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Subwoofer failure

This morning after everyone was awake I put on Fiona Apple's Tidal record. The very first song, Sleep to Dream has a very loud recurrent low synthesizer note. Everytime it stuck there was a belch in the center field of the system. It turned out to be coming from one of the center subwoofers. These are Dayton Titanic III's and have not been made in years. The current version which uses the same basket has different parameters. Sh-t. 
So, I pulled the driver and sat down with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table with the driver. Everything looked fine and the excursion was smooth and quiet. The surround was in perfect shape as was the spider and lead out wires. Out of frustration thinking I would have to replace all four drivers I started tapping on things. When I tapped on the dust cap I got a mini belch! I ran a finger nail under the seam and sure enough it had detached around 1/3rd of the diameter. I ran a bead of medium viscosity cyanoacrylate glue around the detached area and it sucked it right up. Driver reinstalled it was back to normal. 
Subwoofer drivers have a very aggressive lifestyle and they can fail in many ways that can be easily fixed. This is just one example we can store in memory. 
Anybody else have a subwoofer driver failure? 
128x128mijostyn
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn OP
8,570 posts
 
oldhvymec, I entertained doing that once but subwoofer horns are HUGE and putting 4 of them in my room would be comical to say the least. Fortunately, today we have high power amps and digital correction so you can make a little subwoofer do anything you like. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,800 posts
 
I used to see woofers with dust cap problems on occasion back when I did consumer repair for a living. I repaired them with SealAll, which seemed to work a bit better than crazy glue. I've also glued down loose spiders in this way. I stayed away from replacing the surround though- for those I simply sent the woofer out to a local reconing service (which has been in business for at least the last 60 years).
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn OP
8,570 posts
 
Sure that would work fine Atmasphere. I had one major problem. The cap had not come off. One side was glue starved to start with so it released. I didn't know this until I ran my finger nail under the cap. Pulling the cap off completely may damage the cone. Seal all is too thick to draw into the joint by capillary action. So thin crazy glue was the only option under these circumstances. It seems to be holding up fine and it just has to last until my new woofers are ready.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,800 posts
 
I'm sure it will be fine. Good work!
daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,871 posts
 
Never had a driver fail in a sub, usually it is the amp module that gives up the ghost. I have had this problem with several of my prior Subs.
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