Cerwin Vega AT-15s - Surround foam ok - red covering cracked - what todo?

[Larry Tusoni]

I have a mint pair of Cerwin Vega AT-15s which are from 1990 and have only been used for a few months and have been stored in a closet ever since.
The other day I noticed that the red/orange surrounds were cracked on both15" woofers, and on closer inspection, it appears that only the red/orange covering is cracked and the underlying foam surrounds seem fine, so I am not sure what to do. i.e. replace the surrounds or just get the cracked red/orange covering off. Since they were not being used the surrounds did not get exercised much.
I do know that most CV owners take the grills off to view the cool red surrounds on the woofers.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Larry

 

[gizzyman47]

If it were me, I'd just go ahead and replace the surrounds. Trying to remove just the outer layer sounds like a pain and you may end up damaging the foam anyway. It's not expensive to replace or that hard.

 

[whoaru99]

I can only imagine the underlying foam is not far behind.

 

[absolve2525]

I have a mint pair of Cerwin Vega AT-15s which are from 1990 and have only been used for a few months and have been stored in a closet ever since.
The other day I noticed that the red/orange surrounds were cracked on both15" woofers, and on closer inspection, it appears that only the red/orange covering is cracked and the underlying foam surrounds seem fine, so I am not sure what to do. i.e. replace the surrounds or just get the cracked red/orange covering off. Since they were not being used the surrounds did not get exercised much.
I do know that most CV owners take the grills off to view the cool red surrounds on the woofers.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Larry

I had a set of those with the same issue. I just peeled all the red foam off and left it lol. I sold them though, so not really sure what happened after that. Seemed fine though. It just depends on the underlying foam condition. My CV DX9 needed new foams entirely, however.

 

[toomany]

"I do know that most CV owners take the grills off to view the cool red surrounds on the woofers."

Which camp are you in? If looks are it, then replace the surround as it's a trade mark of CV.
If function is all that counts then do what absolve2525 did, peal and leave alone as you
said the underlying foam is good.

 

[stereofanboy]

Go ahead and replace them. My AT-15s needed refoaming more than fifteen years ago.

The underlying foam in the picture looks pretty dessicated to me, so probably not fine.

 

[kmagnuss]

Same thing happened to a pair of my CV's... like said above if you're the type to leave the grills off to bask in the glory of the red rings... replace them. It's cheap and easy.
But if you don't care about the red... just leave it be until the inner foam is gone too. Mine actually sounded better (more bass) with the old surrounds, since they were much much looser. They seemed to get deeper, easier. I'm sure that will change after I run them for awhile, but for now at least they look good, lol.