Treatment for rubber speaker surrounds?


Anyone use any type of treatment like silicone for their speaker surrounds to preserve them from getting hard and drying out. Does any company make a product meant for this purpose? I have heard of people using Armor All but IMO that is not the best choice because it also can cause drying and cracking.
arnold_h
I actually contacted Albert Von Schweikert about what I should use on the surrounds of my Von Schweikert VR-5 HSE speaker surrounds, and this is what he wrote back:

Hello Juan,

 

All of the VR-5 HSE speaker components use Kurt Mueller rubber surrounds that have a twenty year warranty. The Germans know how to make good parts! The Audax midrange and SEAS woofers use these special rubber compounds for a very long life, estimated to be more than 30 years. If you treat all of the butyl rubber edges, they will not crack or dry out for an estimated 50 years!

 

Buy the liquid made by CAIG from Parts Express; we use it to protect the foam rubber surrounds of the VR-5SE and VR-5 Anniversary models, as well as the VR-9SE Mk2 and VR-11SE Mk2. It works very well!

 

Cheers,

 

Albert Von Schweikert

President, Chief Design Engineer


Just purchased a set of used Thiel Powerplanes. They use Thiel’s proprietary coax drivers - have a rubber surround that I believe is butyl but could be natural rubber?? From extensive reading it is plasticizer that needs replenished. Armorall and 303 (which are essentially the same thing at different water dilution) merely surface protect against further damage but do little to re-plasticize. This Caig stuff has limonene which I believe acts as a plasticizer. It is also found in GooGone. Anyone know what plasticizer is actually used in butyl rubber?