"rebuilding" stock speakers?

[mrunexpected]

Hi, im new.

I am a 22 year-old college student. ive recently taken up a hobby of trying to get my hands on the best possible audio equipment for the lowest possible price, with extra emphasis on price. my shopping centers of choice are thrift stores, and ive found some decent stuff there (at least for my tastes). $24 120 watt onkyo stereo receiver (70's vintage, i think), $15 for a 40 watt sansui, $10 for a late 80's 120 watt sony (mostly bought because it came with a separate equalizer).

ive also found deals on speakers. $10 for 10" cone 2-way fishers, $25 for some weird brand (micro-static?) 10" and a tweeter cage (is that what you call it?), in a HEAVY solid wood case, and a pair of newer marantz 3 ways, with 10" woofers and "liquid cooled" tweeters.

my main question is, what would be the value of putting the drivers and crossovers form these speakers into new, well made cabinets? especially the marantzes. they sound very good, probably the most well-rounded i have. the fishers have no bass, and the weirdoes pound hard, but dont have the nice midrange of the fishers. these are almost as good as either, but the lowest bass kinda falls off. the thing is, they are in large, sealed cabinets, but they are of terrible quality. they are clearly made of crappy, flexible paneling.

is there any value to building new boxes out of MDF for them? and how would i determine the proper dimensions? sorry for any lack of knowledge or terminology, but im pretty clueless.

[creek]

see this thread: Help with build

I've thought about doing what you are suggesting before. But now its my view that for the time and effort of building new boxes for speakers that are shaky at best to begin with you are better off buying drivers and building crossovers for a completely new build.
On a low budget you can't really beat some of the designs using Dayton drivers from partsexpress, of which there are many.

[creek]

Originally posted by mrunexpected

ive also found deals on speakers. $10 for 10" cone 2-way fishers, $25 for some weird brand (micro-static?) 10" and a tweeter cage (is that what you call it?), in a HEAVY solid wood case, and a pair of newer marantz 3 ways, with 10" woofers and "liquid cooled" tweeters.

I just reread your post. If they are good quality speakers to begin with and you think the boxes just need a little improvement, you could always just add some internal bracing to stiffen the cabs a little. Also you could experiment with adding fiberglass or pollyfill (stuffing/lining the walls) to see how that may improve things.

[mrunexpected]

ok, what if i dont reinvent the wheel, and just put the marantzes in a new box, w/ the same internal dimentions as the 'stock' one? that should work, right? what kind of difference will htere be in the sound?

is there no way to "divine" the approximate T/S specs, from the existing size/cone size/ box type? i dont need perfection, just wondering if an improvement can be had, since i am capable and willing to build something. for that matter, is there any way to tell what kind of cones these are, and get the specs for them alone?

speaking of which, what are "T/S specs"?

[planet10]

It is amazing how often you can find really good drivers in really poor boxes (there are a lot of poor drivers as well). There is a good possibility that you are leaving the very best stuff at the thrift store because the boxes look like ....

Any chance of snapping some pics so we know what we are working with (i know some of the older fishers had lovely alnico cone tweeters, but a lot of their newer stuff isn't worth the time of day).

What model Onkyo -- these were a real sleeper in the mid-late 70s -- some of the best sounding stuff the Japanese were doing at the time.

dave
planet10/who has recycled 100s & 100s of thrift store speakers