Loudspeaker Reconing - Part II

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Where was I? WOW! lot's of questions and comments about the last reconing article. Good ones by readers. When someone who has an intimate knowledge of a subject begins to tell others about what they know, they can forget the basics. I mean the down to earth "what-do-dis-do" stuff. Sorry if I included myself in that group. I received lots of questions about speakers and reconing after the last article, so I would like to address them rather than plow through what was originally planned.

Mark P. from Indianapolis asks:
When one of the speakers in my 4-12 cabinet began to rattle I took the speaker in to be reconed. When I got it back it sounds much louder. Is this because the other speakers in my cabinet are worn out? Why does my newly reconed speaker sound so much different from the other three speakers in my guitar cabinet?

Mark, This is a problem especially with guitar players. First consider the age of the speaker. If it is more than 20 years old there is an age problem with the magnet half life. However, that rarely makes much of a difference after 6-7 gigs on a freshly reconed speaker. There is another issue. There are two major components of a voice coil. The Former: This is the part of the voice coil that the windings are wrapped on. Winding is either copper or aluminum or a combination of both. For a long time coils were wrapped on aluminum. This was exclusively used in the after market coils for years without question. For the most part, we use a plastic known as Kapton as the Former for the voice coil these days. Kapton is light and very strong for the voice coil application. In the mid 80's we noticed that aluminum formers took a major toll on the clarity of the sound a speaker reproduces. An aluminum voice coil former seems to rob the high end from the sound. This translates into a low transparency in the sound. Trouble was, in our effort to get the highest quality sound possible from a speaker reconers stopped using aluminum former voice coils in the speakers they rebuilt for customers at once. Thinking the better sound was what customers wanted. What we ultimately found was that the aluminum former was a sound musicians had grown accustom to and had compensated for the loss of high end in their EQ settings. Now then, Mark gets his speaker back from the recone shop and it has all this new high end he didn't have before and the speaker sounds much different from the rest. The result is EQ frustration and rightfully so. You can take the speaker back to the recone center and tell them what you are experiencing, they know what to do to fix the clarity problem. If you take your speakers to a PLRA reconer, they know how to make your old speaker sound like and old speaker even though it is essentially brand new. Take this into consideration. It is just as likely to have your speaker reconed and it looses the high end you have EQ'd for. In that case it is almost certain the reconer used an aluminum former voice coil without thinking about it. Oop's. A PLRA reconer will do the job over free of charge if this happens. It's a matter of asking. This isn't the only reason for Mark's situation but more often than not, it is.

Sam G from Albany, NY asks:
My guitar amp puts out 100 watts. I have 2 12" 85 watt Celestions and although it doesn't happen a lot, I am still at the recone shop 2-3 times a year. They tell me I am over powering the speakers but that isn't true. If my Celestions can handle 85 watts a piece, they should be able to handle 170 watts together shouldn't they? My amp only puts out 100 watts. Am I having my chain yanked about this? This is getting old but I really like the sound.

Most speakers fail because they are under powered. Sounds wrong but, that is the way it is. If you have an amplifier that puts out 100 watts of signal, you also have a DC power supply of about 17 volts DC current when you turn it up to 10 or 11. If your amplifier puts out 17 vdc you will light up the voice coils in your speakers like the light bulb in a flashlight. Speakers do not handle DC voltage well at all. When you turn your amplifier up past it's rated output you are sending DC voltage to the speakers and you will snuff them rascals. To the inexperienced eye, the voice coil will look at the burnt voice coil and assume they were over powered when the fact is, they were underpowered. The rule of thumb is this: Buy twice as much power than your speakers can handle. Then when you turn your rig up, you will experience "speaker distortion" which is a better sound by far when it comes to cranking up the ol' amp. Try it, you'll like it. Speaker distortion is what we guitar players are after. Even though we have become very dependent on electronics there is no substitute for good old speaker grunt. You will still blow speakers from time to time but they will last longer and sound much better.

Ask me anything!
Tom Colvin

PLRA: Driven to excellence by the excitement of perfection.
Turn it up, we need the work!