NoStoppin
05-09-2010, 04:13 PM
Hi folks, I first saw these speakers when my Army room mate Kevin Yeager had his mom ship them from home. She sent them common carrier, and the grills never made it.
I managed to keep most of the paperwork involved with these - here's the original receipt
45610
Our barracks at Ft Hood were modern style, each floor had 4 rooms and a common area. Kevin and I took off to Austin for a weekend, as we did a lot back then, and he left the room key to some of our quad mates so they could use the stereo. LOL we came back, the quadmates were nowhere to be found, and the woofers were extended as far out of the spyder as possible with the foam surrounds stretched tight as a drum.
45611
that's what happens when a needle gets dropped with the amp cranked all the way up...and after looking at this receipt again, I see they applied a balance from an earlier one....THAT must have been the one that re-coned the woofers, and this was a follow-up after we realized that wasn't the only problem.
also note the cost of an '035ti - new for 26 bucks - and now they are selling for quite a bit more!!!
there's another repair tag from 1991, this happened after I left the army but I was living in Austin and agreed to help Kevin get it fixed:
45612
45613
gotta love the note from the repair tech. by this time he'd seen both speakers more than once.
About a year after that, the repair folks called me and let me know that they were going to sell the speaker to recover the cost of repair. I called Kevin, who didn't have the $$, and offered to pay for the repair if he would sell me the other one for another $150.
now I had a totally kick-you-know-what pair of speakers. I lovingly moved them to Dallas when I moved there in 1994. in 1998 the one that sat next to the window needed new foam. it cost a lot more to fix then!
45614
and, once again, when I moved in 2001. I distinctly remember the instant the leg of my shelf pierced the woofer cone...
since them I've paid to keep them in storage, drove a rent car from Dallas to Phoenix & Back just to keep them, moved them and stored them in Las Vegas, and now I actually have a home with space to use them. I'd put a pic of them up, but I learned the hard way that I can't put more than 5 images on one post. if anyone wants, I'll post later. It was a small miracle these escaped the garage and won Rosie's approval to remain in the living room; "they're just so.....BIG". heh. she agreed before she saw them in place. now she's loving them, being able to understand conversations without huge volume levels, movies sound fantastic, and all that.
I wish I could find a pair of grills; it would help "hide" the speaker elements and not remind her so often that they are big, they are here, get used to it.
also I'm wondering if the effects of age and storage have gotten to them somehow - the receiver is a Sony STR-DE197, an unremarkable consumer receiver that just happened to be laying around when we got the big TV. Internet sez it's a 100WPC amp, but my old Yamaha Natural Sound R-300 blew the doors off in the past and it's only a 30WPC. This one is anemic at best; takes almost everything it has to get any sound at all.
I haven't had the chance to swap out receivers; it would be unpopular and I have to let things settle for a while. I did a quick ebay search, and my R300 is pulling more $$ than the sony!!! LOL
anyway - I did warn you this would be lengthy. so, if you've made it to the end, thank you so much for your time. I'm impressed by this forum, and look forward to many hours of reading.
peace,
Tim O
I managed to keep most of the paperwork involved with these - here's the original receipt
45610
Our barracks at Ft Hood were modern style, each floor had 4 rooms and a common area. Kevin and I took off to Austin for a weekend, as we did a lot back then, and he left the room key to some of our quad mates so they could use the stereo. LOL we came back, the quadmates were nowhere to be found, and the woofers were extended as far out of the spyder as possible with the foam surrounds stretched tight as a drum.
45611
that's what happens when a needle gets dropped with the amp cranked all the way up...and after looking at this receipt again, I see they applied a balance from an earlier one....THAT must have been the one that re-coned the woofers, and this was a follow-up after we realized that wasn't the only problem.
also note the cost of an '035ti - new for 26 bucks - and now they are selling for quite a bit more!!!
there's another repair tag from 1991, this happened after I left the army but I was living in Austin and agreed to help Kevin get it fixed:
45612
45613
gotta love the note from the repair tech. by this time he'd seen both speakers more than once.
About a year after that, the repair folks called me and let me know that they were going to sell the speaker to recover the cost of repair. I called Kevin, who didn't have the $$, and offered to pay for the repair if he would sell me the other one for another $150.
now I had a totally kick-you-know-what pair of speakers. I lovingly moved them to Dallas when I moved there in 1994. in 1998 the one that sat next to the window needed new foam. it cost a lot more to fix then!
45614
and, once again, when I moved in 2001. I distinctly remember the instant the leg of my shelf pierced the woofer cone...
since them I've paid to keep them in storage, drove a rent car from Dallas to Phoenix & Back just to keep them, moved them and stored them in Las Vegas, and now I actually have a home with space to use them. I'd put a pic of them up, but I learned the hard way that I can't put more than 5 images on one post. if anyone wants, I'll post later. It was a small miracle these escaped the garage and won Rosie's approval to remain in the living room; "they're just so.....BIG". heh. she agreed before she saw them in place. now she's loving them, being able to understand conversations without huge volume levels, movies sound fantastic, and all that.
I wish I could find a pair of grills; it would help "hide" the speaker elements and not remind her so often that they are big, they are here, get used to it.
also I'm wondering if the effects of age and storage have gotten to them somehow - the receiver is a Sony STR-DE197, an unremarkable consumer receiver that just happened to be laying around when we got the big TV. Internet sez it's a 100WPC amp, but my old Yamaha Natural Sound R-300 blew the doors off in the past and it's only a 30WPC. This one is anemic at best; takes almost everything it has to get any sound at all.
I haven't had the chance to swap out receivers; it would be unpopular and I have to let things settle for a while. I did a quick ebay search, and my R300 is pulling more $$ than the sony!!! LOL
anyway - I did warn you this would be lengthy. so, if you've made it to the end, thank you so much for your time. I'm impressed by this forum, and look forward to many hours of reading.
peace,
Tim O