Speaker Lifespan


Barring a blown driver, tweeter, etc. How long before sound starts to obviously degrade? I have Mirage Bi Polars that are 12 years old. Not looking forward to replacing them.
zar
depends on designs, but I have a 1895 edison horn that still works ;) Caps change values with age,surrounds rot, paper surrounds last a long time but driver cones get brittle with age. I have had more than a few voice coils drive right through paper cones on vintage drivers.But over all a good design should last 25 years or longer with repairs. 10-15 without service.
My oldest pair is 47 years old, no repairs to drivers. Well they use fabric surrounds on the extended range "woofer" and have aluminum tweeter compression horns (they have been known to need new diaphragms at least once in a few decades, mine never did) the crossovers each lost a knob otherwise they sound fine. You name the make! BTW they have been played quite loudly.
My R105/3 bought new in 89 I had the foam woofer surrounds replaced with a rubber type in 1990 and when I sold them in 2017 they still rocked. I biamped them with 200/325 8-4 amps at +104 average all the time and they just kept dishing it out. I regularly buy 10-15 year old speakers to enjoy the sound I couldn't justify new and haven't been disappointed yet.