You’re absolutely correct. Even as a callow youth 50 years ago I was tightening the screws on speaker drivers. 45 years s ago I was changing chipboard screws for high tensile bolts with T-nut seats. The esteemed Mr Tiefenbrun showed me the light way back then. A sentiment also echoed by JV. Just look at the early Isobariks with their fanatical zeal to tightening everything, Locktite and using rigid resin gasket seals. T nuts on the midrange drivers! But not the tweeters IIRC.
In 1977 Spendor advised tightening the bass drivers regularly. My BC1s certainly had an uplift, (and they used high tensile hex bolts with t nut seats.
I can’t recall where I got the advice to not overtighten/undertighten but it was some time in the 80s. I used to go by gut feel, and getting specific advice about torque settings came later, I can’t recall exactly but it might have been in regard to SBLs. One of my clients had a pair and he got them sounding better than I ever did.
Linn were big on not overtorquing the LP12 base plate, and using high tensile 2mm hex bolts for the Asak. I did have a torque wrench for mounting cartridges, (having destroyed a Koetsu Onyx by applying too much “Linn philosophy”, but didnt extrapolate that to speakers. I just got a second Onyx, (it was my own and I didn’t even get to hear it before killing it).
I seem to remember the Corflake Shop guys talking about torque back when they used to torture poor little Kans in their rather OTT stands. I can still hear the little blighters crying for mercy.
