thank you. though the board had been marked, given the inexpert nature of the work performed in the past, i thought i'd try to be certain they were marked correctly. certainly the wires as found didn't match the markings. The big mid range toilet roll was dislodged, and one of the windings had detatched from the crossover. the dome mid range was also reverse polarity.
after some listening, it became clear the speakers - one "original", the other with new caps and mid dome - were unbalanced. the original unit had very forward mid and high and little bass by comparison to the repaired speaker. i always felt they lacked bass, but that this was a symptom of the little tube amp. id always enjoyed the clarity of the mid range so was a bit disillusioned by the prospect of losing it.
the only choice was to recap the other one and suck it and see. i don't know which was the biggest influence - rectifying polarity issues etc, or the recap, but the difference is huge - and i always thought they sounded great, anyway. very pleased. and after a night of listening to them, the replacement mid is definitely the correct one. i may buy a spare to stash away, either for these or the S80.2s.