any way from speakers drying out

Better put and mainly talking about my Polk '87 SDA 2Bs. I already know that Oringinal Windex is the ONLY solution to clean both the butyl surrounds and cones w/o affecting the sticky dope that's on them. During the summer the sun hits them directly and I have to cover them everyday w/ giant bath towels when the time comes. I've seen what the sun does to Time Frame socks (mostly very faded examples on e-bay) but those are out of the way. Is there anything preventative out there or it's just care be taken.
That's another indirect reason I have mutiple sets of speakers besides variety obviously the towels mute the sound and defeat the SDAs

Hooboy. Those Ultra Violet rays are the death of furniture in general. And the temperature fluctuation from night to day will also give those enclosures a run for their money. You need to get them out of the sun.

Biggles

Erm... what? sticky dope that's on them? Butyl surrounds need nothing done to them.
IF concerned with sun damage.. reorient them in your room?

UV tint for you windows.

Get a room darkening shade or get those speakers away from the light/heat.
Always modify the cheaper part and that's the window.

jcamero said:

UV tint for you windows.

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^^This.

Try a cheap shade from the auto parts store before embarking on a more expensive solution.

Bare, I don't know if you ever touched a cone of a Polk SDA driver. There is a purpose put sticky dope applied to them and I'm guessing maybe for the reason I started the thread in the 1st place, so the cones do not dry out. The Original Windex is used only to clean the surrounds and cones if needed and I have seen some examples that had all kinds of dust and dirt and O Windex is used just to clean them. It's not done continually like dusting only if and when needed. Changing my room is out of the question I have a 1 bdrm apt and all my big gear is in the living room and w/ the SDAs they have to be straight on w/ a 7-10 spred,no toe in/out and of course connected to the i/c cable. It wasn't the grills so much I was worried about but the speakers themselves and I will keep covering them till the season turns.I can't apply anything to the windows I rent and it's against the lease. I did once try to reverse the room and it just did not work for me both for asethics and logistics so I moved it all back.

jcamero said:

UV tint for you windows.

Click to expand...

I like this idea, although you might need to tint the whole window or use really tall tinting/windowshading because of the sun's constant movement. But thankfully, ...

... winter is coming,

so you have a whole season and a half to figure out the best approach... I get it though... If my W90's had sun hitting that grillcloth day in/day out, I'd be freaking out too (Not that you're freaking out or anything). And I would be worried even more about the veneers as well. Large sheets of it are probably expensive (Most Polks I see have the black on black, but I see yours have some wood surfaces... Nice setup by the way).

Can't tint, can't re-orient?

Pull the curtains. Turn on a light.

dark curtains on the window

Uh Oh...

Erm OK didn't know what? Polk had done, to their bits
But in my defence.. Polks, in my observations, are below the radar.
I Wouldn't touch them with your stick, let alone mine

botrytis said:

Windex is an old wive's tale. Depending on the type of Windex, it will dry out the rubber since it contains methanol which removes the additives in the rubber that makes the surround pliable. Eventually the rubber will start to get hard and crack from the Windex.

I can't understand where people get this stuff from.....

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Well I know people that have been using original Windex on Polk surrounds and cones for more than 30 years. And none of them have hardened or cracked surrounds. :thmbsp:

bare said:

Erm OK didn't know what? Polk had done, to their bits
But in my defence.. Polks, in my observations, are below the radar.
I Wouldn't touch them with your stick, let alone mine

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Just curious, and not meaning to derail this thread. But can you elaborate on your observations?

For what it's worth - I've owned Polk several products over the past 30-years now, I've sold them retail and spoken with Polk engineers on numerous occasions - I've never heard of a recommendation of cleaning the butyl rubber surrounds. I only recall instruction manuals saying to clean Polk products with a slightly damp cloth and to specifically NOT to use cleaners and chemicals.