a 2 yr old pushed in my friend's FF85K

[fishski13]

...both drivers. at least it was his 2 yr old and not mine . just the domes, the rest and foam surrounds look fine. what's the best method to suck these out, or are they knackered? i was thinking a small 1 Hp shop-vac with a slit cut in tape over the hose business end to reduce the suck.

thanks!

[multisync]

I have had the same problem, I bent a strait pin (the kind you get when you buy a shirt) at appx 90 degrees, pushed the pin in the dust cap and then rotated the pin so the bent part of the pin pulled out against the pushed in dust cap. Took a few tries but only one tiny hole. The pushed in dust caps were on a woofer and then a dome tweeter. Kids are still alive and now in university. A lot more expensive than the speakers were.

[fishski13]

excuse my dust cap ignorance, but is it merely a cosmetic issue, and not a sonic one?

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by fishski13

excuse my dust cap ignorance, but is it merely a cosmetic issue, and not a sonic one?

The metal "dust cap" on the FFxxK series is certainly not only a cosmetic feature, and most particularly on the 85K is responsible for its extended HF performance.

[AdamThorne]

Gaaahhh... I have to get some kind of protection on my fe-167e's before my 15 month old does this to me. Especially now that they're out of production.

[T in AZ]

Scotch tape, if it really bad, packing tape and really really bad get out the gorilla tape.

[bmwman91]

I second the tape recommendation. I managed to crunch in the dome on some titanium tweeters when installing them, and some duct tape got them back out. There will be creasing as a result of this, but it is better than leaving them crunched!

[sonidos]

My nephew punched in my dust caps on my Spica woofers when he was 2. (He still gets ribbed about and he will be graduating college next year)

My little girl, now 2.5, was sticking a finger on the dust cover. Thankfully, she doesn't know she can remove it. And now my 1.5 is starting to show interest.

I've not touched the dust caps since it happened, but these are good tips for those of us with kids with little pointy fingers.

[planet10]

The aluminum cap on the FF85 may be (mostly) recoverable. It is a much tigher radius and a more important part of the performance than on the larger FFs. On those it is REALLY easy to push the cap in, and with a little care pull it back out using green (or blue) painters tape. Scotch tape may work as well.

Even if you get it out, the metal will have been stressed, and the HF may not be as smooth as before. If you do get it out, you may want to damp it with a layer of puzzlecoat (application is quite tricky, mail me for detail)

You may want to get a backup pair of drivers, so that when the young ones have passed the pokey-the-dustcaps stage you can swap in freah ones (as of this post Madisound has <5 pair left, and after that i'll have the NA stocks, all of which will become FF85KeN, this is my favorite Fostex driver and i've stocked up)

dave

[bmwman91]

I know it is ugly, but how about some covers/grilles? Prevention is the best medicine!