Would you buy speakers that are 10 years old?

As long as they weren't abused, they will last a long time. I've always bought into the theory that once you have a great sounding system, the only thing you will ever update is your receiver.



Quote:
Originally Posted by 111 /forum/post/16840233


As the title states, I came across a set of highly rated floor standing Klipsch speakers that were pretty expensive when sold 10 years ago.


My question is - does the sound quality deteriorate as the speakers age or the sound quality stays the same after years of use?


thanks

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Absolutely. As long as they are not active powered speakers they should be just fine. Which Klipsch model did you come across? At that age I'm assuming Legend series. KLF-20? KLF-30? Those are both great speakers. The KLF-30s are in my opinion one of the best rock speakers ever. They also made the KV series at that time, which was their more entry level series.

I don't know the Klipsch models from back then, but usually as long as they are taken care of time shouldn't matter much. It used to be that speakers (woofers specifically) had foam surround edges, and those would deteriorate and require driver replacement. But that was back longer than 10 years ago so I doubt that is the case.



Quote:
Originally Posted by jzoz01 /forum/post/16840439


Absolutely. As long as they are not active powered speakers they should be just fine. Which Klipsch model did you come across? At that age I'm assuming Legend series. KLF-20? KLF-30? Those are both great speakers. The KLF-30s are in my opinion one of the best rock speakers ever. They also made the KV series at that time, which was their more entry level series.

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It's actually the KSP series.



Quote:
Originally Posted by jzoz01 /forum/post/16840439


Absolutely. As long as they are not active powered speakers they should be just fine. Which Klipsch model did you come across? At that age I'm assuming Legend series. KLF-20? KLF-30? Those are both great speakers. The KLF-30s are in my opinion one of the best rock speakers ever. They also made the KV series at that time, which was their more entry level series.

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Why would active powered speakers have problems after 10 years?



Quote:
Originally Posted by penngray /forum/post/16840714


Why would active powered speakers have problems after 10 years?

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There is just more that can fail with powered speakers than passive. It's the same reason most speaker manufacturers put a 5 year or 10 year warranty on speakers and a 3 year on subwoofers and other electronics. Really depends on the speaker, but I've seen a lot of powered towers run into amp issues down the road.


Way back when I used to work for Ultimate Electronics, pretty much the only speakers I ever saw come in for service were powered towers. The DefTechs mostly, bust also Infinify IL series, and the Klipsch RP-5 and RP-3 as well. Not sure if it is a case of failure of the speaker (design or manufacturing issue) or the fact that for some reason most people seem to run powered towers with the gain cranked all the way up.

I still own and play a pair of Klipsch speakers from 1973. Five or so years ago, I spent a fair amount of money on Klipsch speakers from 1978, and last years purchased another pair from 1982. They all sound fantastic.


The paper cones basically last forever. The only thing that the 1970's speakers needed were new caps on the crossovers, and that was an inexpensive fix. I should do the same with the 1982 pair.