30 yr old speakers- time to replace drivers?

secretguy

1,690 posts

10-28-2024 at 05:42am

gdaddy1

121 posts

10-28-2024 at 07:18am

If they sound good leave it for now. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

What he said.

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About the worse recommendation I’ve seen on here yet.... You always want to think about long term maintenance on your equipment, especially after it gets older than a couple decades. All electrical components degrade over time. You would not get on an airplane that had this type of maintenance policy, would you? Granted speakers are not airplanes but maintenance is important on ageing vintage gear, I’ve lost amps due to caps failing. Do not follow anyone who says if it isn’t broken don’t touch it, that’s asking for issues.

Driver’s unless visually bad are probably fine. some will say to rotate them 180 degrees every couple decades, so the suspension relaxes evenly. This helps prevent uneven sagging and voice coil hitting the magnets’ structure. I have drivers that are 50+ years old that work fine.

Crossovers can be and should be checked caps do go bad, not as often in speakers as power supplies though. But it’s easy to check these items and if fine leave them. Or upgrade if that’s something you’re interested in.

last thing yes put money into old speakers if working well and sound good to you, its not a lot of money we are talking about. You're not going to buy new speakers that out perform these for what a little maintenance will cost. not even close. vintage gear can and is fun and surprisingly good in many cases. will newer ones sound better, maybe yes thats for you and your wallet to deside. 

Finally, a post from @audiotroy that I agree with.

Who woulda thunk?

B

If you like the speakers and want to keep them, there are some things you can do as described above to keep them going another 30 years.  

If the tweeters have ferrofluid, it's worth refreshing.  FF gets thick or dries up, and affects performance.  

Parts upgrades are worth some consideration depending on the parts they used originally, and depending on your system, abilities, and desire to do so.  Caps from the 90s tended to last longer than caps from the 50e/60s, but there are a lot of excellent grade caps available now.  Cheap sand cast resistors and iron core inductors can also be upgraded with wire wound non-inductive types and air core inductors....stick close to original values.  Cheap speaker inputs and junk wire can be upgraded too.  You can replace push on connectors with direct solder if you go this far.  You can also bypass fuses and circuit breakers for better sound.   This is also a good time to check stuffing, bracing, insulation, etc.  Each of those are pretty subtle as stand along upgrades, but doing all them can have a big impact, and kick the performance up a notch or two.  

You might have to go on Audiokarma for vintage gear and repair of said gear.  It seems some here would report not to bother recapping or reworking any thing over a certain age. I guess we should put all our vintage gear into a landfill! 

The NHT VT is a good loudspeaker, but it's not a special loudspeaker.  I have a pair (VT-2, I think) in a bedroom mainly used for watching video and they work well.  I would advise not putting much, if any money into them.    NHT won't help you with any info on the crossovers or drivers.  So unless you're a real DIY kinda' fella it's not worth the money to even figure out what you would need to change. As long as the drivers are in good shape you're pretty much there.  The loudspeaker are what they are.

A true low cost change would be to replace the internal wiring.