Found speakers in basement - need advice

[mbamg]

Long story short I found a pair of Mordaunt-Short MS35Ti's with their stands in the basement while I was putting away Christmas decorations. I brought these out and my dad told me that he bought these in Singapore in the 80s with a Marantz amp and a Pioneer LaserDisc Player. I figured that this would be a great way to get into speakers, but I believe that the amp and the disk player were thrown out (stupid I know) a few years back. I'm a total noob at this so please forgive me if I sound stupid.

Now I have a few questions:

1. Do the MS35Ti's require proprietary cables or will any M-M RCA cable do (the ones I found with the speakers have slightly recessed heads)?

2. How do I clean these speakers (there's dirt/dust accumulating on the cones)?

3. Can I power them with a Sony home theater receiver? If not what should I use?

4. Are these speakers optimized for any particular role (front, rear)?

5. What is the expected sound signature of this particular model?

I also found a pair of Kenwood S-822's. I couldn't find any information on them through Google so if anyone knows what they sound like please advise.

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

Nice speakers!

1) Speakers require proper speaker cables, not RCA interconnects. You don't need overpriced scam cables like Monster, but something stranded copper with a thicker diameter should do fine. Different speakers have different connectors - bananas, spades, or plain cable twisters - check out what you need.
2) A feather duster should do it for paper cones. If the cones appear to be some more rigid/smooth material, carefully try a damp cloth.
3) Depends on the impedance of the speakers, if the amp can handle them.
4) Heh, back in the days there was no consumer surround stuff - they're stereo speakers. Just listen to them and find out where you want them to have in a 5.1 setup.
5) Just listen to them.

[mbamg]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Nice speakers!

1) Speakers require proper speaker cables, not RCA interconnects. You don't need overpriced scam cables like Monster, but something stranded copper with a thicker diameter should do fine. Different speakers have different connectors - bananas, spades, or plain cable twisters - check out what you need.
2) A feather duster should do it for paper cones. If the cones appear to be some more rigid/smooth material, carefully try a damp cloth.
3) Depends on the impedance of the speakers, if the amp can handle them.
4) Heh, back in the days there was no consumer surround stuff - they're stereo speakers. Just listen to them and find out where you want them to have in a 5.1 setup.
5) Just listen to them.

1) The cables that I found look exactly like RCA cables but with the heads recessed into the housing. I was thinking of buying some cables from monoprice or ebay.

2) I'm going to do that sometime.

3) On the back it says "Nominal impedance: 8 Ohms". I'm not really sure what these means for the receiver. I thought wattage had something to do with that too but I can't find the exact specs for this pair.

[mbamg]

Can you tell me what sort of cable I have? I took a picture:

[Olley]

The cable pictured is an RCA cable. That connection was more common when those speakers were new than it is now for speakers.

[mbamg]

Oh that's great, then. I can just buy two RCA cables for less than $5 off the internet.

I'm not sure what to look for when I determine whether my receiver can power the speakers. I know the impedance is 8 ohms but apart from that I don't know how to figure this out.

[Syndrome]

Looking around for their watt rating, online it says they're from 30-100 watts. What is the model of your receiver/amp? You should be able to google the model and figure out how many watts per channel.

[mbamg]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Looking around for their watt rating, online it says they're from 30-100 watts. What is the model of your receiver/amp? You should be able to google the model and figure out how many watts per channel.

My receiver is the STR-K840P. According to the manual the minimum rated output at stereo mode (it varies by area code) is 90W + 90W, and the maximum is 120W + 120W. I'm not sure which area code I belong to (U, CA, CEL, CEK, SR, SP, or other). There's also this 8 Ohms, 1 kHz, THD 0.7% thing that I don't have a clue about.

[Syndrome]

You're right around 100 watts per channel then. Which is about perfect for those speakers.

[Big Sky]

I found this image on the netz. I went looking because I could not believe that a speaker is connected with RCA's. RCA speaker connection went out for the most part in the early seventies. By looking at the picture are you sure that the terminals are not female banana plug?

Banana Plugs




Speakers of this quality might be Banana plug the size of the hole leads me to believe this and know the fact that the speaker can be Bi-Amped.

[mbamg]

Originally Posted by Big Sky

I found this image on the netz. I went looking because I could not believe that a speaker is connected with RCA's. RCA speaker connection went out for the most part in the early seventies. By looking at the picture are you sure that the terminals are not female banana plug?

Banana Plugs




Speakers of this quality might be Banana plug the size of the hole leads me to believe this and know the fact that the speaker can be Bi-Amped.

I've never seen a banana plug until I googled it yesterday thanks to dfkt's suggestion, so I have absolutely no idea whether those holes are banana or not. If you believe so then I guess I'll buy some and try them out.

By the way, what does Bi-Amped mean?

[Syndrome]

It means you can cut the speakers internal cross over out. You can send one signal to the tweeter, and another to the woofer. In most cases its not used.

[Big Sky]

Originally Posted by mbamg

I've never seen a banana plug until I googled it yesterday thanks to dfkt's suggestion, so I have absolutely no idea whether those holes are banana or not. If you believe so then I guess I'll buy some and try them out.

By the way, what does Bi-Amped mean?

I saw while googling the speaker I saw that they could be (Bi-Amp-in short: one amp serves to handle low-frequencies and the other amp the high-frequencies) if you wanted to do something like that. Which I suspect you don't. It was a trend in the 80's and early 90's. Hi-end manufactures still make bi-amp speakers. The reference to Hi-End should give you an idea going this route is going to cost you money in short.

[mbamg]

Originally Posted by Big Sky

I saw while googling the speaker I saw that they could be (Bi-Amp-in short: one amp serves to handle low-frequencies and the other amp the high-frequencies) if you wanted to do something like that. Which I suspect you don't. It was a trend in the 80's and early 90's. Hi-end manufactures still make bi-amp speakers. The reference to Hi-End should give you an idea going this route is going to cost you money in short.

If I still had the Marantz amp... I guess there's no use crying over spilt milk.

Edit: So I watched a tutorial on Monoprice on banana plugs. For MD/Tape the Sony receiver only takes RCA connections and for surround it will only take the pin-crimp type banana plug. Would the MS35Ti's take both the open and closed screw type banana plugs?

[Syndrome]

Note: to Bi-Amp your speakers, each speaker enclosure needs to have two sets of terminals, this means two red and two black, if you don't have this then it isn't Bi-Amp ready. And if you only want to use single amp then you need to connect the two on the outside to make them use the same signal.

Edit: The spin or crimp style effects how the wires hook into the plug. If a banana plug fits those terminals, it wont matter which style you use. I usually get the spin and solder my wires to them.

[mbamg]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Note: to Bi-Amp your speakers, each speaker enclosure needs to have two sets of terminals, this means two red and two black, if you don't have this then it isn't Bi-Amp ready. And if you only want to use single amp then you need to connect the two on the outside to make them use the same signal.

Edit: The spin or crimp style effects how the wires hook into the plug. If a banana plug fits those terminals, it wont matter which style you use. I usually get the spin and solder my wires to them.

According to my observations and the photos of the rear of the speakers, there is only one set of terminals. Does that mean that my speakers cannot be Bi-Amped?

[Syndrome]

Not without modification.


Those are my speakers, and they can truely be Bi-Amped.

[Big Sky]

Sorry for the confusion guys, I read that they could be bi-amped. The Mordaunt-Short MS35Ti's may have been sold with both types on configs. The picture shows a non-bi-amp config. I have not seen mbamg's speakers so I thought I would mention it to draw out some better description of the speaker in this post.

The picture I posted shows a recessed female post set up so it looks unlikely that you would be able to screw and crimp straight wire to the post. I am only going by what I can see in the picture. Due to being recessed might lead a person to believe that the post are RCA's.

So if your speakers have only one pair of post they can not be Bi-Amped.