[Texbychoice]

Assume as a starting point these factors.  Quality drivers, impregnated silk dome tweeter, polypropylene woofer cone, never over driven, always in clean temperature controlled environment, low to moderate usage hours.  No audible indications of trouble.

Are there wear out mechanisms related to usage hours, calendar time or other?  Thanks in advance for input.

[bladesmith]

No pontificaters...🤔

 

[Hobbsmeerkat]

With most talk I've seen, and from pictures of the vintage speakers I've seen online, the biggest issues seem to be, electrolytic capacitors going bad & woofer surrounds rotting out, but most high quality, and modern, solid-state components don't suffer that issue. And modern rubber speaker surrounds won't rot like older ones did, they will eventually but by that point it probably wont matter..

[Elizabeth]

the cone surrounds. depending on the material. Foam surrounds need to be replaced sooner ,much sooner than rubber or paper. The good news is foam surrounds are easy to replace. Ihave done it.

The capacitors may last twenty years. may last forty ..no telling...

[S Clark]

The surround material (where cone attaches to outer frame) is the most susceptible to wear/aging.  Those speakers with foam surrounds from 30+ years ago are almost universally shot.  The older folded paper surround are usually brittle, but often still working, and more modern materials are usually still good... usually.  I've had rubber surrounds get hard and fail due to being stored in a hot garage for most of a decade.