I’ve got some ancient Radio Shack bookshelf speakers in my office.  These things are at least 30 years old. They sound horrid but until today they were indestructible.  But today, the woofer in one stopped.  No bad noises or anything, just all the sudden nothing except tweet in one channel.

So I pulled the grill off to find the suspension missing.  Whatever crap they make the foam surround out of, it had totally rotted out.  The only thing holding the cone in place was the spider.  Kind of gives a whole new meaning to “air suspension”.

I replaced it with a not so great woofer that I used to have in a tower speaker.  It doesn’t have an adequate magnet, won’t handle a lot of power, but still it’s a step up from what was there, still has it’s suspension intact and still works.  So now bass in one channel digs down to, oh, about 80 Hz.

I was going to replace the other while I was at it, since I have two of these and know the suspension on the other has to be in the same condition, but the little cap that covers the voice coil fell off the other spare so I’m gluing it back in place before I replace it.