Blog, How TO DO It, Speaker Repair Info

Cleaning Debris from Voice Coil

Posted on by Cathy
20
Feb

If your speaker makes a scratching or buzzing noise that you can hear when you gently and evenly move the cone up and down, one problem might be dirt in the voice coil gap. There are other things that can also cause a speaker to buzz, but if you have isolated it to dirt in the gap, then you can try to clean it out.

Remove the dustcap or center dome, and insert a piece of tape in between the inside of the voice coil former and the magnet pole piece. You must inch it down the former a small amount at a time and then rotate 360 degrees to try to get the loose dirt to attach to the tape. Gently remove and try again.

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This will work for debris on the inside of the vc former. If there is debris on the outside of the former, you can try to evenly lift the cone to the highest excursion point and then use the tape in the same way.

If you cannot remove the debris, then the speaker will need to be reconed so the gap can be more thoroughly cleaned.

Cathy

Cathy grew up in NY, moved to Florida in 1975 and graduated from the University of South Florida, with a degree in broadcasting. She and her husband Glenn started The Speaker Exchange in 1977. (Glenn later moved into Audio/Video sales and installations). In 1979, Cathy went to California for JBL speaker repair training and later received advanced training from Frank Spain, the then head of the Electro-Voice service department. She has continued to advance her audio education through many CES, NAMM, and CEDIA trade show classes.

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