Acceleratied Speaker Breakin

[billyz]

I have been using acetone around the surround and once around the spider.
I don't soak them either, just a medium light application, especially on the spider. I don't want to loosen the adhesives or damage the coil.

Along with a filament transformer. Every new speaker I have done, sounds very good to my ears. The acetone does take some time to dry though once it is applied to the surround. I keep the transformer going the whole time.
My theory is ,I don't want the suspension to set back up stiff.

I believe Jim said he had mixed results with the acetone though, so YMMV.

[drhulsey]

... the word "clam shell" came to mind. I don't know if this is a legitimate term in speaker terminology or a flash back to the 70's...

"Clamshell" is a legitimate term. It is one configuration of an isobaric speaker pair (cone-to-cone) with speakers wired out of phase. In cone-to-magnet configuration, the speakers are wired in phase. The advantage of isobaric pairs is decreased cab size. If space is a concern, this is an option. There are disadvantages.

[Scumback Speakers]

I believe Jim said he had mixed results with the acetone though, so YMMV.

I used to do this to recones I had done at OCSR in 2002-2004. Sometimes the acetone worked wonders, sometimes it didn't work at all and the speaker was ruined.

I used the same technique each time as described by Dr. Decibel (the original Dr. D, not the current one) that he said Matchless did. It was time consuming.

The method was to dip an old toothbrush into a small cup of acetone, let it drip the excess off, then brush lightly on the doping until it started to come off a bit. Then you went around the surround taking a little off at a time. I did this with the speaker unmounted, facing up. Each speaker took about 40-45 minutes to do right.

Then you let it dry off, and reinstall. As I said before I had about a 50% success ratio, which was great when it worked, and sucked major $$$ when it didn't.

The variac/filament transformer is a much better way to do it, besides just playing it at about 50-75% of it's rated power handling (my preferred method!).

[billyz]

The method was to dip an old toothbrush into a small cup of acetone, let it drip the excess off, then brush lightly on the doping until it started to come off a bit. Then you went around the surround taking a little off at a time. I did this with the speaker unmounted, facing up. Each speaker took about 40-45 minutes to do right.

Then you let it dry off, and reinstall. As I said before I had about a 50% success ratio, which was great when it worked, and sucked major $$$ when it didn't.

That does sound pretty aggressive to me. I use a small shop brush and just get the surround wet. It feels sticky to the touch, more so than normal. So far my results are very positive.
I can see how that method could do more harm than good . I have actually revived a lot of old speakers by reapplying the Dope to the surrounds. again YMMV good luck

[krash]

You're better off, imho, buying a speaker from a vendor that allows you to specify the doping, such as Weber, rather than trying to remove it with acetone.

Removing the dope with acetone is a two-edged sword. It can really make a speaker sound good especially at lower volumes or doing any chimey/clean/etc. kind of stuff with amps that are very good at resolving those kinds of details (which does not include most normal guitar amps). But it will greatly exacerbate any tendency for cone cry. So you may be trading in high-volume performance for low-volume performance.

Every great sounding speaker I have here also has cone cry when driving it with a cranked amp. Most of these are 30W rated speakers and I am hitting most of them with less than 20 watts and I still get cone cry like crazy.