Tips on changing a speaker...

It's just as simple as that. There should be a + and - where the terminals attach, pay attention to them.

Reconing a speaker is much more economical than replacing one FYI.

 

Don't drop the scewdriver!
I have seen LOTS of cones get damaged this way.

 

+10

Also, make sure that if you have to apply a lot of torque when putting in the new driver, that you cup the screwhead with your fingers so that the screwdriver doesn't accidentally slip off the screw head and into the cone. Instantaneously makes it a bad day.

 

As well please guide the screwdriver's tip with the fingers of one hand to control where the tip goes should it slip.

One slip of an errant screwdriver tip can puncture a speaker surround or cone!

EDIT: I gotta type faster.

But then, good advice is worth reading twice!

 

Your hand will get tired turning all of those screws.
Take a break ---and take your time.

 

And to exhaustively explore the boundaries of this issue:

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

 

Not necessarily. If you're within driving distance of a reconer you may save some, but if you have to ship the drivers the shipping costs may eat those savings.

If the bolt hole circle is identical, yes, but don't assume that they will be. Drilling out the holes to a larger diameter will usually fix that problem.

 

Don't overtighten the screws. You just need the gasket on the rear to be firmly seated. The screws should have star type lockwashers on them so they don't work loose from the vibration.

 

Find a decent cab for the reconed EV and you'll have a nice 1x15 stack.

 

I have a related "duh" question: My EV started sounding really distorted, but only on soft notes. Loud notes sound fine--and I don't see any tears in the cone.

Is it blown? Or is this common from a joint coming unsoldered?

 

When tightening the speaker screws, you want to tighten the screws in an X pattern, like how they tighten the lug nuts on a car tire, that way the pressures are applied somewhat evenly

 

Dude, I just replaced two speakers in my EV bins with Kappalites this morning.
I used my battery powered drill and set the chuck to slip at a certain point, so that all the bolts have equal torque, then I bumped it up one and went around again. Held the nut with a wrench. Piece of cake. While out, I checked my jacks, and upgraded the wire with heavy gauge speaker wire soldering it to the jacks.

One thing I found though with the Eminence, the wire attachment on the speaker kind of sucks, IMO.
I like the EV spring loaded a lot better. The little screw on the backside of the kappalite wire connector would come loose and allow the whole thing to spin. Solder would be better too.
They sound like bass speakers to me.

 

Lay the cabinet down flat - face down or up so that gravity holds the driver in place with all the fasteners removed. You don't want it to come crashing down when that last screw comes off!

Torque the fasteners down evenly when you install the new/reconed driver. You don't want to distort the basket by having some fasteners over/under-tight. As somebody else mentioned, use a "star" pattern. If you have a torque wrench, so much the better - you can make sure they're all even.

Some drivers have "+" and/or "-" markings, others have a red dot (+). When you hook them up, make sure that all the wiring is correct. If you reverse polarity on a driver, you'll find yourself with an out-of-phase situation, where 1 driver is moving in while another is moving out. This can cause some weird effects as some frequencies cancel each other.

Hang onto your tools! Even if you drop something where you think it's harmless, a big driver magnet can pull a dropped tool right into/through your brand new cone! You don't want to have to pay for another recone job so soon!

JM

 

What a coinkydink! I just finished replacing all 4 of my aguilar 10's in my gs410 cab. Went the recone route, all four had extruded and creased bigtime. The cost was less than half of having new speakers put in. 55 bucks a piece, compared to over $100 plus shipping I was quoted by aguilar.

After straining my brain to remember how to hook the wiring harness back up,........plugged it into my "new" Mesa 400+ and couldn't believe how great the cab sounded. Had been running the Aggy 500sc with it, nice rig, but kind of "polite" sounding. The Mesa brought that cab to LIFE! But to get back to your query,.... a big YES to all the points made above. It also doesn't hurt to check that you are rewiring correctly, as I wound up doing. Google is your friend at times like these!

 

?

 

All excellent advice above. I'll add one little tidbit for those who might be installing older JBL drivers.
The polarity markings on K, D, & E series drivers are reversed from most other makes, ie; if connecting the + speaker terminal to the + lead, this will result in the cone traveling backward, which is ok if all others are doing the same, but will be out of phase when combined with other drivers or cabs.

I always battery check polarity before installing any driver, just to make sure. BTW, there might possibly be other drivers that I'm not aware of that share this scheme.