Opinions or experience, on buying damaged speakers?

SeanAH · 02-10-2006, 01:28 PM

Ive seen a couple interesting auctions on auction sites. They were of brand new damaged speakers. Now according the auction, the damage is just cosmetic to the box area, no damage to the woofers or tweeters. They were tested, and work fine. Some of the sellers have 1000's of feed back with a almost a 100% positive feedback to give me some more reassurance.

But heres what Im wondering. If you think the speaker was dropped or hit hard enough to break off a corner. Or break the pegs off the bottom. Would it affect the woofers or tweeters, even if they were not damaged? Have you had any experience with buying speakers similar to this?

I really tempted to give it a try, since I might be getting the speaker 4x cheaper than retail, but im not sure how much of chance I would be taking..

Thanks for any feedback.

Jongyoon Lee · 02-10-2006, 02:17 PM

Even if there is no physical damage to the drivers themselves, the structural integrity of the cabinet itself will have an impact. How would that translate to the sound is yet up in the air. If it's a cheap speaker with particle boards glued together in a mass produced factory, small imperfection in the case would probably have little effect on the sound. On the other hand, hand made or hand tuned cabinet could reveal imperfection caused by the damage.

If the value is 25% of the retail, I'd agree with you it would be pretty tempting. The other day I saw inoperational Mark Levinson No. 331 dual mono going for ~$1,000. It was pretty tempting for me too. The worst case I could think of would be a lightning surge that blew the fuse, or using incorrect voltage from the wall outlet, which probably won't cost another $1,000 to fix.

SeanAH · 02-12-2006, 10:39 PM

Thank you very much for the feedback.

How sensitve are tweeters if the box were to experience a hard hit. I imagine they are a lot more sensitve than woofers.

Anyone else with some feedback, I would greatly appreciate it, Im still heavily debating these speakers.

Chu Gai · 02-13-2006, 05:51 AM

Is there a warranty with the speakers? Why don't you post a link.

SeanAH · 02-13-2006, 08:46 AM

Not sure ill ask, I cant post any links until I hit 15 posts.

**HTF Ads**

Chu Gai · 02-13-2006, 08:56 AM

be creative and use the word dot instead of .

SeanAH · 02-13-2006, 02:38 PM

It appears that the screws that held the base went right through the bottom box. So it makes me think it was crushed by something heavier. If it was dropped it would think it would have experienced more damage at the bottom.

Jongyoon Lee · 02-13-2006, 03:42 PM

It looks like most of the damage is cosmetic, except for the structural damage at base. Without sturdy base the speaker may resonate and cause strange boomy sound at certain freq. I do not know how easy, or if it's even possible to repair the base.

Here's the thing though. If the original price was $1000 and you can get them for $250, chances are they will probably sound better than any $250 speakers you can buy brand new.

ChrisWiggles · 02-13-2006, 04:33 PM

jong gives good advice. May be worth the project if you're into that kind of thing. That kind of damage maybe wouldn't be so severe if it happened not in a well protected shipping box, but if they were packed well in a box and that kind of damage occurred, that seems to indicate a pretty huge fall of some kind. It still may be a fun and worthwhile project purchase, but it's possible that a sever enough shock could have damaged things like the crossover or other things glued like the VC in the driver etc.

It's a risky move, but if the savings are significant enough it might be a good deal. But beware that you may or may not have to look into fixing crossovers or drivers perhaps. Hopefully it's just mainly the cosmetic damage.

I also just now see that it seems to have integrated powered sub drivers in there, which adds to complications because of extra components there that may have been damaged. It just increases the riskiness, but still., could be a steal!

AlbertD · 02-14-2006, 08:54 AM

Those look to be Polk LSI25's. Retail around $1300 each, street price around $850-$550 each. So factor that in when you make your decision.

Also factor in what you will be using them for. For mainly music then built in powered subs can be a good thing, if mainly HT then if you get a seperate subwoofer those built in subs may not be such a good thing.