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Thrift Store Hall Of Shame entry of the day: B&W DM3

dibmem

dibmem

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I see a lot of really crappy speakers when hitting the local thrift stores, but it's really a shame when you see something that looks beautiful and has been abused.

Here's a pair of B&W DM3 speakers at Salvation Army. (Apologies for the poor quality cell phone pics)

The first speaker I came across next to their usual pile of electronic junk was in nice cosmetic shape - beautiful cabinet and the grill cover was, for the most part, untouched. I was intrigued, although I don't really "need" another set of speakers, I just can't pass on good clean speakers when I see them.

I took off the cover and was disgusted. The original oval woofer had been removed and hastily "replaced" with another cheap, round woofer. It's not even surface mounted, just screwed into the face of the cabinet. Attempting to acheive the *worst possible sound* from these cabinets I suppose?

Found the other speaker across the store - gutted. Looks like the first speaker was destined to this fate before they gave up and threw them at the Salvation Army.
 

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If you can get them for nearly free those two tweeters are worth some $$$ and i bet there is some people here that would like them.
 
I know this is a horrible thing to see, but remember, it does have the grills on and most people running these stores aren't exactly <ahem!> experts on speakers. Maybe they just connected it to a receiver, saw that it produced sound, and then okayed it for sale without noticing its bad modifications. In other words, it's probably not the fault of the people running the store. I mean, would you prefer them to reject it because of its surgery and just throw it away, wasting the good tweeters and original drivers remaining?

Face it, there are indeed many stories of idiots running thrift stores. In this case, however, I think the surgeon to blame is the person who donated the item, not the store itself. In that case, maybe the topic of this thread should shift to "Speaker Modifications Gone Horribly Wrong."
 
Some thrift shops hire people with marginal IQs, as part of their charity work, so yes, do not blame the employees. I'm sure they had nothing to do with the speakers being in that shape. The guilty party is whoever mangled them before donating them.

THAT person should be :whip: :pistols: :bash: :uzi:
...and then they should be punished.
 
That is tragic. Like the others, though, I would have snagged the one with tweeters to have spares for my DM2a. Those are the same Celestion tweeter and Coles supertweeter in the Spendor BC-1. I can't believe they were so abused...the round peg in the oval hole is pretty funny, though, in a very sick way.
 
I think my title might sound like I blamed the employees of SA for the current condition of the speakers, but let me be clear - I am not blaming a charity store for doing these speakers such an injustice!

The butcher who dumped them at the store was definitely to blame - We visit this store regularly and none of their employees have a vicious streak to speak of.

I plan to do the usual round of T-stores today - If they are there, I'll see if I can get them priced (as they didn't have tags on them yesterday - new arrivals seldom do) and attempt to bring them home. Wish me luck!
 
Nice work. At least they didn't cut out the baffles for the round woofers. If you could find a set of the original woofers, you could probably bring them back to life.
 
I'm surprised they had the remainder of the parts for the baffle-less one. Most stores would have just thrown that away.
 
dibmem said:
Yep - I guessed it. Someone bought them - They are gone.
Click to expand...

Spendor BC1 top-end X2 passed on but time taken to post images of said donors.......

DoubleFacePalm.jpg
 
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