Have I stumbled across anything good?!

[OG]

Hi guys, was putting the Christmas tree away today and up in the loft I found a Denon pma-500v and some Tannoy Mercury MK1's. Apparently they were left here when my dad moved out and been in the loft ever since, I just plugged in the amp and it still powers on ok but one of the speakers has had the rubber perish around the woofer and so will need repairing or replacing (any ideas?!).

Just wondering if they are any good at all, bit of a noob when it comes to hi-fi and don't have any speaker cable handy to give everything a test

 

[Torch [P4]]

Mx1s not a bad speaker, I use them as rears on my av setup. Bit small for a stereo setup IMHO
Tannoy still do spares for these speakers, I bought some woofers for my MX3s and cost about £40ish

 

[lucid]

If the speakers are Mercury MK1's then they look like this...

I had a pair from new back in '84. They're a fair bit bigger than MX1 which are really a very compact bookshelf speaker by comparison. The Mercury MK1's are standmounters and need a bit of space to the rear and sides to work as intended.

There's no directly comparable product in the recent Mercury range. The old MK1's have the sort of bass depth that would be expected from current floor standers. The top end is sweet but slightly rolled off because of the soft dome tweeters.

These come up for sale every now and then on Ebay. Prices fluctuate a bit. £15-£60 depending which way the wind is blowing. The later MKII's are available for £30-£100.

What to do with the ones you have.... Only refurb them if you intend to keep them. Unless you find a decent s/h bass driver cheap you'll spend more fixing them than they'll return at auction.

The other alternative is to break them for spares. That's what I'd do. You'll have two decent tweeters, one bass unit, a couple of cross-overs (though they'll rarely be required) and a couple of grilles.

The Denon amp is well engineered, and has some nice features - a turntable input and pre-amp outs to drive an extra power amp...it's just that..well, it sounds a bit flat and uninteresting compared to the British amps and the better Japanese of the day. The Rotel RA820bx, Creek CAS4040, or NAD 3020 would have been first choice alternatives for musicality. Creeks fetch £40-£60 on average.

What to do with the amp is a more puzzling question. It's not a desirable "Hi-Fi Classic", but equally it's not tatt either. In fact it'll probably keep going for another 10-20 years if kept clean. Advertise it in the right way - emphasise the phono stage - and you might be in with a shout of shifting it to a vinyl enthusiast/home DJ. The other choice is to keep it and use it with some speakers you've bought with the money from breaking the Tannoys.

 

[OG]

Wow thanks lucid I really appreciate the help! I just hooked up the denon amp to my Tannoy Mercury Customs that I got a few years back and yes you are right although the amp does kick out a lot of power it isn't 'all that' but still pretty good for general use.

Moving on to the speakers it turns out they are Mark II's (apparently I can't read) I was just wondering how best to go about selling them on as spares? Is ebay my best bet or any other specialist forums?

Thanks for the help

 

[lucid]

Moving the speaker bits: Ebay will give you the biggest audience, but you are at the mercy of the auction process. Go for a 30 day listing for maximum exposure. You can always close the listing in the last few days if there's no interest. Tip: Make sure you take some good pictures. Use a real camera, not your phone. Get the subject well lit and make sure the shots are in focus. I never buy items where the pictures are bad or ripped from other auctions. To me it signifies that the seller doesn't give a **** and I just walk away.

Advertising on the specialist audio and hi-fi forums won't hurt. Try hifiwigwam, pinkfish and audiosmile as starting points. Use Google to find more sites. Again, support your ads with good pictures. Use a hosting site - photobucket etc - for your images. Once again, your selling something secondhand and you want the buyers to feel as confident as possible that you have decent gear to sell. You'll get a better price that way.

Pricing: Do some research. Look at old listings. Way up what similar gear has sold for then price yours accordingly and don't take the P with the postage charges. Royal Mail's web site has pricing guides so you can get a good idea of shipping costs. e.g. a tweeter should cost around £3.50 1st class recorded or £6.00 by special delivery.