Where to go from here?

[NormMacdonald]

I have a pair of Marantz SP-1200 speakers that I've been using for the past few years, and I've been pretty happy with them. Today, though, we were jamming out a little bit too hard and blew the foam on one of the speakers (which sounds horrible). So now I have to do something about my setup. I kind of want to make it sound better than it did even before the foam broke, so I've come up with two options...

1) Replace the foam and figure out how to refurbish/tune the speakers. I've heard that by doing certain things to the cabinet or the drivers, etc, you can improve sound quality. Would that apply to these speakers?

2) Get new ones. I don't really have a lot of budget for something like this, but if there existed any sub $100 speakers that compared to these old ones in SQ, then I'd probably go that route.

So I guess my question is this... will giving these speakers a makeover and keeping them give a better sound quality then economical speakers, or are they old enough that fixing them up wouldn't really be logical?

Thanks all! I hope this post made sense.

 

[m_vanmeter]

Your Marantz speakers are 19 to 25 years old (ended production in 1991).

The cone surrounds can be restored, either with a DIY kit (google search) or by a repair service, here is one http://www.parts-express.com/speakerrepaircenter/index.cfm

if you get one of the 12" woofers fixed, do both.

The only current speakers sized like the older 3-way big box speakers from the 70's and 80's are the Cerwin Vega line http://www.cerwinvega.com/home-audio/floorstanding-bookshelf-center-channel-subwoofers-speakers.html some people swear by them, some swear at them.

Most mid sized speakers today have 5.5" or 6.5" woofers and really depend on a stand-alone powered subwoofer to do the heavy hauling with the low frequency audio.

Fix or replace - your call depending on cost to fix and any personal reason for keeping them.

Infinity P162 speakers would be a good musical replacement with a decent subwoofer. Or consider the Infinity P252 towers (the larger P362 towers are hard to find now) http://www.crutchfield.com/shopsearch/infinity_primus.html

 

[NormMacdonald]

Yeah, getting a whole new setup with new speakers AND a sub to achieve the same sound quality would be pretty expensive. Would the results be worth the cost, though? Or would dumping the same amount of money into the speakers I already have give me a better result?

 

[KEW]

This is the closest set of speakers which I could think of to meet your criteria. Unfortunately they cost $180 shipped!

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-B2031P-Ultra-Linear-Reference-Monitor/dp/B000LQ2ABK