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Hi all

wondering if anyone had experienced this and managed to find a good fix. I am still happy with my Sonos Playbar so really want to restore it to its former glory.

Around 1 year after purchase, I noticed that any bass coming from the Playbar did so with a flapping-like noise. Complete bass distortion. Tried everything possible (restores, resets, etc) before finally taking the plunge and opening the unit. 

Yesterday, after putting up with this for a couple years, and before discarding the Playbar in favour of a new soundbar, I decided to open the unit and peep inside….

To my surprise, i found that 5 of the 6 mid-woofers had their foam/rubber speaker rings torn, meaning the speaker cone was no longer attached to the outer ring.  This explains the distortion and ‘flapping’ sound!!

I’ve ordered some 3” replacement foam rings on eBay, and shall attempt to replace these myself, but my question is, what could have caused this?  I’ve always been extremely careful with my Playbar, keeping bass levels on a conservative setting to avoid any wear or damage to components, yet here I am. So, are these components as cheap and poor quality as they seemed when I got a closer look?  Ssomewhat disappointed with this all if I’m honest. And no official Sonos repair kits or spare parts anywhere either!

In my opinion any bass level a speaker is capable of playing from a normal source (i.e not computer noise or such) should not destroy the speaker. Since the fault developed years ago it will not be easy to find a cause, though.

I had kind of the same thing happen to my old Jamo’s, but only after years of storage. Was the speaker stored or used in exceptionally dry circumstances? Placed in direct sunlight?

Are the surrounds actually torn or simply detached?

Observe the drivers for a while. Is there any unusual excursion indicating that there is an electronic issue causing excessive drive?

Do the surrounds seem decomposed?

Ok. So while I await the new foam rings, I used some transparent adhesive (no more nails) to seal the gaps between the torn rings and the speaker edges. 
 

and hey presto, my Playbar is restored to former glory. Bass is great again, deep and good as brand new!  Amazing what a little imagination can do :-)

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