Do loudspeakers need to be Refurbished?

All speakers (drivers), regardless of brand name, fatigue with age. That is, the voice coils on the drivers sag which affects the sound quality. This will occur in virtually every driver (speaker) that is 10 to 20 years old. The obvious remedy is to replace the drivers (the least expensive method) with ones of the same size and impedence.
You will notice a difference in sound, and the new drivers will more closely approximate the sound of the speakers when they were new. There are lots of websites and retailers who can supply the new drivers, perhaps even better quality than the ones you have now. Here is one place to start: http://www.partsexpress.com

I have noticed that in just the last 5-6 years speakers have made a tremendous leap in price/performance. Especially in mid/upper drivers. I listened to a set of $5000 quad usa monitors the other day. As usual, their midrange was excellent. It used to be that nothing could touch a quad for midrange. It struck me that now there are quite a few speakers that accomplish a similar quality midrange. Speakers with conventional drivers ! Go shopping and see what you like.

Is it possible to store drivers so they will stay 'fresh' in order to replace your speakers' drivers years from now?

The things that change the most in speakers would be their suspension and capacitors in the crossover. Inductors (coils) should remain constant unless something drastic has happened to them. I do agree that the biggest breakthroughs in "modern" speakers has been primarily in midrange performance along with spacial characteristics. Other than replacing drivers and altering cabinet design, i don't know of any way to "keep up" with modern designs. In terms of keeping your speakers as fresh as possible without major surgery, someone i know that took measurements of speakers over a long period of time suggested the following to me. Since most of what fatigues the actual drivers in the speaker is physical and due to both aging and gravity, try "helping" it along 50% of the way. Since you can't reverse aging, all we can do is minimize it's effects. He suggested rotating the drivers on the baffle 45* every year or so. This will help to keep the voice coil centered while also changing the stress points on the suspension. While this would primarily effect the spider, the surround could only benefit from this little trick. The only "kink" to this trick is that not all drivers have symetrical mounting holes, so you might have to rotate them by 180* or so. His contention was that this was still better than nothing and would show benefits down the road compared to if you left the driver as it was from the factory. Of course the obvious consideration of sealing the driver and wearing out the threaded holes need to be taking into consideration any time this it done. Once you've made a complete rotation, you could simply rotate the speaker in the opposite direction. This would keep the internal wiring from wrapping around itself inside the cabinet. Hope this is "food for thought" for some of you. Sean
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Pernilla,

I think Sean has a great idea (wish I'd thought of it). Another bit of information: there are companies out there that are able to replace the surround (and the spider I imagine) of various drivers. I've not tried any of these services before. Perhaps others at AudiogoN have? That said, it seems that this would be cheaper than replacing the drivers in your speakers and help retain more of the sound that you've enjoyed for so many years.