Just came today from London, It’s a ‘96 build in very good condition, aluminium plates are correct. I already have some neoprene sheets and Loctite 595, then with the help of a willing friend, we’ll replace the gaskets
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Sunday i also collected at Music For Life, these Kan 1, apparently in very good condition. However, once at home, cleaning them with a damp cloth, they have release tons of black residue. I’m very disappointed for this. I don’t know who’s the idiot who covered them with black wax ? or whatever is it. I told him today, you fix itor take it back.
These and the above are replacing either S400 & S600
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Rega 3 also returned with a new ND7 fitted.
However with great ignorance, i always had the bias knob completly closed. Now It’ s pulled out in the middle. I don’t know what’s the correct position with 1.75 tracking weight, since there Is not any mark for this
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The black stuff you removed from the Kans could just be old polish that someone used on them to keep them looking nice
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I already three pairs in the past and IBL now in black ash. None of them ever had this
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Maybe nobody used polish on the other speakers you purchased
I personally wouldn’t worry too much about it as long as you removed it ok and the Kans still look in nice shape and it wasn’t covering up anything nasty underneath
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Maybe from a dirty house or worse a smoker’s 
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Maybe the previous owner used black shoe polish on them (?) …an odd thing to use though 
As long as the cabinets are in good sealed condition all will be well.
Having the original boxes and packaging is impressive and hopefully will have protected the units from any transit damage or scuffs. The packaging of SBLs often goes missing but it’s a marvellous thing to have 
Don’t forget to check each of the bass, mid, and tweeter boxes to get the wood grain to perfectly match.
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No markings = use your ears.
Never had such issue with all the other i owned from new or used like the IBL s.
Black show wax? Possible, as himself hypotesized, that’s not acceptable though, being a dealer, and were not cheap either, costing more than the SBLs, if It were not for not for taxes& delivery from UK. Being in good working condition is not enough for this price
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If old black ash speakers are marked and scuffed, how does one get them looking half decent again? Serious question, and I don’t think I ever seen it addressed here. I would probably have just dug out the black Cherry Blossom myself.
@rsch two lovely looking pairs of iconic speakers, enjoy them!
If old scuffed up black ash you could try rubbing along the grain lightly with a Grade 0000 (super fine) steel wood, clean dust away with a hoover, clean surface with a little washing-up water & towel dry, and when dry polish them with a black dye colour beeswax.
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Those SBLs look great and it’s been a long time since I saw their boxes. Amazing!
Enjoy setting them up. Loads of help here if you run searches. What electronics are you putting them in front of?
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I think in this room with CD555/552/500 where i have these IBL. I could also try in active mode in another roomwhere i have Snaxo 242/2x200
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Have you compared active versus 500 series? I’ve tried them with an humble ixo and 2x200 and it was very much better. When driven active they delivered similar bass as the sbls did in my room.
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I remember that feeling well. Unboxing SBLs show the absolute class of these speakers. One should setup SBLs by themselves to get a bit of an understanding of the engineering and design of them.
They are worldclass for the working class.
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I used Velcro dots, holds the foam in place lovely,
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Not yet, even be cause they are still disassembled. I have tried IBL though with passive 200 and active 2x200. Active mode seems leaner, with more air around instrument, probably for the Snaxo settings.