Can speakers wear out? (1 Viewer)

[Ronnie1a]

I have a set of Bose cube speakers well over 20 years old. They no longer have the sharpness or fullness that they used to have. They are used all the time. Is there such a thing as speakers wearing out or slowly dying because of age?

 

[Edwin-S]

It is not so much that the speaker wears out as the parts that go into it. If your BOSE cubes are sounding muddy or less full then it could be due to the capacitors in the crossover starting age or develop leakage which could cause changes in frequency response. If all of them are sounding like the sound quality has gone down then it could be an indicator of a problem developing in the bass module that controls the cubes.

Also, this is not to be flippant, but people wear out as they age. Have you had a hearing test done any time recently? If highs are sounding rolled off to you it may indicate hearing loss. It doesn't harm to eliminate that possibility.

 

[LouA]

I had a pair of Bose 201's that "dried out" after about 20 years and the woofers cracked . I replaced them with Bose 301s which I still have , and I have a pair of Prime towers that I use most of the time these days , but yes speakers will eventually wear out . A friend of mine just had his speakers ( I forget which brand , but high end ) re-coned after about 20 years .

 

[Thomas Newton]

I had a pair of headphones that used foam for the earpieces. After some time, the foam dried up and crumbled off, rendering the headphones unusable.

A Quora thread suggests that "foam rot" can also be a problem for those speakers with foam surrounds.

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-speakers-last-Can-they-last-for-decades

 

[JohnRice]

Speakers can wear out in a variety of ways, including those mentioned above. To be honest, the drivers in Bose cubes cost about $2 to manufacture, so they're not exactly built to last.