What did I just find at Goodwill

[homsar57]

Hey guys, It's been a looong time since I've posted on these forums; college has kinda nuked my audio wallet as of late. I'm not sure if this is even the right place to ask, but I found a set of speakers at Goodwill today and I'd like to know just what I'm dealing with here. It's a set of Technics SB-RX50's, and I paid $40 for the set. I don't know if these are anything special, but I know good audio when I see it, and something in me said I needed to buy these or I'd hate myself. Here's a picture of them. 
 

They looked like they were worth more than $40 in the store at any rate.  When i got home I did some Googling and found this page, which is selling a pair for roughly $1600!! I know that's not an awful lot in audiophile land, but are they really worth that much? 
The one negative about these as with many speakers is that the foam surrounds are dry rotting; one is far worse than the other. 

 
I assume this is repairable, but where would I go to have this done; these seem way too intricate for me to do myself. I'm guessing these are worth having fixed right?
I'd appreciate any specs or info on these guys.

 

[BigOakTopher]

Wow, that's an amazing Goodwill find! *jealous*

 

[liamstrain]

foam surrounds are easy to fix. DIY kits are available from lots of places, including Parts Express (highly recommended). 
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=260-920
 
(obviously find the right size for yours). 
 
Great find! My recollection is these are fairly sought after speakers. Well worth some love. The original selling price on them was an MSRP of 1300 (in 1988 dollars). They were pretty top of the line.
 
So with that said, it may be worth it to find someone reputable to work on them down the line.

 

[homsar57]

Any foam kit will do as long as its the right size? These are unlike any speakers I've seen before, look at the close up of the broken one. It seems to have 2 rings of foam, one on the outside which is standard, but one on the inside as well, surrounding the tweeter. 

 

[liamstrain]

Been reading about these quickly, and you might be right. These had concentric radiators around the woofers - it might not be so simple a repair. 
 
Very interesting find. Hopefully someone more familiar can chime in. 

 

[homsar57]

Oh man this is worse than I thought. I took the driver out to look at it and you're right, there's a cone of plastic on the back of the woofer. Darn it, right in the middle too; completely blocks access to the tweeter.  Doing some more reading it looks like these would require specialty speaker surrounds to fix properly. Since these guys are flat and not cones like most ordinary speakers I'd need to find a specialist for sure- and that won't come cheap. There's a catch to everything isn't there. 

 

[liamstrain]

1. I'd check and see if you can find someone to work on them and give you an estimate. Might not be as bad as we think.
 
2. There is a market for these. You could probably sell them (even needing work - the estimate would be a good thing to provide as well) at a significant profit and get yourself something nice to use now and pocket the difference. 

 

[homsar57]

Thanks man. I posted this on audioholics too since that's a more speaker oriented forum. The consensus there is they are worth repairing but difficult. Someone pointed me to orange county speaker repair. You're right though, if its going to cost me too much to fix them I could sell them as is. Id really like to see these working though, some people think these are as good as some B&W models.

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

Id really like to see these working though

+1000

 

[chazman1117]

Wow...... A friends parents had these back in the day.....nice sounding speakers. Hope you are sucessful in rebuilding them!

 

[homsar57]

An update; I looked around on the website I was recommended to and found that they have repaired this sort of speaker before! I believe this is the model I have. Here's a link
http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=genem&Product_Code=OCSRP726&Category_Code=
 
Anyway, I shot them an email asking what the repairs would cost. I'm hopeful this will work out, though it may be a while until I can send them out for repair as I'm currently out of work (and in School for the semester). 
 
So i got an email back, It'l cost $95 per speaker plus shipping both ways. In other words around $300 total.