Quote Originally Posted by thekid
The newbie here has been told that he is wasting his time with these and his grammar is poor. Would anyone be surprised if he decided not to come back??
Agreed.

I peruse the speaker forum every now and then just incase there are any interesting DIY threads going, and was quite saddened to read most of this post.

I do have to agree that those Mach One's are not worth a lot of money and effort as far as resale value goes, but if a person was wanting a good set of speakers on which to practice restoration technique, it may as well be these. I don't know exactly how old this young dude is, but if we remember right, we all had different tastes in gear when we was youngins. Hell, I'd still rather own a set of Klipsch Cornwalls than any speaker I've heard since...if I were inclined to buy speakers instead of build them myself. Those Mach Ones with the flaired horn are going to sound different from a lot of current designs, especially in a world where DSPs determine imaging as much as design. Sometimes its not always about sounding better, just different, and in audio, its ok to keep a harum.

Finding exact replacement drivers for that particular speaker, speaking of the horn mid/tweets, could be somwhat of a challenge. It depends on whether or not the midrange driver unit can be seperated from the back of the big horn (if its threaded that'd be great). The smaller tweeter might be replaced with a tad bit of alteration to panel in which its mounted, and L-pads are easy to replace. Any of these drivers can be sourced at Parts Express dot com. We could talk Theil/Small parameters later, but I doubt the crossovers in these things are anything more than 1st order capacitors, making driver replacement a lot less complicated. Some older Ratshacks' cabinets are actually pretty good. Back in them days, double-sided veneered cabs were the cheap cabinet of their day, but in these times, a sheet of double-sided veneer will cost you pert near $70-$80! Few mass market speaker manufacturors use anything that expensive today. Too bad that these have corner damage. If its just impact damage, then you could fill it and stain it to serviceable effect, but if the cabs have water damage, then any repairs you perform is just, well...chasing your tail. If particle board gets too wet, its history.

As far as correcting grammar goes, I understand where this is coming from... we want to help, but we have wonder to what extent we'll be listened to anyway, given that attempting decent grammar within a text is usaully (not always) a good indicator of a person's apptitude and comprehension. Nobody wants to spin their wheels, nor watch someone else spin their wheels. However pertinent the advise on grammar was, such things are better suited for a PM. None of us here practise perfikt grammer anyhoo.