Help with Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grand

  About 8 years ago, I had a friend who scored a pair of the Beethoven Concert Grand speakers. He was powering them with a powerful 2 channel amplifier from Emotiva. It was at least 200WPC, possibly more. They sounded great. Good resolution and complete from top to bottom with good bass and slam.

 I decided to grab a used pair in great condition. I took them home and hooked them up to my Crown XLS602 370WPC at 8ohm amplifier. Yes its an atypical amplifier for home use and its not an  audiophile amplifier, but it sure has a lot of slam and bass. It has never failed in forcing bass and slam out of any other speaker I have ever auditioned in my living room. It has actually bettered many boutique amplifiers I have owned in this regard.

 I hooked the speakers up and the treble was good but for some reason, the woofers on both speakers barely moved. They all worked, sound was coming out of all of them, it was just a very anemic response and they all moved the exact same amount. The tweeters and the mids worked OK. I think I tried reversing polarity on the wires but it was the same result. I tried adjusting the gain knob on the amp, same result. I tried different songs, same result. The amp was at least as powerful as my buddies set up but failed to move the cones anywhere near as much. The result was very poor bass and slam. I am pretty sure the speakers were already broken in before I got them, they are not a new model.

I was very disappointed. I ended up getting rid of them not long after.

 This has always bothered me. What do you guys think was up with the speakers?