What is Speaker RECONING?

What is Speaker RECONING”

Speaker Reconing is the replacement of all the moving parts in the speaker frame.

When a speaker is originally made, a frame is attached to a magnet. A voice coil, spider, cone (with surround), tinsel lead, dustcap and, in most cases, gasket is installed.  The magnet is then charged.

Speaker Reconing is the removal of all the original above mentioned moving parts, and then the reinstallation of new parts in the original speaker frame.

If the original manufacturer’s parts are still being made, then reconing returns the speaker to EXACT new specification. (For example, this is true with manyJBL and Electro-Voice + other brand models.)  If the original parts are no longer being made, then reconing repairs the speaker as close as possible to the original.

Sometimes new parts are an improvement over the original due to changes in manufacturing techniques. Older parts often used paper voice coil bobbins. New voice coils can be made of aluminum, capton, etc and dissipate heat better.  Speaker wire has changed, adhesives, cone materials, etc.

Changes can also be purposely made. We could use stiffer or taller spiders which will allow less or more excursion as desired. You can change a foam edge cone to a Cloth edge or all paper cone to avoid a future dry rot issue or just to change from a stereo woofer to a PA woofer. We can change from 4 ohms to 8 ohms, and the list of possible alterations continues.

Sometimes changes are a necessity. If it is not possible to find the exact parts originally used in a vintage speakers because they are no longer being made, we match as closely as possible with the current parts available.   Also many of the speakers produced overseas have metric parts that were never made available. When we recone, we match to the closest standard size parts that can be found.

Each and every moving part can be changed to alter the sound. Will you hear the differences” Sometimes. This all  depends on what changes are requested and how well you hear.