SRS 2.3TL Problem w/Tweeter

woodguru

Hi,

I just sold a beloved pair of the 2.3TL's locally to a guy who offered $500 when I was asking what I thought was a reasonable $850, I told him $650 was the bottom and he bought them at that. I used to be a high end dealer (my personal system I used to run with these Polks was about $60k with $25k of that in wire). To say I'm hyper critical of the sound is an understatement.

These were dead immaculate cosmetically and the cones all looked brand new and had very flexible rubber, I could see no problems.

The guy hooked them up to a marginally powered Marantz theater processor amp unit rated at 130/145 a channel or thereabout and found a tweeter to be out as evidenced by checking with an ohm meter and finding an open circuit (I think he said open) as he thought it was a coil.

He thinks I should pay for a new tweeter, I have a few issues there.

First of all I don't know whats up with his amp, he said there was no bass. I told him nobody would ever say these speakers have no bass, he had a major issue with his amp.

Had he paid my price I'd have paid for a $60 tweeter no problem. I also sold him a great $129 JPS Labs interconnect for $50 and a set of silver Sonic Bi-wire speaker cables with banana plugs for $50 so he'd get even more performance from the speakers.

He feels "burned" and thinks I sold him a set of speakers under false pretenses when the last time I heard these they were phenomenal. I can't help but think he did something weird between his amp having a problem and whatever he did hooking them up, or moving them. They were in the back of a pickup truck for a 120 mile ride with nothing around or over them.

What do you think guys, is this expected upkeep on a set of these bought at a good price or should I figure on paying for his problem and effectively end up having gotten under $600? These were sold as being cosmetically exceptional with very pampered use with incredible amps at 1600 watts each channel and never played overly loud.

I think he still got a great deal even after replacing a tweeter. By the way I would never replace a single tweeter, I'd replace all six at the same time and keep the older ones in the better shape as back-ups, tweeters have break in times, heck, I'd use it as an excuse to replace everything at the same time.

george daniel

Get him to bring em back and refund his money,, you sold em too cheap.

Vette C6.r

He may have tripped a polyswitch on the tweeter circuit. They reset themsleves after they cool down.

Other than that you sold them dirt cheap IMO.

vmaxer

george daniel wrote: »

Get him to bring em back and refund his money,, you sold em too cheap.

Too cheap indeed!! He can replace the tweeter and still have a great deal. Also, the way they were transported is terrible. I would say you owe nothing.

audiobilly

I wish I could find a set of 2.3tls' for $500 in that good of shape. I would not sweet the little stuff. Some of us broke **** hope to find a deal along the way.

Stand up for your beliefs, if indeed they were pristine when they left your possession. I agree with George, just hope that he doesn't screw them up any further on the trip back. To a certain degree, maybe you should go get them to save further damage. If the guy is balking now what else would he screw up in the process? Also if you go see him you can do his work for him, troubleshoot the system and see what is actually wrong, if he is an idiot, get your speakers, give him the money and go home.

gdb

Where are they now?

Toolfan66

Hell I would give him $650 as they are right now...

Ron Temple

You bent over backwards already. Might be damage in transport. He might not be using a common ground amp (no bass - tweeter damage-could be likely). Even if you unknowingly sold him the speakers with a bum tweeter, he still got a great deal. You're the Placerville guy right? It's tough to get your asking price in Norcal. We looked at your ad here on CP and thought it was a deal, but I see SDAs sitting on CL all the time...mostly smaller SDAs asking to much ($400 +). At $650 I would have driven a couple of hours and been happy.

audiobilly

What a waste of a GREAT set of speakers.

F1nut

You sold a pair of speakers not knowing if they functioned properly. Therefore, regardless of the price you sold them for, you owe the guy a new tweeter.

BTW, you cannot sell anything here until you reach 100 posts.

george daniel

Jesse's right,,if you sold them with a bad tweeter you gotta make it right,,or give him his money back.

hearingimpared

How does the seller know they weren't damaged during transit? Apparently not much care was given to pad them and just put in the back of a pickup truck. Pickups are notorious for jostling and have things jump up and down in the rear.

He feels "burned" and thinks I sold him a set of speakers under false pretenses when the last time I heard these they were phenomenal. I can't help but think he did something weird between his amp having a problem and whatever he did hooking them up, or moving them. They were in the back of a pickup truck for a 120 mile ride with nothing around or over them.

If in fact they were sold without knowing the tweeters were good then I would agree with both Jesse and George.

gdb

The buyer probably severed the conductor himself while attempting to test the tweeter. I bet it was the one with the lowest output. (bottom position?)

F1nut

gdb wrote: »

The buyer probably severed the conductor himself while attempting to test the tweeter. I bet it was the one with the lowest output. (bottom position?)

Did you actually read the first post?

and found a tweeter to be out as evidenced by checking with an ohm meter and finding an open circuit (I think he said open) as he thought it was a coil.

Bobsama

I say that the speakers are the buyer's problem now. Even so, the seller should have tested the speakers for a few minutes prior to sale, and again upon delivery. Et cetera. Actually, when I bought my SDA-1's for $325, one of the four SL1000 tweeters was dead and had to be replaced.

Hawkeye

Gosh for $50, I'd replace the tweeter just to be able to sleep at night.

Gordon

woodguru

F1nut wrote: »

You sold a pair of speakers not knowing if they functioned properly. Therefore, regardless of the price you sold them for, you owe the guy a new tweeter.

BTW, you cannot sell anything here until you reach 100 posts.

Right before I broke up my monster system and sold off components I sat for three hours with a sax playing friend and we listened to a slew of audiophile CD's such as Jennifer Warnes and Patricia Barber along with a lot of horn music. He has wanted those speakers since but doesn't have the bucks, he agrees that there was nothing wrong with them at that time and we would have heard a tweeter problem on what we were listening to.

It was my first concern that he banged them around going from Placerville to Livermore (over 100 miles). He declined to use any padding or cover over or beteen speakers and had them loose on a piece of carpet not even big enough for both speakers.

I registered disapproval and told him that these are notorious for moving fragility but he thought they would be alright. I thought perhaps some of you might have experience with speakers you knew were alright but had a problem after a move.

These were never taken apart by me on my watch as there was never any need.

Anyway the guy seems to be a bit more accepting of the fact that I have a pretty solid reputation that wouldn't support that I would ever sell anything I knew was defective. If I could be sure it was bad when I sold it we wouldn't be having this line of inquiry because I would buy him a tweeter. Heck, had he paid my asking price I'd have paid for it.

Years ago when I was a dealer I ate quite an array of things that I could be 100% sure was blown by stupid customers hooking things up wrong and just having idiotic systems. In this case I'm pretty sure there is a high degree of ineptness with how to hook up bi-wire speakers and variations available with a theater amp.


As pertains to selling anything, I was not aware of the 100 post rule and had intended to go right over to the flea market section when I found out about that.

F1nut

Polk tweeters do not go bad because of moving/shipping. The mid-drivers are another story. Blaming it on his perceived ineptness.....let's just say you are not doing yourself any favors here.

woodguru

F1nut wrote: »

Polk tweeters do not go bad because of moving/shipping. The mid-drivers are another story. Blaming it on his perceived ineptness.....let's just say you are not doing yourself any favors here.

I get the impression short of a couple of guys who go into the replace it mode that the price was right at $650 regardless of whether it needs a new tweeter or not. My integrity concerning several hundred stereo equipment transactions has never come into question. Had we set them up for a listen and heard the bad tweeter he either would have bought them as is for $650 or I would have ordered a new tweeter yesterday and held firm on a higher price that reflected at least the cost of the new tweeter. As I also said, had he paid $850 I would have ordered him a new tweeter, it comes down to whether $650 is a good price regardless, which it is.

Anyway thanks for the input, it's a mixed bag as far as how people look at things like this, some people get pretty silly with where they think a seller of used items has to go. There's always someone on a forum that will beat up one position or another regardless of where the common opinion lies, it's what makes forums interesting.

F1nut

I'm sorry, but here at Club Polk we do the right thing regardless. That's one of the things that makes Club Polk the best audio forum, period.

For example, I sold a gentleman here a set of tested/working speakers. A month or two later he informed me that he finally had a chance to hook them up at his place and found that there was a problem with the woofers. I asked him to remove the grills and check all 8 woofers. He reported that 7 of the 8 had issues with the foam surrounds. I told him that I would either take the speakers back and refund his money in full or that I would buy him 8 new woofers despite the fact that I gave him a very good deal on the speakers. He elected to have me provide him with new woofers, which I did. He still owns and enjoys the speakers and I sleep very well at night.

woodguru

I just got a call from the guy, he now figures the Marantz theater reciever isn't enough for the 2.3's so he wants to buy the Yamaha MX-1000U from me. I told him $450 which is an excellent deal even needing the RCA jacks replaced. It is in truly mint condition except for those hokey plastic jacks.

Now he'll have a system that sounds pretty good. I sold him a custom set of DH Labs T-14 bi-wire with excellent bananas and a JPS Labs I/C each for $50 so he has done good, I have another interconnect I'm giving him to offset the $60 for the tweeter he ordered from Polk today.

Reading between the lines he wasn't too disgruntled about the tweeter or the way I dealt with him or he wouldn't be buying an amplifier from me. He is a real nice guy that I hit it off well with and I'm sure he feels like I took care of him well with the extras he got at a great price.

When buying and selling used items such as stereo equipment implied responsibility can be taken way too far. I feel a responsibility if I have missed or misrepresented something and it is important to me to leave someone feeling like they were treated right. The kind of feedback I get on audiogon and ebay reflects the fact that I do care. I buy a tremendous amount of things online and I know what can be expected reasonably. I bought the 2.3's three years or so ago figuring I might have to go through them because of their age. Had I got home and found drivers needing to be replaced I doubt I'd have even called the guy.

Anyway 'nuff said, apparently the buyer isn't too concerned about the extra $60 and I will make it up to him in spades on the amp and another set of nice I/C's.

woodguru

F1nut wrote: »

I'm sorry, but here at Club Polk we do the right thing regardless. That's one of the things that makes Club Polk the best audio forum, period.

For example, I sold a gentleman here a set of tested/working speakers. A month or two later he informed me that he finally had a chance to hook them up at his place and found that there was a problem with the woofers. I asked him to remove the grills and check all 8 woofers. He reported that 7 of the 8 had issues with the foam surrounds. I told him that I would either take the speakers back and refund his money in full or that I would buy him 8 new woofers despite the fact that I gave him a very good deal on the speakers. He elected to have me provide him with new woofers, which I did. He still owns and enjoys the speakers and I sleep very well at night.

My hat's off to you. Hey, I want to buy a used set of speakers from you so you can rebuild anything that isn't perfect.

After two months the foam could deteriorate if they were in the garage, the bottom line is that if you tested them and they looked and sounded good you represented them just like that at the point of sale, it is then a done deal. If you want to take it to the point of replacing that many drivers (it sounds like it cost more than you sold them for) fine, I won't. Had you replaced the drivers and sold them as newly refurbished you'd have gotten more money.

You don't buy a vintage car at a great price and expect the seller to replace rotted rubber two months later. If he represents it as having great molding then that's different.

I sold a Mint condition Lincoln with 50k miles to a real estate broker, he paid $150 for diagnostic work to make sure it was in mint condition, paid me top dollar for it in light of the immaculate shape it was in.

Four weeks later he calls me and tells me he has a fuel problem with an expensive throttle body that is going to be about $2500 to fix. I ask him what it is he wants me to do about it, he says without batting an eye that he wants his money back. Basically I'm thinking this guy has a great standup comedy routine going but it isn't happening on my watch. Being the diplomatic sort I am I ask him where the car is now and figure I'll recommend a great mechanic that might save him a grand or so. He says it's in a body shop right now being repaired. I ask what happened and he says a car ran out of control and hit his Lincoln while it was parked in front of his office, damn near totalled it, but he adds he's getting it all fixed up like new.

I gave up all pretense of being nice and diplomatic and told him to take a flying fornication to a rolling donut and stop wasting my time. Buyers have no perspective on what makes sense for a seller to be responsible for. Dealers eat the stupidest consumer meltdowns and self generated errors that fry equipment imaginable. They are typically forced to cover these errors in the name of good manufacturer reputations. As a private non dealer enthusiast the buck stops with a good deal at point of sale unless otherwise specified.

Now when I sell cable it is usually under the blanket of money back if it doesn't work. I have had no examples of people wanting their money back unless it's to apply the first purchase to an upgrade once our dialog and example reference is set to where I can quantify further improvents comparison wise.

halo71

^ Yeah, I think I smell troll ****. You seem to be lurking around until that magic number of posts are in your grasp to start selling wire. Or you are off your meds one. Because the posts you made in this thread are all over the place!

You said you were a high end dealer. But you didn't know the value of these speakers, or if what you got for them was a good price? :rolleyes: When people here give you their opinions to your questions, you seem to not like it. :rolleyes:

hearingimpared

Yamaha MX-1000U - year manufactured 1988- MSRP $1200;

Twenty two year old amp with broken RCAs, mint condition!?! $450 - excellent deal!?!:rolleyes: