More vintage AR speakers - uh oh.

I'm pushing it with my wife. Got another pair of classic Acoustic Research speakers this weekend. Some might say I got the classic AR speaker. A pretty nice pair of AR3s.

I'd seen them on craigslist a few weeks ago for a fair price and wrote the seller. I didn't hear anything so figured they were gone. But the ad stayed up. Then, out of nowhere, got an email on Thursday saying that he'd thought about restoring them but knew he'd never get to it. Since I have so few projects and so much spare time, I knew I wouldn't have that problem. lol

Well, I brought them home and my wife didn't leave me!

Not too bad. They even came with the original paperwork, which is a pretty neat bonus!

I fiddled with them a bit last night, cleaning them up and using some finish restorer. With some work, I got the level controls to work well enough to get all the drivers working. Looking and sounding pretty decent now.

That's probably it until after the holidays. I don't think they need a lot. I have a line on the proper material for grill cloth and new frames. New badges are even available, so I'll be able to get them looking nice. Sound wise, they sound surprisingly good as is. They must have the old oil filled capacitors. The level controls will need to be rebuilt, which shouldn't be too hard. I'm hoping that's it, though I'm a little suspect of one of the mids. We'll see.

Sweet!

Very nice! I've owned a set of AR-2x bookshelf speakers since college 35 years ago, they still sound great.

These things any good? http://houston.craigslist.org/cto/3377955137.html

Cool score! I picked some AR-10's out of the trash a few years ago. I re-foamed them and they've been making my garage sound great for a decade. AR's are some very under rated speakers for sure.

Strizzo wrote: These things any good? http://houston.craigslist.org/cto/3377955137.html

Flagged for removal. Dang!

In reply to fast_eddie_72:

So neat. This is where the death of fidelity bums me out. We moved from hanging out and listening to great music on quality equipment to being distracted by every other form of media on the planet and (if we're lucky) listening to an ipod on shuffle on a Bose docking setup.

Good get.

DrBoost wrote:

Strizzo wrote: These things any good? http://houston.craigslist.org/cto/3377955137.html

Flagged for removal. Dang!

Not for me, let me try again, this was a previous ad, they're now listed for 50 with pics.

http://houston.craigslist.org/ele/3416335074.html.

In reply to Strizzo:

Well, I can't say for sure. I've never heard them. What I can tell you is they share no DNA with the classic ARs. The name has been sold many times. The big speakers behind the 3s are my AR9s. They were made after Teledyne bought the company, but still employed many of the engineers who had been with the company for a long while. Those 9s are considered by many the "ultimate expression" of the idea Edgar Villchur invented with the AR3. After that, things kind of went down hill.

The speakers in that craigslist ad are much newer than that. I don't even know who owns AR now. Audiovox I think. For the most part, they import gear from China and try to leverage the AR name. Those speakers could sound fine, but they're not my cup of tea and I guarantee they don't have the bass that made AR famous.

In reply to gamby:

Yeah, I know what you mean. Kinda crazy. Technology has evolved so far and there are some amazing speakers made today, but they're for a very small 'audiophile' market and therefore really, really expensive. I'm pretty sure it would take five figures to match what my 9s do. They can make such great gear, but no one seems to care. Surround sound junky "satellites" and crappy "sub"woofers are the order of the day. No bass. No highs. Just noise. I can't stand to listen to it.

Luckily for those of us who care, there was a lot of amazing gear made "back in the day". Once you learn to spot it, there is great stuff out there and it can be had for a reasonable price. Kinda like old cars, though- you have to know how to tinker on it a bit to get them back up to speed. Speakers, by and large, are easy to bring back.

Vintage ARs like a pretty healthy dose of power. I'm upstairs right now listening to my other system. AR LST2s, a Rotel pre-amp and a Denon POA 2400. 200 WPC and it works a treat on the old ARs. A few weeks ago I found an AR subwoofer from the Teledyne era. Kind of an odd piece- the only sub they made back then. It has two "classic AR" 10" woofers in it. I'm powering it with an amp from Parts Express. The LST2s don't need much help, but it gives them what they're lacking.

My house is kind of small, and really, these speakers work better in these rooms. I'm sure there is better stuff available, but knowing I brought these things back from the brink of being parted out on ebay makes them more fun to listen to, and I can't imagine that I'd enjoy any gear much more. Plus it looks neat. even my wife likes the LST2s. A friend of hers visited from California and commented about how cool they looked and wanted to know where I got them. Neat stuff.

By the way, I have nothing against surround sound. That set up in the basement is our home theater. The 9s are the mains, with some Minimus 7s for rears and a decent subwoofer I cobbled together. When I brought the 9s home my wife said "we're going to need a bigger TV". We hope to get that taken care of soon. I love watching a good movie and hearing things zip all over the place. But when I put on music, I want it to sound good, not just go "boom".

I have the only home theater I know of with main speakers that can play lower than my ".1" subwoofer. lol But the sub does a fine job of handling the move "boom" and gets out of the way when it's time for tunes.

DrBoost wrote: Cool score! I picked some AR-10's out of the trash a few years ago. I re-foamed them and they've been making my garage sound great for a decade. AR's are some very under rated speakers for sure.

I've always wanted to hear a pair of 10s! Very close relatives of my 3s. I bet they sound outstanding.

stuart in mn wrote: Very nice! I've owned a set of AR-2x bookshelf speakers since college 35 years ago, they still sound great.

My first ARs were a pair of 2AX. They were in tough shape and I ended up selling them to a guy who thought he could get the cabinets back in shape. He really appreciated a good deal on some nice speakers. I always said it was the only pair of speakers I regretted selling. I guess I've over compensated with my little AR collection.

I have a pair of AR-4 's out in the attached garage. I got them from a friend that was moving and he wanted them out of his attic. I don't know where he got them or how long he had them. I've probably had them for 15 years. I have them hooked up to an early 80's Technics integrated. I'm always amazed at how good they sound and that the original drivers are still kicking.

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

DrBoost wrote: Cool score! I picked some AR-10's out of the trash a few years ago. I re-foamed them and they've been making my garage sound great for a decade. AR's are some very under rated speakers for sure.

I've always wanted to hear a pair of 10s! Very close relatives of my 3s. I bet they sound outstanding. Yeah, they sound very good. I feel bad keeping them in the garage, but I don't need them in the house right now. I did play with them in the house after I got them up and running again. Despite their smaller size in comparison, they were quite close to the Magnepans I had back in the day. They didn't have the soundstage the maggies did, but they had low end that, of course the maggies couldn't dream of.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: In reply to gamby: Yeah, I know what you mean. Kinda crazy. Technology has evolved so far and there are some amazing speakers made today, but they're for a very small 'audiophile' market and therefore really, really expensive. I'm pretty sure it would take five figures to match what my 9s do. They can make such great gear, but no one seems to care. Surround sound junky "satellites" and crappy "sub"woofers are the order of the day. No bass. No highs. Just noise. I can't stand to listen to it. Luckily for those of us who care, there was a lot of amazing gear made "back in the day". Once you learn to spot it, there is great stuff out there and it can be had for a reasonable price. Kinda like old cars, though- you have to know how to tinker on it a bit to get them back up to speed. Speakers, by and large, are easy to bring back.

I think that if you want to get great stuff on a budget, you can also look to DIY stuff. With the flat pack kits, even I could put together something that sounds great and knocks the socks off of equivalently priced modern gear. If you can cut straight lines and appropriately sized circular holes, you could literally build a pair of speakers for $200 that sounds as good as $1000 retail speakers.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: In reply to gamby: Yeah, I know what you mean. Kinda crazy. Technology has evolved so far and there are some amazing speakers made today, but they're for a very small 'audiophile' market and therefore really, really expensive. I'm pretty sure it would take five figures to match what my 9s do. They can make such great gear, but no one seems to care. Surround sound junky "satellites" and crappy "sub"woofers are the order of the day. No bass. No highs. Just noise. I can't stand to listen to it. [...]

Is this why people like ARs so much? I was wondering why I should pay a couple hundred dollars for a 30-40 year old pair of speakers that needs work, when you could get 10 year speakers for the same amount that don't need any work and sound 'good'. (The quality of 'good' maybe lost on my ears. I don't know yet)

I'm trying to became an audiophile, but it's hard to know where and when to spend good money on things. I am doing the GRM thing at the moment; I'm building a guitar tube amp and have plans to build stereo tube amp with a bunch of stuff I've collected over the last few months.

In reply to RossD:

Going thorugh a few pairs of old ARs has been an interesting experience for me. Some people don't like them. What the classic ARs do really well is bass. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the technology to produce deep bass has been improved significantly since the AR1 in 1954. And in reality, very few speakers ever produced can go as deep as a classic AR 12" system. I'm not joking when I say my AR9s play deeper bass than my subwoofer.

But there is more to music, obviously, than bass and some people criticize the high end on classic ARs. You hear people say things like "they sound like they have a blanket over them". Listening to the 3s, I can understand what they're saying. I don't agree, but I understand. There's little doubt in my mind that the 3s can reproduce any sound I'm able to hear. But it is true that they are "laid back". The high end is somewhat recessed and turning up the level control just makes it kind of stringent.

The AR sound chaged, though, as they continued to innovate. I've heard people make the same kind of remarks about the AR9s. I don't get that at all. The sound of the 3s is wonderful to my ears, but I can tell that it is colored. The 9s, on the other hand, sound completely flat to me. I haen't done any measurements or anything, just my listening impression.

Some people really like the sound of horn drivers, for instance. I've had opportunities to hear really nice horn systems driven by expensive tube amps. They definately have a unique and wonderful sound. But I have kind of the same reaction that others have to ARs when I hear them. They don't sound realistic to me, and the mids and highs seem overly exagerated with weak low bass.

My advice: don't become an audiophile. The word has taken on some weird connotations. I don't consider myself an audiophile, more of an audio collector/enthusiast. Try to get an opportunity to hear different types of set ups and see what sounds good to you. Figure out what you enjoy playing with and go for it - and don't listen to anyone who says you're wrong. I went to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest a few years ago and heard tons of systems. Some of them sounded absolutely amazing. But I also hears systems that cost a fortune that I didn't think sounded good at all. When I got home, I listened to my stereo, which wasn't as good as it is now, and felt like it stacked up just fine.

I'd like to hear something like these sometime. The Wilson Audio Alexandria XLF. They cost $200,000.

Now, I am sure they sound better than my AR9s. Picture for reference:

But notice - there are a lot of similarities. Two large woofers. A smaller driver (on in the case of the Wilson, two smaller drivers) also sealed in their own sub enclosure, then a dome driver (two domes in the ARs) for high frequencies. AR, by the way, also invented the dome driver.

Materials, engineering and understanding of how speakers interact with the room have continued to evolve and I bet those Wisons make good use of all of those advantages. But the core technology in those speakers, costing more than many homes, is present in my new AR3s, and executed similarly in my AR9s.

A really nice pair of 9s can be had for $1,000 to $1,500. Do those Wilson's sound better? I bet they do. Do they sound 200 times better? I really, really doubt it.

Huh... I just found out my decent floorstanders have better bass extension than my cheap subwoofer...

fast_eddie_72 wrote: A really nice pair of 9s can be had for $1,000 to $1,500. Do those Wilson's sound better? I bet they do. Do they sound 200 times better? I really, really doubt it.

Honestly, when you're spending anywhere near that kind of cash on audio, the room becomes a limitation much earlier than the speakers... but I can only know that from experience in my dreamland...

I'll never have that kind of money tied up in speakers, but the room is already the biggest issue wtih my 9s. The bass gets a boomy quality in some frequency band or other. When I hear it, I can lean forward, moving my head about two feet and it's gone. Unfortunately, it's not a very comfortable position to listen to music.

scardeal wrote: I think that if you want to get great stuff on a budget, you can also look to DIY stuff. With the flat pack kits, even I could put together something that sounds great and knocks the socks off of equivalently priced modern gear. If you can cut straight lines and appropriately sized circular holes, you could literally build a pair of speakers for $200 that sounds as good as $1000 retail speakers.

It's true. There has never been a better time than now for the speaker hobbyist.