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[Ivan Beaver]

I tell people how IMPORTANT it is that you THOROUGHLY clean out the gaps of HF drivers that have failed.

ESPECIALLY if the diaphragm has shattered.  It is also important to vacuum the gap/phase plug to get pieces of titanium that might be in the gap or slots in the phase plug.

The reason is that those pieces can "fly around" and poke holes in the new/replacement diaphragm.

Here is a "one in several million" chance photo that shows how a piece can "fly around" and poke a hole.

It has actually stuck into the dome of a replacement, showing what I talk about.  So under stress, the new diaphragm will most likely fail at this weak point.

YES, it does happen.  I just happened to catch this one.

I don't think you could ever do this again.

Maybe I need to buy a lottery ticket today

[Matthew Knischewsky]

That's a fun find!

[Erik Jerde]

I've spent many hours cleaning the gap on various speaker magnets with board tape to get residue and other grit out from driver failures.  No idea why it never occurred to me to use the vacuum!  Probably 'cause I did what I was taught and at that time I was still pretty green.  That said, I never put a magnet back on a driver till I could run tape both directions through the gap a few times and have it come out clean.  Of course I was careful to make sure no glue was left behind too!

[Jim McKeveny]

....on an absolute level that was not '"best practice".

On a functional/performance level, I don't suppose you have a tone sweep or similar? Was unit within perf parameters? Its easy to say "There should NEVER be contaminants in a VC gap", but there always are. Real world is different. (I remember a passage in a seminal loudspeaker cabinet design handbook - perhaps David Weems - that stated something like"Loudspeakers cabinets should be constructed of 12 inch thick steel-reinforced concrete. You may have to explore other options...."

On an aluminum structure I would expect premature diaphragm death. With titanium or beryllium, dunno. Thoughts?

[ProSoundWeb Community]