The best items of tech you have ever owned

[Bryn]

Speakers really ought to last forever, as all they really do is passively transmit current through an electrical field. Barring extremes of temperature and not being played at earbleed levels 30 years use shouldn’t be that unusual.
My very first CD player from Sony lasted close to 20 years despite heavy useage and changed how I think about recorded music forever

The lacquer on wire coils tends to break down over time. Also the repeated flexing of the cone must have some deleterious effect, surely?

[Stunsworth]

Speakers really ought to last forever, as all they really do is passively transmit current through an electrical field. Barring extremes of temperature and not being played at earbleed levels 30 years use shouldn’t be that unusual.

It depends. Ones with foam surrounds - where the cone meets the outer frame - will likely have the foam rot away. That's not terminal, they can be fitted with new surrounds that match the compliance of the original surround.

Also heavier cones can cause the voice coil to sag and foul the mechanism at the driver end of the speaker. That can normally be corrected by unscrewing the drive unit and rotating it.

[BBMmk2]

My current all in one PC! A Lenovo.

[MrGongGong]

Speakers really ought to last forever, as all they really do is passively transmit current through an electrical field. Barring extremes of temperature and not being played at earbleed levels 30 years use shouldn’t be that unusual.
My very first CD player from Sony lasted close to 20 years despite heavy useage and changed how I think about recorded music forever

Speaker cones are the only things that move and (as others have said) will degrade in several ways regardless of what you do.
Speaker technology has changed massively in the last 20 years, the amount of clean signal I get out of a small pair of Genelecs today would have required a huge heap of extremely expensive kit then.

[Richard Barrett]

Speaker cones are the only things that move and (as others have said) will degrade in several ways regardless of what you do.

It's true, but actually the speakers are the only part of the Linn system I bought in 2000 that are still on top form, in fact they're the only part that has worked at all in the past few years... when I took the CD player to a Linn dealer to get it fixed I was told that since it was now 13 years old there was no possibility of getting the necessary parts, and I was left with the impression that he thought I was some kind of loser for wanting to hang on to it for so long. (This sort of arrogance actually characterises most of my interaction with that company from the start, I'm sorry to say.)

[french frank]

Sounds like a furry animal, a burst balloon and a jar!

Oh, Pooh!

[Stanfordian]

My current all in one PC! A Lenovo.

I've just bought one of theirs today - a lap top.

[Nick Armstrong]

3. DeLonghi coffee machine.

Ah yes, how could I have forgotten the coffee kit! The following have done daily service for upwards of 15 years:

Nuova Simonelli espresso machine



Mazzer grinder



(I actually have two of the espresso machines - they alternate every six months or so as one goes in for service)

[Mal]

The Casio F-91W watch, a cheap watch that keeps accurate time for decades, leaving more money to spend on the second choice: CDs.

[cloughie]

The Casio F-91W watch, a cheap watch that keeps accurate time for decades, leaving more money to spend on the second choice: CDs.

The down side of Casio watches is the non-standard, difficult to replace straps!

[Stanfordian]

The down side of Casio watches is the non-standard, difficult to replace straps!

Cheaper to buy another watch in some cases!

[Dave2002]

The lacquer on wire coils tends to break down over time. Also the repeated flexing of the cone must have some deleterious effect, surely?

When I last checked, which was a few years ago, the people at Wembley Loudspeaker Co. were still offering to dismantle and remake the drivers, rewinding the voice coils. That's when I discovered that someone had dismantled a pair and extracted the drive units, which I bought instead of having the remake job done.

If anyone has speakers which have obvious problems, but which they're fond of, it could at least be worth giving them (WLC) a call to discuss whether anything can be done.

[cloughie]

Cheaper to buy another watch in some cases!

Exactly - I have at least two strapless casios - mind you they are better than my cheap Lorus from Argos which has non-user friendly adjustment and next to useless instructions - destined for the bin when the battery runs down!

[Mal]

The down side of Casio watches is the non-standard, difficult to replace straps!

Not difficult for my man in the market :) But, I agree, it's a weak point, the standard casio straps are almost as expensive as the watch and only last a couple of years.

[Bryn]

Not difficult for my man in the market :) But, I agree, it's a weak point, the standard casio straps are almost as expensive as the watch and only last a couple of years.

£11.99 for the full kit of strap, pins and tool in the case of my GW-M5610. That's from amazon.co.uk and is more like an eighth of the discount price of the watch itself.