When do speakers start to wear out?

[BlueFox]

I have had my Magico S5 Mark II speakers for at least five years now, and while they sound great, maybe even better than originally, I am curious how long that will be the case. Speakers are mechanical devices, and we all know mechanical devices wear out over time. So, being 72, I was wondering if the S5 will outlast me, or I will need to replace them at some point.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Dont worry .
I d say at least 20 years top performance in the case of the magico

 

[cjf]

My Magico's are also around 5yrs old. I've wondered about the lifespan of the speaker a few times also.

My expectation is that they will last for a very long time given the price and build quality of them but I do have concerns with parts availability. With many manufacturers doing almost clean slate changes of a model every few years this concerns me. Gone are the days were a product remains mostly the same for 10-20yrs it seems.

I've considered what I would do should a driver or crossover board crap out and their are no replacements. I'm certain the cabinet will out live a few lifetimes worth of usage but the drivers and crossovers are a different story. I figure in this case I'll be shopping around for aftermarket drive units and will just rip out the crossover boards and go with active x-overs on each drive unit.

In any case, these speakers better have many, many years of life left in them or I will be quite salty. Should they fail before I'm 6ft deep, my hope is that Magico will offer replacement parts for all older models for at least as long as I am still above ground.

 

[Folsom]

However long it takes for the cones to degrade. The rest will probably outlast us fairly easily. Newer capacitors that are film just don’t go bad very easily.

I’m using speakers much older than me… Many are.

 

[sbo6]

I would think given the high quality parts used, decades. However, how hard they are driven with what quality of power can have deleterious effects on the driver coils so that may limit the longevity.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

Sweetie and I already had two plots ready for our transition. I bought two more recently, and plan to bury a Magico speaker to either side of me.

The fourth plot is across town, so Sweetie can rest peacefully without hearing music leaking through the doors in Audio Heaven.

Should I be headed in the other direction, presumably, Magico would be disallowed. I think they're all horn nuts down there...

 

[andromedaaudio]

My Magico's are also around 5yrs old. I've wondered about the lifespan of the speaker a few times also.

My expectation is that they will last for a very long time given the price and build quality of them but I do have concerns with parts availability. With many manufacturers doing almost clean slate changes of a model every few years this concerns me. Gone are the days were a product remains mostly the same for 10-20yrs it seems.

I've considered what I would do should a driver or crossover board crap out and their are no replacements. I'm certain the cabinet will out live a few lifetimes worth of usage but the drivers and crossovers are a different story. I figure in this case I'll be shopping around for aftermarket drive units and will just rip out the crossover boards and go with active x-overs on each drive unit.

In any case, these speakers better have many, many years of life left in them or I will be quite salty. Should they fail before I'm 6ft deep, my hope is that Magico will offer replacement parts for all older models for at least as long as I am still above ground.

Crossovers dont wear out .
You have long lasting mundorf resistors and capacitors these are modern longlasting well encapsulated parts .
Coils are copper no corrosion.
Only thing indeed you should be afraid of is overuse of the speakers playing too loud for a certain amount of time or dc in the speaker causing a voicecoil to overheat and come loose due to a faulty amp , but amps are protected .
Speaker units themselves have no touching mechanical parts so no wear .
Since you have high quality composite cones with rubber surrounds you should be fine.

Speaker technology is to a certain degree at standstill upgrading electronics would make more sense in my view .
Depends on what model you have

 

[twitch]

I'd guess you will 'wear out' before your speakers do !

 

[andromedaaudio]

I have had only 2 issues in 20 years of speaker building .

In my early years i modded a diy amp causing dc at the output, the voicecoil glue melted and then the coil came loose and caused scraping sounds in the magnetgap .
Secondly i pushed a pair of diamond tweeters to the "max" causing a membrane
to completely disintegrate / fall into pieces .

I know use scanspeak soft dome textile tweeters .
I have not had a problem since 11 years plus they re cheap in comparison
I play really loud at times

 

[sbo6]

Crossovers dont wear out .
You have long lasting mundorf resistors and capacitors these are modern longlasting well encapsulated parts .
Coils are copper no corrosion.
Only thing indeed you should be afraid of is overuse of the speakers playing too loud for a certain amount of time or dc in the speaker causing a voicecoil to overheat and come loose due to a faulty amp , but amps are protected .
Speaker units themselves have no touching mechanical parts so no wear .
Since you have high quality composite cones with rubber surrounds you should be fine.

Speaker technology is to a certain degree at standstill upgrading electronics would make more sense in my view .
Depends on what model you have

A quick gander at Mundorf's site shows a 5 - year warranty which makes sense as caps under normal operating conditions and in general last ~10 years and then all bets are off in terms of operability and uF accuracy.

Also, copper does oxidize or "corrode", however speaker crossover coils have a coating over the coiled wire to prevent shorting and minimize oxidation.

So while Magico makes high quality speakers IMO / IME at the 10 - year mark (and this goes for gear too) anything is possible and not warrantied. Net - everything "wears out", it's not a matter of if, just a matter of when.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Also, copper does oxidize or "corrode", however speaker crossover coils have a coating over the coiled wire to prevent shorting and minimize oxidation.

Sure they are ensulated , but even for the copper wire part without insulation , i have not seen corrosion in a normal temp home environment .
I have some 20 year old DIY amps in which i used blank copper wire( air insulation ) , and i see no corrosion anywhere .
If you use copper outside / wet environment it ll probably be another story

 

[Folsom]

Film caps don’t degrade in normal temps at any appreciable rate for audio. Very old ones could go bad if they were not encapsulated well (beeswax, just paper, etc). So it depends what you have. Old electrolytic? Those go bad.

 

[sbo6]

Sure they are ensulated , but even for the copper wire part without insulation , i have not seen corrosion in a normal temp home environment .
I have some 20 year old DIY amps in which i used blank copper wire( air insulation ) , and i see no corrosion anywhere .
If you use copper outside / wet environment it ll probably be another story

The Effects of Oxidation on Copper (sciencing.com)

 

[cjf]

Only thing indeed you should be afraid of is overuse of the speakers playing too loud for a certain amount of time

Hrmm, yeah I might be a bit in trouble in that case. But I believe I've done myself a small favor here about a year ago when deciding to setup a pretty nice Office system. Doing this has dropped like 10hrs per day off of the use of my main speakers.

But...when its time to sit down with the main system for the evening things do tend to get a little rowdy for about 4hrs a night. But not to the level of any obvious distortion. The needles on the Pass Labs XA60.8's sometimes jiggle a little but that's about it.

Doing some fuzzy math I'm looking at:
4x7 = 28hrs per week
28x52 = 1,456 hrs a year ..Give or take at this "rowdier" level

My definition of rowdy in this case (for a frame of reference) being under 106db but I get that this is small potato's for some setups here.

 

[Joecoulson]

Bud
I can offer you some peace in that, when you go face the man, I’ll keep the Magico’s and let you know how much longer they worked when I come up and see the man. I’ll PM you my details for the transfer.

 

[Kingrex]

How long should someone expect a high $ speaker to last.

I bought a set of Phasetech speakers in 1988. Last year I was listening to them at my parents home. Something sounded scratchy. I pulled the grills and the cones were totally rotted.

My father in law bought some older Boss. He went through the whole process of replacing the surrounds that had rotted.

30 years life on speakers? After that, material breakdown is probably setting in.

If you paid $60,000, thats $2,000 a year of use. Or $166 a month. Thats better than what I get out of my cars.

I worry more about my digital equipment. How long do you expect your $40k DAC or $30K server to last. 10 years? Computer chips seem to fail pretty fast. I don't have much faith a fast paced industry in development of new technology is saving 10 year old boards and chips to rebuild my digital gear.

 

[sbo6]

I worry more about my digital equipment. How long do you expect your $40k DAC or $30K server to last. 10 years? Computer chips seem to fail pretty fast. I don't have much faith a fast paced industry in development of new technology is saving 10 year old boards and chips to rebuild my digital gear.

IME I'd worry more about the analog components such as caps in particular. For example, with the more recent R2R fad some of these tape decks are 30+ years old, yet the maintenance to bring up to spec is mostly caps and mechanical, belts, rollers, etc. But any simple transistor packs / chips seem to be running strong all these year later. Much has to do with temperature, humidity and how well taken care of it is (how many times it got bonked around).