Snell AIIIi - Replace or keep?

Please keep them.

I have owned a pair of Snell AIIIi's since 1989. I now bi-amp them with BAT 6200 amp (400W into 4 ohms), FIM gold speaker cables, and Jena Labs Symphony IC's. They are placed 20" from the wall, with room acoustic material on the back wall. The cables and amp cost me 4 times as much as the speakers, but I would not trade this configuration for speakers costing tens of thousands. Jab and Dave are right. Their wide sound stage and musicality (particularly midrange) would be impossible to match in the sub $2000 price range. You may begin to get closer at around $10K and up.

You guys are telling me what I was afraid of hearing! I was kind of hoping someone would tell me I'd be lucky to get $1200 for them and should take the money and run. My apartment has a weird layout, but if I do a little reconfiguring they might be able to be up against the wall - they'd have to be about six feet apart and I would have to move a wall mounted cd rack, but it could be done I suppose. When I went to a stereo store by my house the guy tried to convince me that speaker technology has advanced and the snells were good for their day but have kind of been surpassed. They sound awesome to me, though. I tried hooking up some b&ws 602s I had kicking around in a smaller system, and they did not sound anywhere near as good (though admittedly those aren't in the same class, but given how much newer they were and the talk of technological advance I thought they might be close). That's what got me worried and caused me to reconsider getting rid of them. Would used Magnepan 3.6's for around $1000 be comparable? They would at least have a smaller footprint. And do I need to worry about the snell's age? I know nothing of how to repair things and snell doesn't do the repairs anymore apparently to the old type a's. Thanks again for any advice.

If you can buy Maggie 3.6's for a $1,000....DO IT! You can sell them at a very nice profit.

Dave

I'm obviously a bit unschooled in this stuff - after seeing Dave's post I went back to look at the details - I meant 1.6's - there's a big difference between those and the 3.6's I imagine.

Snell still repairs every speaker they have made. Last year the rubber rings around both 12 inch woofers dried out and fell apart. I sent the drivers to Snell and they had them re-coned (and doped by the same technician who had assembled them originally - his initials are inside the cabinet). This is the only driver that has to be re-coned. They have a replacement for all others. The replacement price list is on their website.