I’ve never heard the wax guard being referenced to as a “cone”. I could see a dome being called a “cone” though, but cleaning the cone would probably not be enough.
These are domes :
The white tiny thing that the finger is pointing to in this image is a wax guard:
Wax guards are not really made to be cleaned. I’m sure it is possible to clean them but I would not count on that. I got my first HA on July 18th. 3 days later I noticed a significant drop in the audio coming out of the aid. I checked the wax guard, and indeed it was clogged with wax. Unfortunately, at my first fitting I did not leave Costco with any wax guards. I tried to clean it, very carefully because I did not want to push wax into the speaker. I did clear what I could see but it did not do the job. It was after business hours so I was out of luck until the next day. The whole audio level problem was fixed once the wax guard was replaced.
And when it comes to cleaning wax out of my ears, I don’t consider the job done util I can get visual confirmation with an otoscope. It happened a few times there was more wax to remove than I thought. I got a digital otoscope through Amazon which allows me to perform a self-exam.