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My 4 year old decided to push in the soft plastic/vinyl domes in the center of two of my M-Audio LX4 studio monitors' woofers.

Can anyone suggest a safe way to pop them back out? I have heard of using a vacuum cleaner which sounds a little extreme, and I know it's possible to use a hooked needle to extract the cloth type, but I'm not sure how to pop out the plastic type without puncturing it.

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I used a piece of duct tape - stick it to the middle of the dome, then pull it out.

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  • How well has this worked? Does the sound appear to be okay afterwards?
    – Warrior Bob
    Commented Sep 30, 2011 at 14:34
  • @mrplough How indented was your dome? Fully inverted, or kind of dented in? Mine are dented in irregularly.
    – Michael
    Commented Sep 30, 2011 at 18:36
  • @Michael, it's just a dust cap. You can pop it back out without much fear.
    – Brad
    Commented Oct 1, 2011 at 14:27
  • @mrplough My first several attempts failed, but eventually I got them partially out with blue painter's tape. I was then able to massage them from the sides to pop out the remaining dent. Some small visible creases remain but the caps are convex again.
    – Michael
    Commented Oct 1, 2011 at 14:57
  • For me, the trick with the tape was to pull sideways, rather than straight out. Probably due to the small size of the caps, and the jaggedness of the dents.
    – Michael
    Commented Oct 1, 2011 at 14:57
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I had partial success by sticking a hot glue bar to the dust cap and pulling it. Then using the same hot glue gun to heat and unstick it (Inspired by an automotive painters trick I've seen in videos).

This was a cheap pressed paper dome on a cheap 8 inch woofer. The cap returned mostly to its form but naturally some of the creases remain and could not completely remove the hot glue, the paper was starting to delaminate, so I rather spread it a little as if it were body filler. Aesthetically not so good but better than crumpled.

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