The Steel Guitar Forum

What's involved in reconing speakers, and why is it such a "fine art"?

Some very expensive equipment,a huge inventory and a vast knowledge of the many different brands,types of speakers. About the only independent person I know of that still does it is Woody Woodall in Goodlettsville TN.

The rest are Companys...... There is one here in Hendersonville,TN,another somewhere in Fla. "Peavey" sells a replacement basket for their units. Bose has a place in Fla. Advent has a place somewhere.

All in all, a very specialized service, Your not going to get rich doing it.

There's also Orange County Speaker in CA.
<a href=http://www.speakerrepair.com>*their website*</a>

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<font size=1 face=BinnerD color=red>Steelin' Video * * * <a href=http://home.hvc.rr.com/jsganz/Steelin'.mpg> Clip-1</a>* * * *<a href=http://home.hvc.rr.com/jsganz/Wraparound.mpg> Clip-2</a>

An authorized Peavey Service Center that carries a good reputation for reconing speakers is Speaker Reconing Services of Ft. Worth. Joe Phillips is the owner and he can be reached at (817)334-0123.

Of course, the Peavey Black Widow series of speakers feature replacable speaker baskets which can be replaced should failure occur, within 10 minutes.

Here is a link off of the Peavey website to the BW speakers;
http://www.peavey.com/products/proaudio/spkrcomponents/

Mike Brown
Peavey Electronics Corporation

I agree that the Black Widows are AMAZINGLY easy to recone... Mine did take a LITTLE longer than 10 minutes, though, due to previously somehow some black 'grunge got in the gap (methinks some of the foam over the mesh broke free, and melted in the gap-- nothing a bit of rubbing rubbing alcohol on a thin cotton soaked cloth didn't cure! --give an extra 10 minutes for the alcohol to completely evaporate, and I was in business!!) -- in most cases though, 10 minutes would be a GREAT time estimate!!!

Also another tip for cleaning the speaker gap on a Black Widow -- instead of the business card, I used a piece of one of those cheap ($3 walmart) venetian blinds (have cats that somehow break them *laugh*) made a great thing to wrap the masking tape (or in my case the cotton cloth) with.

VERY good design on Peavey's part! --not only an EXTREMELY good sounding and RUGGED speaker, but very field service friendly!

I've had great service from Lakes Loudspeaker Service, Coconut Creek, FL, Ph: 1-800-367-7757. Reasonable prices too!

<SMALL>...why is it such a "fine art"?</SMALL>

Because, on most speakers, it takes a lot of know-how and equipment to do the job right! It's not like changing a tube.

Hi Jim -- Let me try to answer your original question. First of all, I'm speaking from no real first-hand experience, except that I had a JBL D-120 reconed several years ago, and the fellow at the reconing shop showed me what he had to do. I'm familiar with the way most speakers are constructed.

Most speakers are not designed to be reconed by the user (or even at all). (It sounds like the Black Widow mentioned above might be an exception). For most though, it's not like a tube, where there's a clean interface where you unplug the old and plug in the new. It usually involves separating the old paper cone glue joint from the outside edge, carefully removing the gasket and its residue. The old cone and voice coil are lifted out and an exact replacement is fitted, aligned, and glued in place. A new gasket is applied and the new voice coil leads are soldered to terminals.

It's a bit of a delicate operation because it involves surgical removal, careful alignment, and using an adhesive in a one-shot operation. A slight misalignment (or slip of a tool) in the latter stages can mean starting all over again with a new cone. Cone materials are traditionally paper, quite fragile; but many now are stiff cardboard, fiber, and plastic, and therefore more resilient. And of course, every model is a bit different from every other, and procedures for re-coning vary accordingly.

If there are any experienced re-coners out there, please feel free to correct or update me on this

--Rob
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Rob Hamilton on 08 November 2002 at 07:00 PM.]</p></FONT>