Anyone tighten up drivers occasionally

James63, why would you work your way up the torque settings? The purpose of a torque wrench is the ability to tighten to the manufactures and/or material specifications.

09-13-13: Brf
James63, why would you work your way up the torque settings? The purpose of a torque wrench is the ability to tighten to the manufactures and/or material specifications.

I'm assuming James63 means to start at a lower setting than the MFG spec and, in a star pattern, tighten up to the MFG spec gradually. As opposed to setting to the MFG spec and tightening each bolt to spec on the first pass.

Well, it's been about a year since I last tightened up the screws holding my drivers in place. Out of curiosity I checked the speakers 2 days ago. Woofers screws were tight, tweeter screws were tight, and midrange screws, just about all took a 1/16 of a turn. The midrange imaging and purity took a leap upward! And I was recently thinking my speakers were getting long in tooth! They just needed a scootch of torque.

For Sure. The wing nuts that attach driver to cabinet on my OHM F5s require an an occasional tightening, but less so over time once things settle.

I've seen some interesting discussions about this with the DIY speaker builder and manufacturer crowd. Apparently, you have to exercise caution in over tightening the drivers as you can kind of torque or twist the basket of the driver which in turn can throw off the driver's performance because it's not operating in a truly flat plane anymore. The theory does make sense. The consensus among that crowd is that you don't need to tighten them down as much as you might think.