Replace speaker foam with this odd material?

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I have 2 6'' JBL's that i had purchased from a yard sale for 5$ but little did i know the foam was totally destroyed on one and just about destroyed on the other but still intact.

I'm not buying repair kits for 5$ speakers so i'm doing it myself.

Materials i plan to use:

Tyvek used for fedex mailing pouches, very very very strong just try to rip one...

Or jeans
 
The original surrounds had specific compliance and the whole driver was designed for that surround. Now, if you replace the surround by another material with different properties, you may have surprises. If the driver has a standard diameter, you van probaly source specific surrounds for cheap.

It's a speaker which cost $5. The surround's job is more centering than compliance, but the termination of cone resonances is an important feature. There is no guarantee any replacement surround will match either of those functions precisely, so playing around with Tyvek on a set of throw-away speakers sounds like a fun and interesting project to me. If it doesn't work, cut them off and put a foam surround on....

Doing the surround in many small pieces will allow a bit of a roll to the surround, but that would not offer much, if any, centering and the voice coil will probably rub even if shimmed when repairing it. Making a flat surround will offer centering, but very low excursion capability because Tyvek will not stretch - that it the issue when using Tyvek.

Perhaps if you mold the tyvek strips into a surround shape over something suitable (a pen or dowel or half-round), then coat it with silicone caulking to give it some elasticity. Just some thoughts on making your experiment work. Remember to cut open the dustcap and shim the voicecoil tight when replacing the surround.
 
Tyvex Madness!
Just get some brand-X surrounds and apply them with milky latex glue. Or screw them up and mail them to me when you've realized your repair is hopeless. So I can clean the cones up, please don't use anything like polyurethane glue or crazy glue.
 
why not treat them with respect and try to fix them ? I bought some broken B&W for $20 and turned them into fantastic speakers. Using new tweeters, capacitors and cabinet mods. Reconing and surround replacement is fun and rewarding if you understand the original assembly. ... I reconed some focal in '99, while doing the recone I cured the phase shift "focal" sound, creating one of kind high end drivers....New surrounds on some Jensen Model 4, excellent results with generic off the shelf foam surrounds.
 
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