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Cerwin Vega AT-15 Moving Dilema

redondo2018

redondo2018

Active Member
Moving next week and need to decide what to do with my Cerwin Vega AT-15s (pictured below). I bought them cheap a year ago, I refoamed one woofer but the other needs a recone (I have the foam but not recone kit). All in I'm under $100 into them (I'll need to spend another $60 for a recone kit). They have been sitting in the garage unused since I bought them, but I've tested them and they work. In current state, cabinets are pretty ugly IMO - mine are a little scratched up, the base of one is gone, and the wood crossbar in one came unglued (not a big deal). Beyond the ugliness, they are just TOO HUGE AND HEAVY - do they really need to be 95 pounds each and the size of a washer/dryer combo?!

Lots of love / hate for these online, but I thought in my short listening that they were clearer than I thought they'd be (and of course they go to 11). I listen mostly to LPs, would power it with an ADCOM GFA-555 amp. I listen to all kinds of music and honestly I don't really want to blow the roof off the 2000 sq ft house I'm moving to, I just want effortless sound and presence. I know that most people that love them love to crank it up, but that doesn't happen too often with me.

I listed them recently locally, got a ton of response, had second thoughts and unlisted them, and I'm pretty sure I can sell them tomorrow for $250 as is. I know I could get a decent, SMALLER speaker set for that kind of money (and I have other speakers as well already). I'll have the space for them at my next place to use them, but not sure I'm going to have the space IN THE MOVING TRUCK (we're moving 1,000 miles and my thousands of LPs come first). Can I make space in the truck? Maybe. The question is SHOULD I?

So I see my options as follows:
  1. Lug them with me as is, fix the other woofer, refinish the cabinets - then either use them or sell them for more like market value, say $600
  2. Sell them for $250 before I go and be done with them (and then maybe buy something else)
  3. Take out all the components, chuck the cabinets, bring the components with me and sell them on the Bay (each 15" sub goes for $200) - OR - take the components with me, recone the woofer, and build a (hopefully much smaller and lighter) custom cabinet. I'm relatively handy with woodwork, but I have never made a speaker cabinet before and I don't know how much it will help/hurt the sound.
So, what should I do? Opinions on AT-15 size, quality, appreciated, also the financial aspect vs. quality & size, and is it feasible to construct a decent custom cabinet for these?

cerwin vega.jpg
 
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Sell them. Save your self some time and frustrations. Get other speakers when you get to you new home.
 
I've been hauling my AT-15s around for 30 years.. Strengthens your muscles, keeps you young.
I have no intentions of selling them, ever.
You don't need to shake the house every time you listen, but it's nice to be able to do so when you want. They make very good home theater speakers too.
You could always give CL and FB of your new locale a look for speakers before you move to see if there's anything that catches your interest. There's plenty of posts here where people can't find any audio equipment for sale near them and if you're moving to one of those areas it might be wise to hang on to them for that reason alone.

Do they need to be 90 lbs? Yes. Any speaker that puts out good bass needs to be solid so the panels don't flex, so it doesn't walk itself around the house, and to encompass the correct amount of airspace.

Besides, they aren't that heavy, relatively speaking.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/cerwin-vega-2000-15-500-plainfield-il.887157/
These weigh 120 lbs, and CV made even bigger.
 
teal'c said:
I've been hauling my AT-15s around for 30 years.. Strengthens your muscles, keeps you young.
I have no intentions of selling them, ever.
You don't need to shake the house every time you listen, but it's nice to be able to do so when you want. They make very good home theater speakers too.
You could always give CL and FB of your new locale a look for speakers before you move to see if there's anything that catches your interest. There's plenty of posts here where people can't find any audio equipment for sale near them and if you're moving to one of those areas it might be wise to hang on to them for that reason alone.

Do they need to be 90 lbs? Yes. Any speaker that puts out good bass needs to be solid so the panels don't flex, so it doesn't walk itself around the house, and to encompass the correct amount of airspace.

Besides, they aren't that heavy, relatively speaking.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/cerwin-vega-2000-15-500-plainfield-il.887157/
These weigh 120 lbs, and CV made even bigger.
Click to expand...
Yeah, mean I know they need to be big and solid, just wish they weren't THIS big and solid ;-)
 
1-12" subwoofer... much smaller and if you get the right one better sound. Then you are free to swap in smaller better speakers for the mids and top end to your hearts desire.
 
kfa888 said:
1-12" subwoofer... much smaller and if you get the right one better sound. Then you are free to swap in smaller better speakers for the mids and top end to your hearts desire.
Click to expand...
I've got a Boston Acoustics sub for my 5.1 system, but that's separate from the music system, which currently is running on a pair of Infinity CS 3006 bookshelves (3 way, 8" bass) that are really nice in my (currently) small living room. I've also got a pair of Klipsch RS towers and 2 other bookshelf sets of speakers that may or may not make the trip as well (Boston Acoustics HD9 that need a refoam) and a Sony bookshelf set. I could probably stick with the Infinity set but not sure it will fill my soon to be larger bedroom - the Klipsch, however, are 400W so I could possibly move them from the 5.1 to the music... but they are two-ways...
 
You have to make the decision that makes the most sense for your situation and your preferences. If it were me, I'd keep them. These speakers have good name recognition in the vintage community and have been putting smiles on people's faces for 30 years. Fix them and they should continue to do so for another 30. That, to me, is a lot more satisfying than buying some fad-of-the-month bookshelf speaker that will be forgotten and abandoned by the community within a handful of years. It's like owning an old muscle-car and trying to decide whether to keep it or sell it and buy some random compact car instead. People will still be talking about that old muscle car long after that new compact car has been crushed at the junkyard.

Of course, it would be an easier decision if both speakers were in working condition. If you don't realistically have the time and/or energy to fix them, then there is no point in keeping them just to have them take up space in your garage or storage unit.

And getting a subwoofer is always a great idea. Using a subwoofer because you have tiny main speakers that can't put out any decent bass of their own is fine... but what is even better is getting a sub that puts out bass in addition to having mains that can put out bass of their own. Having 3 sources of quality bass will almost always produce better results than 1 source of bass. The benefits of distributed bass are significant and easily noticeable, unless you are listening in an anechoic chamber.
 
My thinking is that you might kick yourself later if you sell them under duress so *if* you can take them you can decide later whether they're right for your needs.
 
Chris Brown said:
You have to make the decision that makes the most sense for your situation and your preferences. If it were me, I'd keep them. These speakers have good name recognition in the vintage community and have been putting smiles on people's faces for 30 years. Fix them and they should continue to do so for another 30. That, to me, is a lot more satisfying than buying some fad-of-the-month bookshelf speaker that will be forgotten and abandoned by the community within a handful of years. It's like owning an old muscle-car and trying to decide whether to keep it or sell it and buy some random compact car instead. People will still be talking about that old muscle car long after that new compact car has been crushed at the junkyard.

Of course, it would be an easier decision if both speakers were in working condition. If you don't realistically have the time and/or energy to fix them, then there is no point in keeping them just to have them take up space in your garage or storage unit.

And getting a subwoofer is always a great idea. Using a subwoofer because you have tiny main speakers that can't put out any decent bass of their own is fine... but what is even better is getting a sub that puts out bass in addition to having mains that can put out bass of their own. Having 3 sources of quality bass will almost always produce better results than 1 source of bass. The benefits of distributed bass are significant and easily noticeable, unless you are listening in an anechoic chamber.
Click to expand...
Thanks your thoughts. Re: working condition, I the other woofer is certainly fixable - $60 kit or I can probably get someone to do it for $100. So I've never been too worried about that. As far as uniqueness goes, these certainly have that - everyone that SEES them, nevermind hears them, is blown away.
 
I always figure that speakers like that would work great outdoors where you want something loud for a yard party...
 
As a CV fan, I’d say lug them out there and fix them up. They’re really one of the best looking and sounding Vegas. Huge? Yes. But awesome. Just my .02.
 
It's hard to beat 15" CVs for effortless sound and full bass even at low volumes.

I had difficulty finding the recone kit with the correct, ribbed cone for that woofer years ago, and was told at the time that they were no longer made. I ended up having both woofers reconed with the smooth cones just so they'd match.
 
stereofanboy said:
It's hard to beat 15" CVs for effortless sound and full bass even at low volumes.

I had difficulty finding the recone kit with the correct, ribbed cone for that woofer years ago, and was told at the time that they were no longer made. I ended up having both woofers reconed with the smooth cones just so they'd match.
Click to expand...
Yeah, sucks that the cone itself is in good shape - problem is the cylinder (or whatever it's called) grades against the sides. Any yeah, Simply Speakers' kit is a smooth cone
 
MRPerformance said:
If the cone is in good shape just replace the voice coil itself..
Click to expand...
Hmm, didn't know I could do that - all the videos I've seen show the cone being cut out. But yeah, if possible, I basically have a good cone and brand new foam - it's the coil and spider that need to be replaced. So (if I keep them) maybe I could lower the cost of getting it repaired? Just buy a voice coil and spider?
 
Either you like big speakers, or you downsize.
I personally plan to always have 1 pair of appliance size speakers in our home, since there is no substitute for well done big speakers.
I'm lucky - my wife likes the sound of the big speakers we have owned, and we have always owned nice looking ones..
 
redondo2018 said:
Yeah, sucks that the cone itself is in good shape - problem is the cylinder (or whatever it's called) grades against the sides. Any yeah, Simply Speakers' kit is a smooth cone
Click to expand...
That doesn't necessarily mean a recone. That's a common occurrence when you have no foam, or even sometimes bad foam. With it on it's magnet, can you move the cone up and down without scratching? This can be done by hand, but a 30Hz tone run through the woofer will center the VC and keep it moving so you can tilt it around a bit.
You may need to angle it a bit if there is a problem with the voice coil, but I've had a set of AT-10s I refoamed that my brother messed up the VC on but I was still able to get it to play just fine with a slightly tilted cone.
 
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