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OLA dustcap need to be sealed?


Brad1234

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I have some new to me OLA's I am restoring and I noticed the dustcaps are pretty transparent, I can see the magnet pretty clear thru them. I am not sure if they are original or not, but they appear to be, but yall can weigh in on that. My dumb question is, should these be doped like all of the KLH dust caps to fully seal the speaker air tight?  I know this may be blasphemes to ask to do such a thing to an OLA woofer. See pics for reference.  

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Generally speaking it is usually better to stick with the original configuration. Some dust caps are porous to provide additional cooling, and others may allow a small amount of cabinet leakage as a type of "aperiodic loading" through the spider and dustcap (ie AR-4x). As for the Advent woofer it is hard to say, as I've seen later versions of the woofer with non-porous felt or paper dustcaps. In any case, I wouldn't go to the trouble of applying anything to your cloth dustcaps.

Roy

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Thanks Roy!  I agree, I do not want to to do anything to stray from original Advent design for OLA's. I still need to refoam them and install them in cabinet air tight to reassess the air leakage in cabinet. I have to re-glue the masonite, it was badly coming loose. I have refoamed tons of speakers, but this is my first masonite advent. Any warnings?

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Try pressing in on the woofers to see how long they take to rebound to their original position. I've always performed that test to see how airtight the cabinets in my KLH and Advent loudspeakers are. I have read that the cabinets in acoustic suspension speakers are supposed to be somewhat airtight, not absolutely airtight. You want the woofers to have a very slight delay in returning to their original position. If the woofers take too long to return to their original position, say more than 2 seconds, the cabinet may actually be too airtight. If they return to their original position immediately, as soon as you let go, then the cabinet is not airtight enough. If they rebound slowly with a slight delay, about 1 second or so, they are fine. Try that test on the woofers when your Advents are completely assembled. If they they do not rebound immediately, your cabinet is airtight enough and you won't have to worry about how porous your dustcaps are. In any event, the dustcaps on your woofers should not be the first place you look for where air is leaking out of a speaker cabinet. The speaker-cabinet seal at both the woofer and tweeter should be your primary concern.

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