Spendor Speakers

Mather said:
Wondering if someone replaced the original woofer with the newer S/1 Classic model woofer which appears to match.

View attachment 141118
And the placement of the screw holes appears different than the OG woofer so perhaps it would only fit two screws into the OG cabinet due to the placement of the holes. All the R2s show the Spendor badge on the front of the speaker whereas your units have it on the tweeter which matches the R1.
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Total speculation on my part...
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This is what I’m thinking as well. It seems that the pointed woofers that are black are more recent. And I see the difference in hole placement. Going to take them to my dealer to have him take a look. They sound excellent but want it hashed out.
 
Reached out to the seller, who claims the speakers were gifted to him by his father and was unaware of any changes. He reached out to the father, who confirmed he replaced the OG woofers with the newer Spendor Classic 3/1 woofers about 2 years ago and that he didn’t want to screw into the wood so only used the two holes that matched.

This leads to a couple questions. First, any compatibility issues with the newer woofer and the older tweeter and crossover? Second, can/should I attach using all the screw holes and how to do that?
 
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Slimwhit33 said:
Reached out to the seller, who claims the speakers were gifted to him by his father and was unaware of any changes. He reached out to the father, who confirmed he replaced the OG woofers with the newer Spendor Classic 3/1 woofers about 2 years ago and that he didn’t want to screw into the wood so only used the two holes that matched.

This leads to a couple questions. First, any compatibility issues with the newer woofer and the older tweeter and crossover? Second, can/should I attach using all the screw holes and how to do that?
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Yeah those definitely seem like valid questions. The SP2 has a mounting ring behind the woofer as I'd assume the SP3 likely would have as well. So, I guess maybe a shop could... drill holes in it for additional screw placements? Although just typing that makes me a little squirrelly.
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Slimwhit33 said:
Aside from woofergate, these are mesmerizing speakers from a sound perspective in my little room. They absolutely disappear, and they throw out a detailed soundstage.. special.
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I’ve long wanted a pair of Spendors, the A7 and some of its progenitors specifically. Harder to get in the US pre-owned market and still a bit pricey.
 
Looking for a little advice if anyone is willing to dole it out..

I heard back from Spendor this morning, and below is a snippet of that communication:

"One aspect that concerns us is the point you make about the woofer only being connected with two screws. The bass unit performance is greatly influenced by how securely and rigidly it is mounted into the cabinet. We use 6 M5 bolts all set at 3Nm torque setting. This ensures the bass units are rigidly connected into the cabinet so they can respond precisely to the musical signal from the crossover. You can lose a great deal of dynamic information if this mechanical interface is not secure. You will also have airgaps around the chassis/cabinet junction, which takes away performance from the sound because of unwanted/uncontrolled air loss."

After reading this, I immediately decided to request a return/refund as I just wasn't thrilled with the price I paid $750) for undisclosed, non-original woofers.. The seller immediately came back and offered a $500 refund and I keep the speakers. For $250 I don't feel like I can go wrong, and could get them properly fixed, either by having a woodshop create new mounting holes for the newer style woofers, or see of the old style woofers are still available to purchase (I've reached out to my dealer about this option..) so they can be back to original.

I'm just curious if, for $250, you'd just hold onto them and get them fixed or would you turn and burn and cut your losses?
 
Slimwhit33 said:
Looking for a little advice if anyone is willing to dole it out..

I heard back from Spendor this morning, and below is a snippet of that communication:

"One aspect that concerns us is the point you make about the woofer only being connected with two screws. The bass unit performance is greatly influenced by how securely and rigidly it is mounted into the cabinet. We use 6 M5 bolts all set at 3Nm torque setting. This ensures the bass units are rigidly connected into the cabinet so they can respond precisely to the musical signal from the crossover. You can lose a great deal of dynamic information if this mechanical interface is not secure. You will also have airgaps around the chassis/cabinet junction, which takes away performance from the sound because of unwanted/uncontrolled air loss."

After reading this, I immediately decided to request a return/refund as I just wasn't thrilled with the price I paid $750) for undisclosed, non-original woofers.. The seller immediately came back and offered a $500 refund and I keep the speakers. For $250 I don't feel like I can go wrong, and could get them properly fixed, either by having a woodshop create new mounting holes for the newer style woofers, or see of the old style woofers are still available to purchase (I've reached out to my dealer about this option..) so they can be back to original.

I'm just curious if, for $250, you'd just hold onto them and get them fixed or would you turn and burn and cut your losses?
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I would 100% keep. But it all depends on financial situation really. But for that price it seems like a cool project.
 
As Mather said for the price, you don't mind a little project, and if you like the Sound I would keep them.

Then you can find a local woodworker/shop to professionally sink the mounting holes with correct equipment for you with the instruction
from Spendor. I would ask them to send the correct screws to you if they can.

Did they say anything about a gasket between the woofer and cabinet as well btw ? Spendor is likely to be your best source for info on original woofers, if replacements are still available shipping from the UK is likely to be pretty expensive as well unless they have a distributor here with them stocked.
 
JohnnyCashFan said:
As Mather said for the price and if you like the Sound I would keep them.

Then you can find a local woodworker/shop to professionally sink the mounting holes with correct equipment for you with the instruction
from Spendor. I would ask them to send the correct screws to you if they can.

Did they say anything about a gasket between the woofer and cabinet as well btw ? Spendor is likely to be your best source for info on original woofers, if replacements are still available shipping from the UK is likely to be pretty expensive as well unless they have a distributor here with them stocked.
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Mather said:
I would 100% keep. But it all depends on financial situation really. But for that price it seems like a cool project.
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Thank you both for the replies.. I will likely keep them tbh.. I am dropping them off to my dealer this week and he will work with Spendor testing and verifying that they are performing as anticipated and find out how to properly mount the new ones, or source a new pair of the original drivers if possible.. I would think option 1 would keep me under $500 all in and option 2 less than $1000... either way I feel like I can live with them at that price and once corrected can likely fetch what I paid for or more for them so don't see much of a downside. My only real concern at this point is that I suppose the guy could have glued down the rest of the speaker to the cabinet, but I see no signs of that. I did remove both screws from one of them and the woofer seemed to be still in place. I didn't really try to pry them out since I wasn't sure if I was going to keep them, but I'll have the dealer do it. I think its a $250 gamble worth taking...

Thanks for the insights! Much appreciated!!
 
Slimwhit33 said:
Looking for a little advice if anyone is willing to dole it out..

I heard back from Spendor this morning, and below is a snippet of that communication:

"One aspect that concerns us is the point you make about the woofer only being connected with two screws. The bass unit performance is greatly influenced by how securely and rigidly it is mounted into the cabinet. We use 6 M5 bolts all set at 3Nm torque setting. This ensures the bass units are rigidly connected into the cabinet so they can respond precisely to the musical signal from the crossover. You can lose a great deal of dynamic information if this mechanical interface is not secure. You will also have airgaps around the chassis/cabinet junction, which takes away performance from the sound because of unwanted/uncontrolled air loss."

After reading this, I immediately decided to request a return/refund as I just wasn't thrilled with the price I paid $750) for undisclosed, non-original woofers.. The seller immediately came back and offered a $500 refund and I keep the speakers. For $250 I don't feel like I can go wrong, and could get them properly fixed, either by having a woodshop create new mounting holes for the newer style woofers, or see of the old style woofers are still available to purchase (I've reached out to my dealer about this option..) so they can be back to original.

I'm just curious if, for $250, you'd just hold onto them and get them fixed or would you turn and burn and cut your losses?
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For $250, keep them and hopefully you can get new original woofers from Spendor. They’ll have the best value that way and will perform as Spendor intended. I’m not a fan of just “upgrading” drivers willy nilly.
 
HiFi Guy said:
For $250, keep them and hopefully you can get new original woofers from Spendor. They’ll have the best value that way and will perform as Spendor intended. I’m not a fan of just “upgrading” drivers willy nilly.
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Agreed and me neither.. I'll ask for all options.. ideally he'd source and install a new set of original woofers. If they aren't available (I have no idea.. maybe thats why the prior owner bought the updated?) then Spendor said they would work with my dealer to verify if the new woofer works with the old tweeter and crossover. Heck, maybe they'll say I can buy a pair of the new Classic 3/1 Tweeters and crossovers and have them installed and mounted correctly with the Classic 3/1 drivers? No idea. But I'll find out and report back!
 
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Slimwhit33 said:
Agreed and me neither.. I'll ask for all options.. ideally he'd source and install a new set of original woofers. If they aren't available (I have no idea.. maybe thats why the prior owner bought the updated?) then Spendor said they would work with my dealer to verify if the new woofer works with the old tweeter and crossover. Heck, maybe they'll say I can buy a pair of the new Classic 3/1 Tweeters and crossovers and have them installed and the mounting corrected? No idea. But I'll find out and report back!
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See, I like this sort of adventure. Especially when the manufacturers are game...
 
Mather said:
See, I like this sort of adventure. Especially when the manufacturers are game...
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I was really impressed with the detail of their response and their willingness to get them fixed up correctly. The gentleman who replied to me, Mike, also included the US Distributors on the email who have been responding with places to take them... I let them know that Mike at Hudson Valley Hi-Fi in Cornwall, NY was going to take a look at them. They indicated that they would communicate with him about them.

No matter the outcome for this particular pair, my next speaker purchase will be new Spendors due to the sound I'm getting from this (possibly) not perfect sounding pair and the way they are supporting them.. they earned a customer. Couldn't be more impressed.
 
Slimwhit33 said:
I was really impressed with the detail of their response and their willingness to get them fixed up correctly. The gentleman who replied to me, Mike, also included the US Distributors on the email who have been responding with places to take them... I let them know that Mike at Hudson Valley Hi-Fi in Cornwall, NY was going to take a look at them. They indicated that they would communicate with him about them.

No matter the outcome for this particular pair, my next speaker purchase will be new Spendors due to the sound I'm getting from this (possibly) not perfect sounding pair and the way they are supporting them.. they earned a customer. Couldn't be more impressed.
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Yeah that's some fantastic service. When I still had my Revel speakers I was considering getting isolation feet for them, the type that screw into the speaker spike mounts. These particular Revels don't have removable feet, but the have the proper spike mounts, so I got in touch with them just to see if it would even be possible. We went back and forth a few times and they sent the question on to their tech lab. Like two days later I get an email where they've gone through every step in how to literally rip the mounted feet out of the base of the speaker, with photos of every step in the process of literally destroying the base of the speaker. It was incredible, and horrifying. But so super cool that they took the time and literally destroyed a pair of speakers to test it out...
 
Mather said:
Yeah that's some fantastic service. When I still had my Revel speakers I was considering getting isolation feet for them, the type that screw into the speaker spike mounts. These particular Revels don't have removable feet, but the have the proper spike mounts, so I got in touch with them just to see if it would even be possible. We went back and forth a few times and they sent the question on to their tech lab. Like two days later I get an email where they've gone through every step in how to literally rip the mounted feet out of the base of the speaker, with photos of every step in the process of literally destroying the base of the speaker. It was incredible, and horrifying. But so super cool that they took the time and literally destroyed a pair of speakers to test it out...
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That's amazing.. I have to say, that overall, my experiences with customer service like this from the audio manufacturers and sellers is much more common then I typically run across in other areas of life. My dealer is fantastic. He has patched me in to the Luxman folks a couple times when I had questions and they were awesome as well. Uncle Kevin talked to me about the Heresy III's that I bought from him for a half an hour when I called to place a phone order. He just happened to answer the phone.. not sure if that still happens as this was 3-4 years ago, but it was a great experience. MoFi was fantastic when I had an issue with my first UltraDeck. I honestly can't think of a negative experience I've had (knock on wood).. I feel like the audio industry still gets customer service for the most part..
 
Slimwhit33 said:
That's amazing.. I have to say, that overall, my experiences with customer service like this from the audio manufacturers and sellers is much more common then I typically run across in other areas of life. My dealer is fantastic. He has patched me in to the Luxman folks a couple times when I had questions and they were awesome as well. Uncle Kevin talked to me about the Heresy III's that I bought from him for a half an hour when I called to place a phone order. He just happened to answer the phone.. not sure if that still happens as this was 3-4 years ago, but it was a great experience. MoFi was fantastic when I had an issue with my first UltraDeck. I honestly can't think of a negative experience I've had (knock on wood).. I feel like the audio industry still gets customer service for the most part..
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I haven't yet had to get in touch with too many manufacturers but the few times I did it's been pretty good. But I think it's better the relatively smaller the company is. Most of my stuff comes through a family connection and it's all big big companies, so it's hit and miss I find with those ones.
 
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