x’s power!) to really do it right.”

5-      Feedback at a high volume- causes one frequency to amplify for a long time overheating the voice coil

6-      Power surges- from the electric company,or as listed above: turning volume on with power up too high, intermittant cabling etc.

How Can We Help" We can recone your speakers or send you DIY recone kits. We can install new Diaphragms or send you replacement Diaphragms. We can repair your crossovers. We can handle any and all of your speaker repair needs. Let us know how we can help you.

I’ve got to agree! There have been technological changes to speakers but they concern magnet materials (neodymium vs ceramic vs alnico) and some cabinet and crossover designs. There have not been any changes that have caused your speakers to become obsolete.  If anything, vintage speakers are often valued more than newer models unless you get into a select few high end products.

Speaker DO NEED REPAIRS. They experience wear and tear and need upkeep but that does not diminish their value in any way if the repairs are professionally done.  So the answer to How Long Will your Speakers Last is generations. Invest in them now, enjoy your tunes, and add them to your will so the kids won’t have to fight over the “good stuff”

Most people hear between 20 to 20,000 Hertz, but different people can have different hearing ranges. Some people can hear at 22,000 Hz and higher. Genetic inheritance can affect hearing ability just like it affects so many other traits, but there can be losses to the ability to hear the full audio spectrum, and specifically high frequencies, as we age or if damage caused by exposure to loud noises occurs. It can be normal for a middle aged man to only hear as high as 13,000 Hz. Hearing tends to deteriorate more slowly in women which is why woman often hear higher pitches more than same-aged males.

How does this affect your Speakers" If you are not hearing the tweeter in your home stereo or the high frequency compression driver in your PA, it might be damaged, or it might be that your hearing has changed.

We can help! Let us test your speakers. Bring or send us the tweeter or the whole cabinet. We can test the tweeter or driver so you can know if IT or you have the problem. We repair and replace tweeters and drivers as well as crossovers.

Factoid: Many animals communicate at frequencies outside of our audible range. Elephants use lower frequencies (infrasound) and rats use higher frequencies (ultrasound).

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Subsequent studies confirmed that girls hear better at higher frequencies and have determined that there is an anatomical basis for this finding. Hiroaki Sato’s study was the first to determine differences in the anatomy of the inner ear between the sexes. Girls are born with a cochlea which is shorter and stiffer than boys. The shorter, stiffer cochlea provides a more sensitive frequency response. Thierry Morlet demonstrated that the hair cells themselves are stiffer (and therefore more sensitive) in girls compared to the hair cells in boys.

It is theorized that woman develop better language skills because they hear better at a younger age. It is also supposed that girls are more affected by authority because what might be normal level speaking is perceived as yelling.

Men don’t hear as well as women do, but most men are blissfully unaware of this fact. Could this be the reason husbands hear blah blah blah when their wives talk, or why they only respond in cave man grunts"

study info

Aquaplas is a sound damping elastic used to provide greater bass control and more accurate woofer movement. Aqauplas has extremely high energy dissipation qualities that result in noise and vibration suppression. Yes once again, what goes around comes around. What was once old has become new again.

You can read all about the DD66000 at Home Theater Review