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Tannoy foam surrounds

Raoul Duke

Raoul Duke

pfm Member
Just put the new cones into my 12" HPDs complete with their new surrounds (fitted by Lockwood)

I have seen on the interwebs people talking about doping the surround with watered down PVA, even saying this was done originally from factory. is there any advantage at all to doing this? Also I have seen that some folk like to fill the "gap" on the front where the surround meets the cone with a bead of glue as well. Again any reason or advantage to this?

As a side note I can say the fresh suspensions make quite a sonic difference to the tightness of the bottom end and no doubt have returned the drivers to something close to original T&S parameters... sounding very nice indeed and makes me think I never heard up until now what the HPDs are actually supposed to sound like!

"Gap" I'm referring to >>>

20231117_104654 by Jonathan Chiles, on Flickr
 
Can you post some more photos of the whole driver - you’ve done the same as me and glued the foam on to the chassis by the looks of it . I never had any of the u clamps with my HPDs so had to do that, I think they look much nicer this way , although you appear to have used a wider foam trim than me which I may copy you on - more pics please! I haven’t doped mine mainly cos I think they look so nice as they are.
 
The bead of pva is best applied if the drivers are refoamed and the new foam needs to be securely attached to an old less than perfect cone edge/ fold over lip, these fold over edges usually come with a coating of shiny dope spread over them too, they can be given the dilute pva application to return them to original appearance.
Doping the surround doesn't alter the T&S but does offer some UV protection though the new foams don't need it.
It was also supposed to improve the cone termination but I honestly can't hear any difference.
I'd inspect the new cone edge/ foam to make sure it's well stuck down- sometimes it isn't and you guessed it, it's solved by a thin bead of tacky pva. The recone kits have a slightly softer spider than the originals and arent exactly original factory spec.
Yours look fab, leave 'em be.
 
Last edited:
Quad74 said:
The foam surround on my tannoys are intact and tacky is this a sign they have been doped? or possibly both;)
Click to expand...
If your beads are still rounded, they are still ok in my opinion. If they are no longer good then they lose their curvature and become flabby. In my opinion, the stickiness is a sign of advanced age, but as I said, if the shape is correct, everything should still be ok.

Two pics showing the worn surrounds the one with the driver in the cabinet shows the new surround.

IMG_4511.png


IMG_4512.png


IMG_4513.png
 
HeinzR said:
If your beads are still rounded, they are still ok in my opinion. If they are no longer good then they lose their curvature and become flabby. In my opinion, the stickiness is a sign of advanced age, but as I said, if the shape is correct, everything should still be ok.

Two pics showing the worn surrounds the one with the driver in the cabinet shows the new surround.

IMG_4511.png


IMG_4512.png


IMG_4513.png
Click to expand...
Thank you, i can see it clearer,nice set up:)
 
Was meaning to post pics of the nice new blue cones.Only issue I had was I dont think my dustcaps went on perfectly straight... that is a bit of a bastard to get right I found out, even with careful masking etc the problem is as soon as you apply any force to the dustcap it immediately goes some sort of oval shape. Anyways I'm happy and these speakers are keepers no doubt.

20240227_154707 by Jonathan Chiles, on Flickr

20240227_154718 by Jonathan Chiles, on Flickr
 
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