Yes, the definitive word here is “were”!
Time is hard on speakers. Even if you have treated them with tender loving care after about 10 years it’s usually time for a new set.
Even if physically the speaker looks OK on the outside, time is chewing away on the inside!
Inside every loudspeaker that has more than one speaker in the cabinet there is an electronic dividing device called a crossover. It’s this device that sends the proper sound to the appropriate speaker (bass to the woofer, treble to the tweeter) and the crossover is the device that your amplifier “sees” electronically. Over time the electronic characteristics of the crossover will deteriorate from the designed specification of the speaker to the point that it won’t be sending the proper frequencies to the proper driver component inside the cabinet. This aging also may change the electrical characteristics of the speaker which is critically important to the amplifier that is connected to the speakers.
There is also physical wear and tear that happens when a speaker plays sound. Inside almost every kind of speaker there is a magnet and a round coil of wire, called a voice coil, that move the speaker in in out of the cabinet and this vibration creates the music we hear. Magnets get old. Just like that fridge magnet that used to hold a ream of paper to the side of the refrigerator when it was new but now slides to the floor, the magnets inside your old speakers are slowly losing their charge. As the magnetic charge decreases the damping factor (the speaker’s ability to stop itself when the music stops) decreases. This has an adverse effect on the accuracy of the music played.
If your speakers are more than 10 years old it’s likely time to retire them!
Wired 1 offers a wide variety of speaker lines to suit any budget. Check out our suppliers section on our home page.
