Marantz m16 Speakers

[Tightlines]

I am looking for more info on some Marantz m16 speakers. I have never seen them and have no idea what they are worth or if I should get them

Any help and if would be greatly appreciated!

 

[swechsler]

Have you seen this thread? Apparently they are very rare and very good. No idea what they'd be worth (I found a pair on Reverb for $1000 from several years ago); it would depend on condition, but I'd probably seriously consider them if all drivers were original. See that thread for what the drivers should look like.

Their MSRP was $699 each in 1980.

To give you some idea, that's more than some well-known contemporaries like the Altec model 14 ($530), Allison One ($480), Bose 901/IV ($950/pr), Boston Acoustics A200 ($370), Dahquist DQ-10 ($1000/pr), Epicure 3.0 ($475) and ESS Monitor ($696). Oh, and the JBL L150 ($650). That puts them in some pretty rarefied company.

They were cheaper than AR9s ($800), though.

 

[Tightlines]

Thank you
that is a lot of great info and very helpful.

It does have after market woofers and a few blemishes that will need some work but they are asking 150.00 so I fell it’s still a good deal.

TY again.

 

[doctorolds]

If you decide to purchase them be sure to ask the seller if he held on to the original woofers by chance!

 

[Tightlines]

If you decide to purchase them be sure to ask the seller if he held on to the original woofers by chance!

I will definitely do that but I am not hopeful. I was trying to look up what an an original replacement would cost for the woofer? But for 150.00 it might be worth it and and then keep looking.

 

[swechsler]

At that price I wouldn't hesitate, even if the woofers aren't original. I'd say the odds of finding a set of new woofers to be extremely low, though. I'm sure Marantz no longer carries them.

If you sign up to the Parts Express Tech Talk website (registration can sometimes take more than a week) they can probably suggest a good replacement for the woofer. While you're unlikely to find another pair of M16s being parted out, some other Marantz speakers used woofers that were at least superficially similar. You might set up an automated search on eBay for 12" marantz woofer and wait until you see something that looks right. In the meantime, do whatever googling you can to try and figure out the part numbers of the original woofers. I'd say contact the OP of the previous thread, but it looks like he hasn't been active here in almost 10 years.

Wonder if anyone knows who made the woofers for Marantz? That might be another avenue to pursue. AFAIK Marantz never made their own drivers, and it's possible that the manufacturer made the same woofer for sale to the public (albeit without the hexagonal frame).

 

[Tightlines]

Thank you for the great ideas and thoughts. I am thinking it will probably be a wait game but that’s ok too.