Ken, a slight bend or dent in the aluminum cone won't normally affect performance at all; even a dent in the tweeter dome won't materially disturb dispersion.

The only danger is if the bend extends down to the spider (which holds the cone to the voice coil and keeps it centered) and knocks the voice-coil off-center, in which case you'd hear a scraping noise when you manually push in the cone with your fingers applying equal pressure around the cone. You might also hear the scraping noise/distortion with some music as well.

Alan

Alan Lofft,
Axiom Resident Expert (Retired)