DD Audio Z18 Cone Replacement/Upgrade

Its not very often we do cone replacement’s on DD Audio Sub-Woofers yet alone on a DD-Z18! So when Ashley ‘MAD BASS’ Burrell told me that he was going to cut up the DD-Z18 my heart nearly stopped, I had a head full of questions and starting ranting on like some sort of madman looking for any excuse for Ashley not to cut up the Z18.

After what felt like a four hour conversation/debate Ashley convinced me that what he was going to do was for the greater good of the Z18 and reassured me that he hadn’t become a sick & twisted Sub-Woofer serial killer! It was soon after that said conversation that Ashley unpacked the replacement cone for the Z18, this was when things started to make sense as the new cones Spider Suspension for the Z18 was twice as thick as the original one!

Since Cone/Coil replacement is pretty much the same on most Sub-Woofers I’m not going to go into as much depth as last time, but if you want to read a more in depth write up on Cone/Coil repairs CLICK HERE.

First thing on the cards for Ashley was to cut out the Dust-Cap and Cone. As you can see above Ashley took his time to cut the Carbon-Fibre Dust-Cap out and did so very carefully since he wanted to re-use it on the new Cone.

This time round Ashley invested in some much needed safety gear since the fumes that come off the glue and rubber is very toxic. Ashley has also made up a plug of sorts to cover the top of the Z18’s motor to minimise the amount of aluminium dust that contacts the motor, he used a vacuum to remove the dust as he was carefully grinding away all the excess glue and rubber off the Sub-Woofer basket.

And as you can see in the photo above that Ashley’s patience paid off and the surface of the basket was almost perfectly smooth, also take note of the Z18’s unique motor and Coil-pole as this is very rarely seen by anybody outside of DD Audio.

After the clean up of the Sub-Woofer basket it was time to glue the new Cone/Coil and Spider Suspension into place and as easy as it looks to glue a Cone into place it actually is quite finicky and requires the person doing so to act quickly as explained in the original Sub-Woofer repair Blog.

The end product as seen here is like new, well it pretty much is a new Sub-Woofer!

Ok, time to explain a few things now. By now you are most likely going “This is cool, but why would you cut up a seven thousand dollar Sub-Woofer?” or “What was wrong with it?” …

Well, Ashley had brought over a special Cone/Coil with a SPL ES (Extra Stiff) Spider Suspension for the Z18 earlier on in the year with the intention of swapping it over eventually. But before doing the swap he wanted to hear the Z18 first and why not too, its not like you would buy a Z18 and not at least listen to it for a few hundred hours before cutting it up!

The Final product from this is a Sub-Woofer that will be completely bulletproof (Not literally, please don’t shoot it!) and if the new DD-9518-D2 SC (Supercharged) ES that is in ABTEC3 is anything to go by the Z18 ES will be something phenomenal!