Sad day. My JBL LX-22 speakers died :( Should I fix them? (1 Viewer)

[Javier_Huerta]

I was playing with my new UltraCurve processor. While auto-eq'ing the room, the sub frequencies were brought down and the x-over point was raised. And then... "plop, plop, plop".

The foam surround on one of my speakers finally died.

I really don't know whether it's worth to fix them. I bought them for $90 a couple of years ago. I don't know how much I'd pay to have them re-coned, but I guess I should take both speakers if I want them to sound the same.

Has anyone had any experience re-coning the things? If it's not worth it, I could always substitute them for a pair of JBL Control LA's, which have worked flawlessly from day one.

Thanks!

 

[Manny_S]

This happened to me also recently. If your voice coil isn't fried and it's just the foam surround, visit the Simply Speakers website. I have two friends who had their speakers refoamed and they came out perfect. It's very inexpensive and they leave them like brand new. All you do is remove the speaker from the enclosure, ship them to their location with a form you download from their site and you get them back repaired in 7 to 10 days. Btw, they also replace voice coils. You may want to contact JBL about replacement drivers. I contacted Boston Acoustics and they have replacement drivers for my speakers. So I'm going that route. But I'll save the damaged ones and get them refoamed incase I ever screw up the new ones.

 

[John Garcia]

Parts Express sells DIY repair kits, specifically for JBL drivers. I believe you may also be able to get replacement drivers from them, as well as JBL. Sometimes it's worth it. I rebuilt some very old speakers my dad had in the garage that had nice enclosures but the foam surrounds on the woofers were gone. I used better drivers and they are still going strong and actually sounded much better. If the enclosures are good, and you can figure out the tuning and internal volume, you might be able to find another better driver that will work with that enclosure.

 

[Andrew Santos]

when these places refoam, do they use foam again? wouldn't it be better to replace them with rubber surrounds? or would that change the driver's characteristics?

 

[Greg Bright]

Replacing a foam surround with rubber would definitely change the sound characteristics of the speaker. I am not familiar with your particular speaker, but I have replaced the foam surrounds on several different old AR and Advent speakers. It is a relatively simple process, and the cost is under $30. As mentioned above, SimplySpeakers is a good place to start. I'm repairing some Infinity Quantum Jr.'s for a friend right now with parts from them.