What to ask when buying used speakers?

@ghdprentice You are familiar with the house sound of the speakers you want and speaker you don’t want? So, you have a short list of speakers that you know you will like if received in good working order?

In this case yes, while I do not have an option to demo this model anywhere close, I am familiar with the house sound and confident I would like it. On the other hand, I have little experience with other brands, and am wondering what I might be missing. My master plan was to visit a show in the spring and do my best to eliminate those brands on my list that are not a fit, house sound-wise. Not the best place to do that, but I am confident I could whittle things down a bit.

Thanks everyone, lots of food for thought here. While this particular situation is with a reputable online dealer, the private sales experience and feedback is very useful. I will have to decide if I want to wait and hear some more speakers or grab a pretty good deal with relatively low risk.

Some manufacturers such as Von Schweikert Audio have used speakers that have been traded in for upgraded models. They are often been lovingly owned, gone over carefully by the manufacturer and can be trusted to be of excellent value. Or the manufacturers may  refer you to clients they know well to be honest and take care of their equipment well that have speakers for sale direct.

@zlone 

Excellent. Good to hear. I have purchased speaker without hearing them, but I was very familiar with their sound and knew exactly what to expect. A trip to weed through them is exactly the right thing to do.

I’ve bought 5 pairs of speakers used, 2 Monitor Audio (1 Gold/1 Silver), 1 Zu Audio, 1 Vintage Cerwin Vega, 1 Vintage Sony, no problems whatsoever.  Asked if there were ANY imperfections in the cabinets or drivers, ANY issues with the sound, ANY problems with being driven hard.  Everyone said they were never driven hard except for the Cerwin Vega guy, he said never any problems at all, had just put new surrounds on the woofers, told me the speakers were made to be played loud with no problems.  He was right, they were perfect and actually sound much better than I expected.  The non-vintage speaker values were checked in the Audio Bluebook so I was sure I was getting fair deals on them.  I would buy used again in a heartbeat.  Oh, and all the non-vintage speakers were purchased through US Audio Mart’s website.

I prefer sealed enclosure speakers because of possible insect or rodent damage through the speaker port.     Also, more common brands where it is possible to get replacement parts.