How long should speakers last?

[thepogue]

My old man has a pair of 30 year old JBL s109 aquarius IV's and they sound pristine after all these years. So I guess a lot has to due with that including how you take care of them and the build quality. These speakers weigh a good 50lbs each and they sound awesome when you rack your nuckles on the maple so Im waiting to get my hands on them.

or you'll have SCI over yer house

[spacedeckman]

Old cloth surrounds can last for years...out of the sunlight. Expose them to sunlight, and things change rapidly.

The real problems come from early generation foam. When foam was first introduced, some companies had problems 5-10 years out. They got stiff, cracked, fell apart. UV exposure shortened that even more.

Later generation foam will probably go for 25-30 years or more, butyl and butyl blends could last for 50 years or more. Keep in mind, when you start going this far into the future, adhesives on the voice coil, former, spider, and other parts may fail too. But, surrounds will always be the biggie. This far down the road, your electrolytics will have probably dried up as well, meaning your crossover will probably have "crossed over".

How long? Remember the ad about "how many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" "The world may never know" There are some 50 year old JBL D130s out there still running and commanding silly prices from the vintage crowd. Many of these newer generation drivers won't suffer the same problems as them, and may last a couple of decades beyond that.

Speaker life in normal use isn't really a factor unless you like to buy old speakers.

[HT BUFF]

I always said that if the rest of the world made products like the audio equip
manufacturers make audio gear what would the world be like, think about it.
Audio products companies just seem to have a certain passion for product that cannot be matched.
Receivers,speakers etc last 15-20 years in most cases and could you just
imagine a car lasting that long or anything else for that matter.