How long do high quality speakers "last"

ACOUSTATS LIVES FOREVER!!!!!! and still playing since 1982. Had a friend over to hear them and he gave his maggie's away!!! now what does that say.

I've had my Thors 18 yrs,, no issues, except the foam diaphrams in the Millennium's diintergrtaed,, so replaced,, still my tech guy tested them, and suggested replacing at $300/each,, the speakers were not  is use but 8 of the 18,,and not loud, nor much R&R, mostly classical,, so lightly used. 
This gives you a idea of when to change mid wteeters,, midwoofers are perferfect,,except my cat long ago scratched 2 mids so recently i myself replaced the 2 surrounds, very easy to do.
just added  new high tech xovers,, so a   good speaker over say 10 yrs old, recommend replacing mid tweeters and also upgrading xovers.
Hope that helps. 

A lot of good advice given above; the rare thread that, so far, does not include crazy accusations about other comments/commentators. 

I have not heard any bad comments about ProAc speakers going bad, and I've seen a few older models that are in good working order, so I would guess that they are not particularly prone to early senility.

Speakers age at vastly different rates so there is no handy guide as to how long to expect any given speaker to last--it depends on design, materials, and environment.  I have a local dealer that makes custom speakers out of mostly vintage parts, some of which are extremely old.  Most of the woofers are from the 1940's through 1980's, and compression drivers can be much older than that.  In my own system, I run a compression mid-range driver that is just a bit over 80 years old.

@jafant,

"One should be in a position to get 20+ years out of reference speakers.

Much will depend upon the company staying in business and providing both service/parts/drivers."


Yes, this is very important. Unfortunately sometimes even the manufacturer won't keep the required parts in stock forever.

Currently I'm looking to find a bass driver for a friend's KEF floorstanders from 1997 and was told by KEF themselves that my best chance is to look on eBay. 

I'm still hoping to find a decent one with dust cap still intact but not with much luck so far. I'm guessing that if they had developed a crossover malfunction that would, in most cases, have been terminal. 

So, yeah 20 years seems like a good estimate. Then it can get tricky.


@phusis,

An excellent summing up post! 

Still enjoying my JBL L65s that I bought from Pacific Stereo in early 1978.  They had the surrounds redone and some other maintenance back in the mid 90s.  Sound good as ever to my ears!