My New SDA-2Bs

mhanig
mhanig Posts: 10
edited August 2013 in Vintage Speakers
Afternoon,
So last night I purchased my first pair of good speakers. Mainly due to the active and helpful nature of this forum, I decided that it had to be some sort of SDA. Well a pair popped up on my local Craigslist for $250. Upon viewing the speakers I did the passive radiator test for stuck drivers, and they all checked out. I had my receiver with me and tried them out for a few minutes, but we were in an active warehouse e.g forklifts were driving about, so it wasnt really an ideal auditioning environment.
Unfortunately the cabinets were in rough shape. These are the later 2Bs so they have real woon veneer on the top and bottom with cloth on the sides. The cloth was in good shape, but the veneer was cracked and worn all over. Even the MDF base had wear on the rear corners.
Additionally, one of the the pins was broken at the base, enough was left to screw onto, but just barely.
Finally, he was having trouble locating the SDA cable, but the seller knew that it was somewhere in the warehouse, and he was going to be going though its contents in it's entirety in the next week. (I came on the last day of his lease, so he was moving everything into semis.
Given all the problems, I managed to talk him down to $190, with the agreement that if he found the SDA cable I would give him another $10.

So, I am currently making repair plans and have several questions:
1: Are there binding posts that can be purchased that can replace the stock ones without modifying the hole size?
2: I was planning on having a local furniture maker make new MDF tops and bases for the speakers with some exotic veneer (thinking ebony). Has anyone ever replaced this part of the cabinet successfully? I couldn't tell if they were mainly decorative or if they were the top and bottom of the cabinet.
3: If I end up having to make a new interconnect cable and install binding posts for that, will any decent post and cabling do?
4: Just out of curiosity, did I overpay in my haste to get a pair of SDAs?

P.S. I have them hooked up and they sound great even without the SDA cable. Way better than the Pioneer Cs-66s they replaced.
P.P.S I do have some experience with soldering speaker crossovers, having recapped the 66s earlier this summer.

Thanks for the help.
-M
Post edited by mhanig on

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