JBL Eon speakers: woofer surrounds coming loose

[Rhodesplyr]

I don't usually do that much PA work, but a client of mine asked me to take a look at his JBL Eon powered speakers that "weren't sounding right." I think these may have had a rough life before he bought them and that exposure to the elements may be involved in what we found.

I'd never seen this before, but the cloth surround on both woofers has partially come loose from the speaker cone--so cleanly that it looks almost like they were never glued to begin with. On one, it's separated around almost half the circumference. The surrounds still appear to be firmly attached at the outer edges. The client understands that I'm slightly reluctant to take this on, but he says that he trusts me the most of any tech around and would rather that I took the first shot at the repair. I'm thinking that the surrounds could be reglued with standard latex speaker repair adhesive and that there's still enough surround attached such that I wouldn't have to remove the dust cap and re-shim the voice coil.

Has anyone else run across a JBL Eon with this problem?

[J M Fahey]

Not EONs but as you suspect, weather must have a lot to do with it.
They must have been originaly glued, not with some Latex/neoprene/contact cement but with some variation of Vynilic glue (which is water based), similar to white carpenterīs glue or Elmerīs glue.
If at least part of the surround is still attached, put the speakers (out of their cabinet) pointing up on a table, run a bead of good quality vinyl glue around the edge to reattach them, and work a little of it with a toothpick in the narrow area between the fully unglued and the still glued areas.
Apply a little too much and clean the excess with your trusty old fingertip and a piece of cloth.
Let it dry at least overnight, 24H even better, I trust youīll be fine.

[Enzo]

Not me, but either you can reglue the thing or not. It is after all just a speaker.


And the sad thing is that the "speaker" on an Eon is the whole damned front panel of the thing. You can;t buy a "woofer" to bolt in like normal cabs. Not only expensive, but then you have to transfer all the works and hardware from the old over to the new.....

I'd be trying to fix that one.

[Rhodesplyr]

And the sad thing is that the "speaker" on an Eon is the whole damned front panel of the thing. You can;t buy a "woofer" to bolt in like normal cabs. Not only expensive, but then you have to transfer all the works and hardware from the old over to the new.....

Yes, I noticed that the surround is directly glued to the front baffle. I believe the same is true of the midrange drivers in my KEF 104/2 speakers.

Time to get out my glue brush....

[Steve Conner]

By "vinylic" I guess you mean PVA?

[Mark Black]

Yes those are interesting all right. Typical recone can be done without even removing the front baffle from the box since the "tinsel leads" are under the dust cover dome. Also interesting is that they are 2 ohm and dual voice coil (for the powered models - the passive ones are 4 ohm dual voice coil).

Sounds like you won't have to go that route if you can successfully re-glue.

And no - though I have been a JBL reconer for years I never ran across that particular failure mode.

[J M Fahey]

By "vinylic" I guess you mean PVA?

Yes.

[km6xz]

I have not seen this on the JBL but then again I do not recone speakers. From the sounds of it,gluing the loose portion will work due to centering being controlled by the still glued portion. I would think that gluing the loose portion, wait 24 hours and pull up the original still attached portion and glue that and wait another 24 hours. That way the still attached portion will not fail as assuredly due to being subjected to the same moist conditions that the loose portion was. If the total surround isn't glued anew, the Eon's coming back as a redo is likely.

[jrfrond]

I've reconed countless Eon's, and have never seen a separated surround. However, I can tell you that if the surround is compromised, you should probably recone it. The reason behind this is that, due to the heavy dual-wind voice coil, the surround and spiders tend to sag downward. These speakers rely on strong compliances. When they weaken, it's only a matter of time until they die.