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garage sale find, worth fixing?

B

barryWest

Active Member
So was at a garage sale this morning and picked up an old kenwood KA-3500 amp in near mint condition for 10 bucks. He asked if I wanted a free set of speakers and when my wife wasn't looking I scooped em' up. Although I wasn't sure about the brand, mirage sounded vaguely familiar, they were heavy and the cabinets were in great shape so I thought what the heck.

Anyway, they are mirage sm-4's and as you can see from the pics the woofers are in pretty rough shape. Are these worth fixing or should I just junk them? If they are worth fixing, where do I begin? I've heard mention of 'refoaming' quite a bit on this forum but as a newb in speaker repair, I'm not sure if that is what these would require or how it is done. From the snaps, you can see that the foam around the paper cone is falling off. The other speaker is not so bad, but with any amount of base the whole cone/foam moves so much it vibrates like hell.
 

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Dude, if you're reluctant to do the work yourself, there are repair shops who will do it for you. And it's not all that expensive, maybe $30 or so.

Mirage makes excellent speakers. Well, well worth the effort.
An amazing score for free, no less.

Please don't trash them.

If you don't want them, send them to me.

Dave
 
Even the bottom of the line Mirage models sound good, so definitely don't trash them! Check your phone book and see if there are any shops that repair speakers in your area and try to get a professional refoam job at a reasonable price. Or you can resell them "as is" and make pure profit on whatever you get.
 
dread31 said:
Dude, if you're reluctant to do the work yourself, there are repair shops who will do it for you. And it's not all that expensive, maybe $30 or so.
Mirage makes excellent speakers. Well, well worth the effort.
An amazing score for free, no less.
Dave
Click to expand...

Between the searches I've done tonight on these speakers, and the couple replies to my post, it is obvious that they are worth saving; thanks for the feedback and I'm glad my instinct kicked in and I picked them up. In answer to your comment, I am definitely not reluctant to do the work myself, I just wasn't sure if it was worth it as I was not familiar with the brand.

That being said, any suggestions on where to get a re-foaming kit? I do know of a local speaker repair shop so I'll see what they can do for me.
 
Do it yourself by obtaining a kit from an Ebay vendor who will set you up with the correct kit if you email your request. I'd recommend a kit with white glue as it is more forgiving. It's a project but a relative piece of cake.
 
Don't trash them! I have a pair identical to them but my tweeters were shot along with the woofer foam. I've refoamed them and put them back in the cabinets and I was surprised! They sound really good. Almost but not quite as good as EPI 8 inchers.
 
Don't junk them. If you are not willing to do the work, or pay someone to do the work, I think you can find an AK'er willing to pay for shipping, and pick one of the above options. :yes:
 
barryWest said:
...I'm glad my instinct kicked in and I picked them up.
Click to expand...

Let's face it, if they were $5 instead of free, you'd have left them there because your "instinct" had told you the woofers were pretty messed up when all they need is a simple re-foam.

Congrats on a very nice find.
 
I don't know anything about Mirage speakers, but I didn't hear you say what if anything you heard when you hooked them up to test them. If you hear nothing maybe you could test each tweeter and/or woofer by itself. That might be a good first place to start. . . . Just a thought !
 
AzFeedback said:
I don't know anything about Mirage speakers, but I didn't hear you say what if anything you heard when you hooked them up to test them. If you hear nothing maybe you could test each tweeter and/or woofer by itself. That might be a good first place to start. . . . Just a thought !
Click to expand...

When I hooked them up, there was obvious distortion/vibration whenever there was any bass in the music. On the one speaker, the woofer foam surrounds are non existent (see my pics), just a few patches hanging on.
On the other speaker the foam surround is more or less 'intact', but completely detached from the cone, so the cone was moving independent of the surround. Actually, I applied a bit of pressure to the foam so that it would contact the cone and voila, most of the distortion was gone on that speaker.
 
Barry, I am one of the clumsiest goons to wield a glue bottle, and I've successfully refoamed several pairs of speakers. OK, a had a do-over once, but the mistakes didn't kill the speaker. Do them yourself.

The vibration comes from the speaker cone whizzing around without the proper support. Refoam and I'm pretty sure that will disappear.

Nice score!
 
HepcatWilly said:
Barry, I am one of the clumsiest goons to wield a glue bottle, and I've successfully refoamed several pairs of speakers. OK, a had a do-over once, but the mistakes didn't kill the speaker. Do them yourself.

The vibration comes from the speaker cone whizzing around without the proper support. Refoam and I'm pretty sure that will disappear.

Nice score!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm working on getting the foam surrounds right now, will hopefully not take too long. Can you, or anyone else, recommend any articles either in this forum or elsewhere on the internet which describes the procedure? I got quite few hits after a google on the subject.
 
Whole lotta threads about refoams. Do some searching here on refoam and you will get hours of discussion. It's pretty straight forward.
 
Don't play any music through them until they are re-foamed, it's a sure route to disaster.
 
Refoaming is easy.. I did my first pair when I was 14. Glue the surround to the cone first, let dry, center and glue to the basket. Done.
 
those are fine little speakers. look like the mirage SM-.5 model . i've owned a pair back
in 1982 , traded up to the SM-2.5 in '83 - one of my all -time favorite speakers.

canadian. Audax drivers.

fix 'em .
 
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