Proac/Seas woofer surround crack

[banana]

Read from another forum that there are cracking occured in the woofer surround from a well known speaker brand. The speaker have only been used for 3 months. See attached pic.

I'm not the owner of that speakers, just borrow the photos.

Some even said this problem occured in other pairs too (the same model). Though I'm not sure about this.

I'm quite sure the woofer is produced by Seas Norway. But this is not a complaint. The woven fiberglass like cone should be a custom made, and wouldn't be available to us diyer. I'm just curious if similar problem might occur in other standard models

From my pass experience, Seas was having excellent quality and consistency. Generally better than Vifa, Morel, Dayton, Fostex. I have a pair of CB17RCY now still in good shape after 3 years of usage. But I still would like some guy from Seas could say something about it..........

[banana]

Another pic.

[R-Carpenter]

From the big “ProAc” stamp on the basket its kind of obvious who is a big commercial manufacturer. I’ve heard 10 years ago that they had problems with their customized drivers. For the legal reasons I will say “don’t know if its true or not”. I would think you need to contact them directly and try to resolve the problem with them. It may also be that they got a bad batch of drivers from S. ProAc should be the first one to know about this problem. I would forward it to Seas also to se what they have to say.
I’ve only used 6 standard woofers from Seas and not this particular one and never had this problem.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Bjorn Idland of Seas is a member on here. He doesn't post very often but does visit frequently. But rather than leave it to chance it's probably better to email Seas and/or Proac about the issue.

PS. Looks to me like the glue reacted with the rubber surround in some way, causing it to become brittle and crack. Maybe the glue leached something out of the Carbon fibre cone and transferred it through to the rubber? Just guess work of course.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Banana, I fixed the typo in the thread title for you.

[banana]

Thanks ShinOBIWAN.

Again, I'm not the owner of this particular pair of ProAc. A replacement should settle it nice and easily.

My major concern is whether the quality of Nextel 5" would be affected, as I'm planning to use it for my next project

I too suspect the woven fiberglass (or carbon fiber) cone might be the source of crack, or might be it's the black resin. Seas have creased to use fiberglass cone long ago, though that decision could be of commercial reason only.

[JDeV]

I now got my Seas W18E001 drivers ( 4 of them on the THOR's) and they are also cracking on the surrounds. Are there anyway to save them? Can it be repaired or the cracking stopped from getting worse.?

[jerome69]

Not very cool for a high price driver.

I don't have any idea how to save the driver. The best solution is to change the rubber. You can't repair them because the rubber is dead.

You should send these photos to SEAS. I think they could have a solution. The best would be a free repair ?

[gornir]

Originally Posted by JDeV

I now got my Seas W18E001 drivers ( 4 of them on the THOR's) and they are also cracking on the surrounds. Are there anyway to save them? Can it be repaired or the cracking stopped from getting worse.?

I would say these have been affected by strong sunlight for a relatively long period.

Always put on the grills after listening and try to avoid direct sunlight and then you don't have such problems. I have used SEAS drivers extensively over the years and never had such problems.

/Goran

[JDeV]

Originally Posted by gornir

I would say these have been affected by strong sunlight for a relatively long period.

Always put on the grills after listening and try to avoid direct sunlight and then you don't have such problems. I have used SEAS drivers extensively over the years and never had such problems.

/Goran

Actually not at all. No sunlight ever, avg. room temperature of 24deg. C. I got them since 2005. Any ideas how to preserve them now? I read about some 3M spray glue, will it help?