Crack in speaker dust cap

DarnWeight

Trying to diagnose a little rattle/harshness in an old Simms Watts/Fane 2x12 speaker cab.  Just popped the speakers out (cast frame 12", 50W power handling) and noticed one of them has a crack in the dust cap.  Here's the damage...



The other one looks fine, but the join to the cone looks a bit messy...



Is the cracked cap the likely source of the rattle?  It's particularly apparent at higher volume and with drive/fuzz/distortion.  Another contributing factor might be that one of the speakers was only held to the baffle by 2 screws!  Will pop them back in and try again with each speaker properly screwed to the baffle, but wondered if there's an easy repair for the crack, if that's more likely to be the issue.  I have some aluminium foil tape to hand, so could just patch it with that, but no idea if that's going to help.

Thanks!

Gagaryn

Doubt the little crack dust cap cover would be the cause of the rattle. However the lack of two mounting screws definitely would cause a susceptibility to rattle at higher volume.

DarnWeight

Gagaryn said:

Doubt the little crack dust cap cover would be the cause of the rattle. However the lack of two mounting screws definitely would cause a susceptibility to rattle at higher volume.

Yeah, I figured that would be the culprit, but just wondered if the cracked dust cap might be adversely affecting the sound in any other way.  I'll be cutting a new baffle before they go back in anyway, so no rush.

Rattle aside, I reckon these speakers sound pretty damn good.

ICBM

The crack could definitely be buzzing at higher volumes.

The metal dust caps can sound a little harsh anyway. If one is cracked and the other isn't properly glued on it might be best to replace both of them with cloth ones.

normula1

I had this with some McKenzie speakers. I carefully removed the metal ones and replaced them with cloth ones from Wembley Loudspeakers. I held them in place whilst the glue dried eith a tennis ball cut in half.

ICBM

normula1 said:

I had this with some McKenzie speakers. I carefully removed the metal ones and replaced them with cloth ones from Wembley Loudspeakers. I held them in place whilst the glue dried eith a tennis ball cut in half.

If you can't find anything the right size, you can make a ring to do it from some card from a cornflakes packet cut and stapled to the right size, then put a flat circle of the card on top, and a small clamping weight on top of that.

Marshall

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