briodo

Should show a pic of the AR91's as well. Still have the foam around the midrange and tweeter.

I purchased the replacement capacitors for 2 pairs of 91's. I'm doing a two for one so to speak, having a pair of AR91's requiring woofer surrounds and recap. Cabinets are 9 out of 10. It's clear from others work in this area that NPE's from that era may need to be replaced, but mylar ones are likely to be good. I have a meter with capacitance reading, and will verify before replacing. Four woofers have been refoamed. I use shims after carefully cutting around the outside of dust cap leaving a small hinge so I can reglue. Aileen's tacky glue works perfectly for all aspects of the job. AND drys clear. The cut lines are barely noticeable. Also took a picture of the crossover board still inside one of the AR91's. It has the NPE's throughout. AR91 also has a brace from front to back placed between the woofer and midrange drivers, assuming to reduce cabinet flex from the woofer?? I'm thinking that may be an easy add to the AR58S. Any opinions on value of that brace? Going to work on the crossover board removal next.

Looks like I have the correct crossover board base on resister/cap count. Thank you for this info!

I appreciate the feedback. One of the surrounds is marked Alpine and almost appears to come from a passive radiator they cut up and epoxied to the original cone. There is no way I can see removing the epoxy without destroying the cone. In addition, the wood spacer the surround attaches to was removed. I have a spare pair, so the old ones go into the junk box.

Yep, they all measure good. While going with new would be fun to implement, I'm thinking the originals are going to work just fine. I will change out the old binding posts though.

Open to ideas on the original cabinet repair, 12" woofer recovery, and anything else I should be looking at. I do have replacement caps for the 91 crossover boards, and will order new switches and binding posts.

I'm thinking the original 12" drivers are likely irreparable due to extensive amount of epoxy used to bind the rubber surrounds on, but hope to hear someone who may have experience with an approach. I did have a spare pair of 12 purchased 6 years ago for another project so have replacements available. The missing chunk of wood is on the top back of one of the cabinets and will be a challenge, but have been in a similar situation with a pair of AR90's a few years ago, so know they can be repaired to be functional, although making them look new could be a stretch. Finally I saw lARrybody's excellent write up on crossover replacement for this model using a AR91 board, which I have for this project. Starting my Parts Express order now!

I seem to have a knack for finding seriously stressed or abused AR's on Craigslist, this pair of AR 58S were found roughly 5 years ago and have been sitting on the shelf in the garage until now. I spent time taking the woofers out and creating a list of tasks to restore them as best I can. First some pictures.

Scoup, the picture of your AR9LSi demonstrates the beautiful wood finish AR went to after the experimentation with plastic in the early 80's. My humble opinion is the drivers appear on the surface to be nearly identical between the AR9LS and AR9LSi, but as you can read in this forum, there was a harshness in the original design many found to be unpleasant. I'm not an audio engineer, and have never heard the AR-LST, but can tell you when I listen to the AR9, I just smile. They disappear in the music. I do have a pair of AR9LSi sitting in the garage, waiting for a spot in the house. I like to believe I'm one of many who requires more rooms in my house VS having too many AR speakers. No matter what, the LSi's are a spectacular work of art simply from the wood finish perspective.

I went through this process on mine as well and tried an alternate method of isolating the caps in place and building an external board with new caps which was wired into place. Not sure there is a great method around the way the crossover is mounted, but an external board allows for future rebuilds without having to touch the original. I included a pdf detailing what I went through in this post: Not pretty, but the speakers still work great. Good luck with your project. The AR9LSi don't get the respect the original AR9's get, but are truly wonderful speakers.

The grills (and cabinets) look fantastic. I did mine last year but did not retain the beveled edge. After looking at these. I'm thinking they may get a redo. Very nice

Nice job pulling the mid dome out. Those have always been a challenge for me, due to family genetics with small fingers trying to "pop the bubble". My family is the reason why Dynaco had metal screens over their domes...

The ones you found appear to be in very good shape from the front. My personal experience is the wood cabinet rework tends to be the most challenging and rewarding part of refurbishment. I've found AR3a's that were in excellent condition needing little more than Formby's furniture refinisher to bring them back to where they achieved the Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF). Of course surround replacement and replacing the caps were involved, but surrounds and caps are easier to do than rework on abused cabinets. The other thing to consider is amplifier power. You mention the Heathkit amp, which many were excellent designs at their time. The 4x runs very well with 30 to 40 watts per channel. The AR3a needs a more powerful amplifier to bring out the true personality of the design. That 12" woofer loves current, which some lower wattage amps struggle with. No matter what, you're going to get hooked resulting in persistent scanning of Craigslist to find the latest items for sale. Good luck and enjoy!

There are at least two different types of AR Powered Partners that I have seen, one with a volume control and separate bass/treble controls, the other with volume and single tone for treble. Any opinions or observations between the two?

Update on the capacitor change out. I found new film types online and was ready to start. The only downside with this particular AR9LSi version is the capacitors are mounted under the printed circuit card crossover card. That means cutting them out is a non-starter (can you say hot glue palooza) so I went through process to isolate all the old caps from the crossover circuit by cutting one lead from each cap. After that it was just finding good spots to wire the new caps into the card. I did a little documentation package, taking liberty with part identifiers on the AR9LSi schematic and labeling parts and wiring locations using pictures taken of the circuit card. I hope this will make it easier for the next person who needs to do this same task. Brian AR9LSi_Crossover_Oct_2010.pdf

Thank you for the capacitor information. I will purchase new ones and figure out how to wire into the circuit card. That should be interesting. I was amazed at the beauty of the woodworking. Each speaker is a single sheet of veneer starting from bottom of one side around the top to bottom of other side. You can see how the grain matches so well in the last picture. They were artisans of their craft for certain.

Update on the wood finish problem: After doing some research online on the wood finish problem with this particular pair of AR's, I found a great article by Shannon Smith on determining wood finishes: What Type of Finish Does Your Furniture Have I posted a picture earlier showing the glossy finish separating from the wood and flaking off. This flaking appears on both speakers over much of the walnut finish. Using the article led me to the finish being varnish, requiring stripper to remove the finish. After disassembling the AR9LSi's, I started experimenting with strippers. The stuff I found to be most efficient at removing the finish is called CitrusStrip which I found after trying regular gel strippers. The CitrusStrip smells like oranges and worked with a single coat allowing me to rapidly remove all of the gunk in a single afternoon on both speakers. The other strippers required multiple applications, taking way too much time. Final steps were sanding and cleaning the walnut then applying 3 coats of Penofin oil finish. Results look very good. Next update will be on my fun updating the caps mounted to the crossover circuit card.

I found a great UK brochure called "AR UK BXi & LSi Brochure" under the AR library->Special Sections->AR International->Brochures with marketing info on the UK versions of the AR product line at the time. While the version I have does differ cosmetically from the AR9LSi picture in the brochure, they discussed the 10" downward firing driver and the "special, foam-damped bass contour chamber". The design prevents bass cancellations due to rear wall and floor reflections, filling any dip in the 12" unit's response due to the floor or wall reflection. I will assume the foam should be replaced with some type of acoustic dampening foam material to match original configuration. Still would appreciate any recommendations on replacing the "computer grade" crossover caps. I figure I can reach at least one lead on all the capacitors and snip it, then attach new caps in on the top surface of the PCB. It would be good to hear others experience with the reliability of caps from the mid-90s ARs. I know the older version were certainly almost guaranteed bad after 30 years.

I recently acquired a pair of AR9LSi through Craigslist from the original owner who bought them while stationed in Germany around 1985-86. Overall condition is very good with few nicks in the wood or grills. The 8 and 12" drivers had been refoamed, but the speaker never had the original sound he remembered and I showed him the 10" was rotted on both as well. The owner knew very little about AR's or how critical the seal is to get good sound from a pair. I have a 10" foam kit on order from Vintage-AR to take care of that problem. The major issues are the wood finish and I assume the crossover capacitors due to age. The speakers were built in England and have some twists from what I have seen in researching US AR9LS/AR9LSi versions. Some differences are the 12" driver having a round hole as opposed to the typical side cut hole found on other 12" AR's, shiny coating over wood veneer, and a crossover circuit card rather than the hand soldered connections found in my other AR's. Also, the drivers appear to be Tonegens based on pictures from the AR3a Restoration Driver appendix. I have attached some pictures, including the crossover circuit card. The capacitors are underneath that circuit card with massive amounts of hot glue holding the whole assembly to the rear of the cabinet. Not sure if I want to remove it due to opportunity for damage. My questions are: 1) Wood finished with lacquer or varnish. The walnut veneer is in beautiful condition, so why did they put the glossy stuff on top of this gorgeous wood? Is this a UK only feature? 2) The crossover matches the AR9LSi schematic found in the library, except I can't see the values on the caps. Are they the same and should they be replaced? Were the NP electrolytics of that time reliable enough to stand the test of time? 3) Foam in the 10" slot location has rotted out. What was the purpose of the foam and what are some recommendations for replacement? Thanks, Brian