Anyone owns speakers with leather surrounds?

[Hari Iyer]

The title explains - Anyone owns a speaker ( full range or woofer) which has leather surrounds on them? Thecreason I am asking is my currentvRussian FR driver has a foam surround (PU type) which distegrates in 10 years time and will have to be replaced. My drivers are 6+ years old now and already shows signs of decay. I would require a replacement in another 6 months time. The reason for an early decay than the stipulated 10 years could be to unhealthy environment condition where I live - too much moisture and heat, too much sulfur in air causing the foam to de-colur from white to yellow.

I can purchase a pair of these surrounds for 60usd and replace them every 6 years, but that would mean a regular maintenance for these drivers. What I am alternatively considering is use artifical faux leather as surround material because of its strength and durability of use. But ivam completely unaware of how they may sound. Hencexam seeking opinion from FMs to share their experience.

BTW, using leather as speaker surround is nothing new and has been used since 1929. Diatone drivers are popular for their leather surround . Alsovthe voxativ full range sell their 6.5 inch leather surround field coil driver for a whopping 57,000+usd a pair.

I am expecting a change in compliance, driver sensitivity and resonance withvthos change. How much for the better ( or worse) will be a discovery.

 

[dafreaking]

faux leather isn't as durable as real leather, especially in Mumbai!

 

[Hari Iyer]

faux leather isn't as durable as real leather, especially in Mumbai!

Ok, won't real leather develop cracks after a while? Some driver manufacturer prefer using faux leather too. Faux leather uses PU and PVC to bind after mixing some additives. Thought they would be better for my environment.

 

[IndianEars]

IMO a rubber (bextrene) surround would be best.

They are what are used extensively for surround replacements by your friendly neighbourhood speaker repairer.


Used these bextrene surrounds very successfully, as foam surround replacements decades ago for drivers on various Bose drivers

 

[dafreaking]

I think synthetic rubber based surrounds would be a bit more durable in the long term. I am talking strictly about the type of material. Again, not 100% sure how good or bad they will be for your use case. Being conscious about sustainability is great but if it costs you 100x to be sustainable, is it a price you are willing to pay?

 

[Hari Iyer]

Thanks for advise. Won't rubber hamper with the high compliance surround that the foam surround provide? Btw, I could source the goat skin leather from Amazon for a reasonable price too.

Link for goat skin surround now sells at usd69000/-

Voxativ AC-XHB PRODUCTS

(Note: pricing is for a selected pair of drivers) The Voxativ AC-XHB is our summit. It combines a field coil and a Neodymium magnet, plus a special suspension for the highest resolution. For the discerning audiophile who demands the ultimate in finesse and dynamics, the AC-XHB is the world's fi

voxativ.berlin

 

[IndianEars]

I speculate that rubber will be a closer compliance match to foam and more consistent over time than leather

 

[Hari Iyer]

I speculate that rubber will be a closer compliance match to foam and more consistent over time than leather

Ok. Are you saying bextrene rubber will be a good surround also for a full-range driver? Can you point me to a commercial full-range driver that uses bextrene rubber as surround material for my further inquiry? Most FR driver that I have come across uses foam, cloth, leather surround. Most woofers use rubber surround for extreme xmax requirement. FR driver has a maximum xmax of 1mm to 2mm - IME.

 

[IndianEars]

Ok. Are you saying bextrene rubber will be a good surround also for a full-range driver? Can you point me to a commercial full-range driver that uses bextrene rubber as surround material for my further inquiry? Most FR driver that I have come across uses foam, cloth, leather surround. Most woofers use rubber surround for extreme xmax requirement. FR driver has a maximum xmax of 1mm to 2mm - IME.

Google is your friend!

Just ask Uncle Google Full Range Drivers With Rubber Surrounds and you will get lots of full range drivers, in different sizes, with Rubber Surrounds.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Google is your friend!

Just ask Uncle Google Full Range Drivers With Rubber Surrounds and you will get lots of full range drivers, in different sizes, with Rubber Surrounds.

I did Google for the specified search string as advised but could not find any FR driver that use rubber surround. Infact there were many with foam and cloth surround.

 

[greenhorn]

My Local Speaker repair guys swear by cloth for durability and sound quality - not sure how right they are

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

I did Google for the specified search string as advised but could not find any FR driver that use rubber surround. Infact there were many with foam and cloth surround.

The preference of using rubber, foam, cloth as surround material for a specific driver is to be decided by the end manufacturers design.
There are various other parameters involved which determines a cone construction for a
specific application.
This is a complex topic ... the discussion is limited for an average DIYer.
Extensive R&D is required using state of the art measuring equipments & tooling for stimulation on various aspects of a loudspeaker design. Klippel, GmbH offers some of the most advance solutions in this regards.
Vivek

 

[Hari Iyer]

I read some interesting documents about a sealed enclosure and drivers suitable for such enclosures. The drivers need to be low resonance , high compliance and haveca Q of around 0.3 to 0.6. Also sealed enclosure are not 100% sealed and they are a bit lossy at their surround and / or dust cap. When the driver is mounted in the sealed box and if you push the cone inward, it should spring back after a second for proper compliance and stifness. If it returns immediately then there is a compliance issue and the bass will not be good.

Given the above my driver was ok withbthe one second return, buy the compliance was not good enough to give good bass due to the rotting surrounds.

I had DIY two surrounds one using faux leather and one using cloth ( Raymond cut piece - 65% polyester and 35% viscous fabric).

I installed the faux leather ( this was with microfiber cloth with PVC backing) on one driver. The compliance was medium due to 10gms weight of the surround and other major problem was this material was not lossy. Pushing the cone inside with the driver mounted pushed the cone immediately back. So this was not an acoustic suspension. Nevertheless this drives was getting roll-off around 100hz.

I later today morning installed the Raymond cloth in the other driver and listened. The Raymond cloth was slightly lossy compared to the faux leather. This method gave me a very tight and deep bass till 50hz indicatingproper compliance matching. Also pushing the driver cone inside after mounting on the sealed box gave me a 1 second delay in the return spring indicating proper acoustic suspension topology. Moreover this also has better midrange and highs compared to the faux leather.

Using a rubber surround would have prevented lossy surround and would have worked negatively on the driver compliance that's required for a sealed enclosure. I would have then have to go for a variovent forvthe box likecan aperiodic enclosure for creating the acoustic suspension.

I may later in the day remove the faux leather and finalize with the Raymond cloth for both drivers.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Hari Iyer]

To put things in perspective, sharing images of what was done:

image of the rotten PU foam -


Image of the Raymond cloth surround: