AR surround

And let's face it folks, most of us on this site are enamored with tinkering with stuff...especially if we can improve performance. When things get too convenient, we get bored.

Unfortunately, no. We are limited to either a pre-pro or an AVR. The DACs in the better pre-pros and AVRs are quite good, and the room correction that also comes with these units is essential with a set up with speakers all over the bloody place.

I can tell you from experience that going from a Dynaco Stereo 80 (40 wpc SS) to a Dynaco ST400 (200 wpc SS) amp made a world of difference on my 8 ohm AR5's. But I did blow a tweeter somewhere down the line. Fuses may help. I never had the pleasure of trying a tube amp on them.

Thanks. I didn't check the BA caps; I preemptively replaced them in the A70's. I believe that was a mistake and I should have kept the old gray unicons. After recapping, I had to add 1/2 ohm resistance and a F&F bypass cap to get them to sound right. Based on my experience with the A70's, I left the original caps in the A60's and A40. Do you have a pic you'd be willing to share?

Here's a pic of the room, complete with a model railroad going around the HT / Audio system. And a thread describing how I did the front height speakers: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/using-bookshelf-speakers-in-the-ceiling-for-atmos.30965/ (One day, I'm going to replace all of the speakers with AR9's, including the five in the ceiling...🤣)

Some people are complaining about the Atmos streams on Apple Music not having the fidelity of the same material on the physical discs. Read post #13 in this thread: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/impact-of-lossy-compression-when-streaming-atmos.32330/ He specifically says: "...The Atmos that is being streamed (Apple in my case) is something different, but not by much. I have compared selections of the two titles above. This was not a scientific exercise by any means. A/B testing with a 5 second gap when inputs are switched is not ideal. But I did try to get the volumes close. and the timing reasonable. Each time I preferred the disc version. Try not to laugh at my stab at an audiophool term, but the stream sounds more grainy, especially through the midrange. There is more of what sounds like electronic haze on the top end. Its not difficult to hear. That being said, its also easy for me to not listen so critically and just enjoy it. Stuff that I can't compare like the Atmos EJ stuff sounds just amazing. And there is even a great version of Rush's Moving Pictures in Atmos. A mix that finally does the album justice. Its so good it makes me want to buy the ridiculously priced box." And post #33 (He does have and Apple TV4K device): "...However, where I’ve had the opportunity to do an A/B between Atmos discs and Atmos streaming, the discs have had a very clear advantage. This is not what I would prefer, so my confirmation bias would certainly be in the other direction. Maybe it’s a matter of fidelity, but I haven’t really been able to hear big differences there once I'm north of 16bit/44.1kHz in the past if I’m honest. Even though what’s streaming is supposed to be the same mix as what's on the discs AFAIK, it’s just not manifesting itself that way when I A/B. From a disc, the separation is just so much better and the heights are way more active and in play… so much so, that I’m kinda resigned to “if there's an Atmos mix, I’m gonna try to buy the disc if available”—which I’d rather not due to the expense." For me personally, I'd rather listen to clean stereo playback than grainy midrange and electronic haze...you know, the typical Dolby Digital sound...even if the sound field is spectacular.

I jumped on the Atmos AUDIO / Auro3D bandwagon late last summer. Yes, it is the real deal and I'm not going back. (AR9 fronts, AR91 center, AR90 surrounds, Boston A70 rears, four Boston A60 in the ceiling plus a Boston A40 as the top, and NO subwoofers) My only disappointment is that there is not enough Atmos high-resolution physical material being released; but rather mostly low-bandwidth streaming via Apple Music or Tidal. It's the same nonsense we've been dealing with for decades whether it be lousy LP pressings, brickwalled CDs, etc, where people who actually care about sound quality are considered a niche market. Furthermore, anything from the "classic rock" period that is released as Atmos physical media is only available in pricey box sets. Many of these sets are not selling well and eventually are dumped as clearance items...possibly relegating the stuff into the "niche market" grave. Abbey Road and Let It Be have sold OK, but not something like The Band's $150 MSRP Cahoots box set. The last I looked, Amazon was dumping them at $65 each...that's still too much for that album.

Thanks for posting this article, David. If I recall correctly, you have a pair of 901's. If you have the time, would you mind sharing a few thoughts about them? I've only heard them used as "whatever" with all the front drivers pointing outwards at some wedding, etc. My cousin said, "The music's everywhere but the highs are nowhere." I'm laughing right now because of the thread title: The 12 Most Significant Loudspeakers of All Time. That's so because I am a surround sound lunatic with 12 speakers installed in my system, including five bookshelf speakers in the ceiling for Atmos / Auro3D.

I'm daydreaming about this forum going absolutely crazy if someone revived the AR line like David Kelley has done with KLH. Meanwhile, the temptation to try a pair of these new M5's grows stronger...

Scottie, I bought my AR9's in August 1978. So they are actually a tad more senior than you. I still have them and still love them no end.

Another possible alternative is to get hold of an AR58, AR91 or AR915. All three use the same drivers. I am using an AR915 as the center channel speaker between two AR9's and I am pleased with the results. I found that having a big 12" woofer in the center channel speaker makes a positive difference in the sound quality. The AR91 has attenuation switches to better match the output of the tweeter and midrange to the AR9's if necessary. The AR58 and AR915 do not have the switches.

You can try adding a Dayton 0.01uF (or a 0.10uF) film and foil bypass capacitor across the Dayton PP cap as DavidR suggested in the above post. @Stimpyrecommended these to me back in 2017. They made a significant difference when I added them to both the higher-grade Dayton PP caps and the Mundorf E-Caps. But this was on the AR9 and 90, not one of the classics like the 3a.

I find that 91% isopropyl alcohol usually works if 70% doesn't do the trick. While not as nasty as the other solvents, inhaling large amounts of 91% isopropyl can cause all sorts of problems.

Traitor!!! LOL

Terrific article, Tom. I really enjoyed it. The AR9's have been my main speakers since August 1978. They have survived no less than five moves. I got the pair when I was temporarily living at my parents' house between moves. I'll never forget the look on my mother's face...mouth wide open in shock...when we hauled those huge boxes into the house. My relationship with this pair of speakers is the longest with anything / anybody in my entire life. (I'd better be careful what I say. Don't want to make my wife jealous. LOL)

I used Mundorf Ecaps for the series caps of the UMR on my AR9's and AR90's. I am very happy with the results. I suspect they will perform very well in the earlier series of AR speakers also.

I agree with you regarding using NPEs, but I have found that even some new NPE caps can present problems. Case in point: I proactively changed out the gray Unicon NPE caps in a pair of Boston Acoustics A70 speakers with Parts Express NPE's. The results were not good..."honky" sound. I had to add 1/2 ohm in-line resistance and then subsequently a 0.01 F&F bypass capacitor across the the NPE to achieve something I perceived as close to the original A70 sound signature. Regardless, FluAR, I assure you that you will have a fun and educational experience recapping your AR3a's.

The difference in sound quality, detail, etc was night and day when I upgraded from a Dynaco Stereo 80 to the Stereo 400. Eventually, I did blow a tweeter but I don't know how it happened. Perhaps 200 watts per channel was too big of an amp. Perhaps the fuses I was using were too big. Perhaps the low impedance speakers were difficult for the big Dynaco amp. Perhaps the AR tweeter of that era simply did not have adequate power handling capacity. There are just so many variables. That equipment eventually went to my cousin. After a number of years, the tweeter in the other speaker blew.

Here is the answer straight from Audyssey: Audyssey MultEQ detects absolute phase for each speaker. Some speakers are designed with intentional phase reversals in the drivers in order to address crossover problems. Audyssey MultEQ will detect and report an error. The best course of action is to simply check the wiring and press "Skip" if it is correct. So this wiring anomaly is not all that uncommon with certain speakers.

As many of you know, I have AR9's as front speakers and AR90's as surround speakers in my 7.1 audio system. It has been documented in this forum, by DavidR for one, that the LMR, UMR and tweeter in the AR90 are wired out-of-phase with the woofers. Until today, I did not think that this internal wiring of the AR90 made a difference. However, I recently acquired a new Marantz AVR which includes Audyssey automatic setup. When I ran the first test, Audyssey detected that the AR90's were out-of-phase with all of the other speakers and stated that I should swap the polarity of the AR90's wiring. I did the wire swap on both AR90's, reran the test, and Audyssey indicated that there were no phase problems. I find this quite bizarre because when playing the "phase test" of a calibration disc specifically made for a 7.1 audio system, the AR9 and AR90 speakers clearly sounded in-phase compared to each other without swapping the speaker wires to the 90's. Now I'm wondering if I've opened up a can of worms for those of us using AR90's with other speaker models in the same audio system.

I've never thought of the classic AR's as "rock" speakers and didn't realize that they had a model advertised as such. I always thought of products like the (brutal) Marantz Imperial 7 as "rock" speakers. The AR12...I thought it was just an updated version of the AR5 and not a rock n roll speaker?

Magnificent!

Are the AR8's quite rare? I haven't seen much written about them here.

Can you imagine trying to recap all of these speakers? Talk about a nightmare!

They went for $3100.