It occurred to me, when building compact bookshelf speakers, every mm3 of cabinet volume is crucial to bass response. Every CRT on the planet has been confined to a land-fill. Shouldn't we take a hammer & chisel to that extra magnet?
I wouldn’t risk it. Things that might go wrong outweigh having an extra magnet or two on hand. Ferrite magnets are not expensive and there’s always blown speakers around somewhere. If you lived closer, I could give you some. They make great fridge magnets.
Okay, I was only half-serious. The idea came to me after hours spent trying to identify a rattle. Turns out the shielding was touching the bracing. I knocked it off with a chisel. It occurred to me: a couple of hundred millilitres in a 3-4 litre cabinet is a lot. Maybe representing a hz or two low frequency response.
If you want some great magnets, take apart your spinning rust disk drives. Those magnets for the motor to drive the head around the platter are powerful. I also pry off the buck magnet. Always amazes me how that servo can control the head position to probably around 1 micron.
If volume is key, a Dremel would be gold making an increase that takes nearly nothing from the cabinet up to some point. Hell, little bits and pieces here and there. Rounding off edges and so forth may well add up without compromise.
If I remove the buck, magnet is "sticky" on both sides. I guess for a fridge magnet you would not need to since you only need one side magnetic. I will say you can get a nice pinch from a pair of them.
THAT takes me back! I lowered a large woofer magnet onto a really solid and heavy metal plate. It is still there, and I finally did get my fingers back.
NO
That extra magnet not only cancels magnetic field a few inches away (the original purpose) but also pushes the original magnetic field forward towards the front plate, INCREASING gap field.
You will lose that important but often indocumented feature.
Hint: clever and very successful Boominator project places 10" speakers on opposite sides of cabinets with (opposite orientation) magnets almost touching back to back precisely to get that effect.
Besides, the cubic millimeters "saved" are nil/irrelevant.
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