AR surround
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Posts posted by AR surround
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On 7/14/2019 at 5:54 PM, harry398 said:
The AR9LS is the same as the LSI, without the upgraded resistors in the circuits , mostly to calm down the midrange. No switches, so they wired in the changes.
A question for you Harry...Do you ever find the lack of attenuation switches (0dB, -3dB, -6dB for Tweeter, UMR and LMR) on the AR9LSi problematic? I ask because I've dragged my AR9's around for the last 41 years and have found that I've preferred different attenuation switch settings at each location. I guess that since I've used AR5's, AR3a's, AR9's and AR90's, I find the inability to make adjustments a bit unnerving.
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1 hour ago, DavidR said:
Using a soldering iron will create lots of smoke and who knows what they used to make that old hot melt. It's a bit different than today's hot melt.
I wouldn't put it ON the glue, just close enough to get some softening. This will drive you crazy, David, but what I did was simply pry the things off with an chiseling blade in an X-acto knife. If it took off a tad of the board with it, then so be it.
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4 hours ago, lARrybody said:
I am getting ready to replace some AR58S boards with rebuilt AR91 boards. I am not particularly interested in protecting the caps and resisters, just the inductors. I wonder if using a heat gun would soften up the hot melt glue better than injecting alcohol around the perimeter.
Or perhaps using a soldering gun...i.e. Weller 140 W...and prying up the caps a little bit at at time.
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+2 for doing it in place. And don't forget to use best practices for soldering electronics such as using heat sinks, flux (not acid), tinning, etc.
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5 hours ago, frankmarsi said:
over 7000 vinyl disks strewn about everywhere
Must be fun keeping track of them!!! ?
Neat video, Frank.
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On 8/29/2017 at 3:02 AM, Pk Vintage said:
Ok. It sounds like I will be going the bypass caps route.
I don't mind spending a little more money on the bypass caps if it will help.
I will do some reading on bypass caps and get back in a couple of days so I can at least ask some intelligent questions about the procedure and best ones to use.
Thanks.
So PK, how do you like the sound of your AR9's? (Chatter on the forum has been a bit thin lately on the AR verticals. So I'd like to hear something about them.) It's been 18+ months since you posted on this topic and I assume you did the recapping and have been listening to the speakers. Did you ultimately go with the bypass caps?
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4 hours ago, frankmarsi said:
...P.S. I need to head up north and get "AR surround" in tune with LSTs.
If I invite him here, he probably won't want to leave...
Yes, you might have to deal with that situation although I'm quite happy with my current rig.
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Lakecat: It's really great that you are able to feed your LST beasts with the power they need using the big Mac amp...as well as installing them at the correct height. I thought Frank's setup was wild with two pairs of stacked LST's, but then I learned of a fellow forum member who has 10 of them double stacked in a 5.1 system. One day I would like to indulge in a pair of LST's but I simply don't have a place for them.
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I bought my AR9's new from Sam Goody's in August 1978. The list price, and their price, was $1300. I haggled them down to $1200 + tax. That works out to $4596 + tax in February 2019 dollars. A bloody steal! The speakers went up in steeply in price after that.
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44 minutes ago, DavidR said:
I'm DONE with Carver amps.
I have a Limited Edition Studio Reference amp by Emotiva; the SA250. Actually, I have two.
AR9's for the fronts, AR90's for the surrounds, and AR91 for the center and AR10pi's for rears. Power the fronts and center with a new 3 channel Emotiva and power the surrounds and rears with your two existing ones. Now what a great 7.1 system that would make!!! ?
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2 hours ago, DavidR said:
The 9's will be ALL NPE caps except for Vishay 1837 bypass caps on the tweeter and UMR npe's
I've decided to use film in the 90's. Clarity CSA on the tweeter and UMR.
Just to tweek your memory...I found that my AR9 was somewhat more forgiving with a poly cap on the UMR than was my AR90. The Solens were a disaster even with a F&F bypass and the Jentzens just a bit better...but I never tried the Jentzens with a F&F bypass. So I'm very curious how the Clarity with bypass works out for you on that AR90 UMR.
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20 hours ago, DavidR said:
I've given the 10Pi a few hours of listening and was listening to Grover Washington Jr. 'A Secret Place' last night on vinyl with my tube amp. These speakers are really opening up. OMG! Loving them.
What is vinyl and what is a tube amp? LOL Seriously, seems you've got the right equipment combo here to make the 10pi's shine. Congratulations. But I'm really encouraging you to get onto those AR9's so that I can compare your results to mine...especially with what caps you use on that dodgy UMR.
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3 minutes ago, DavidR said:
Hadn't thought of it and not sure how to go about it. If it requires unsoldering all the wires then F it.
Good idea...to F it, that is!
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David, do you think it may be necessary to test the transformers to see if they match up?
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2 hours ago, der said:
A fool and his money are soon parted.
My wife uses a "boom box" type of CD player with about 5 inch "full range" speakers when she listens to music. She does not see the need for anything more costly or complex. I am jealous! LOL
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$6500 for these Harbeth speakers with 8" woofers plus another $1500 for the stands? God bless them if they can get it. With ears that platinum, then why doesn't the reviewer simply spend the $8 grand on live classical music concerts? So box speakers are "colored?" Well the whole audio chain is "colored." Even concert halls have their own coloration. Sheesh. Thanks for sharing the link der.
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11 hours ago, Aadams said:
I agree again. At first I thought you meant tuning a surround set up but, instead using all channels as either stereo L or R or Sub would drive an array, crossover the subs, high cut the satellites, permit some equalization and appear to be an all in one box solution. If you want more headroom then connect a 2 ohm capable amp from the LR pre-outs. The subs mentioned by the OP plus a good quality 7.1 or 9.1 would be about the price of an AR3a pair in 1972 dollars. The satellites can be purchased new or used and aren't that costly. Thank you genek, this looks like it hits all the criteria I laid out for a solution i.e. tidy, cost effective, musical, wide-dymanic range, repeatable implementation of a subwoofer with a satellite stack.
Adams
Here is what I am doing with a 7.1 system. While neither tidy nor cheap, it is an example of what can be done on the other end of the spectrum to yield a lot of bang for the buck if employing all used equipment.
- AR9's as fronts ($1200...but probably more nowadays)
- AR915 (Euro version of AR91) as center ($150)
- AR90's as surrounds ($800)
- Boston A70's as rears mounted up near the ceiling to add some height to the sound field ($100)
- 7 channel processor/amp that is stable down to 2 ohms and will pump 200 wpc into the big 4 ohm AR's ($1700)
- Lexicon Logic7 that extracts ambience from stereo recordings; keeps the primary soundfield up front; and also spreads the bass around to all 7 speakers. That's a key concept...spreads the bass around to all 7 speakers...which effectively results in having a subwoofer in each corner along with whatever bass response the AR915 and Boston A70's can produce.
While not cheap at about $4000, I consider the system cost effective given the very high performance and the fact that it eliminates problems associated with integrating subs into a system. (And there will be no discussion about my wife banishing me and my big AR's to the basement.)
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This is an interesting topic and I was unaware that certain dealers actually tried to sabotage AR speakers by placing them in poor locations and turning down the controls. In my later high school years, I learned that the AR3a was considered by many as the holy grail of speakers; and people who wanted 3a's but could not afford them purchased the lesser models such as the 5, 2ax, etc. In my case, I bought the AR5's without auditioning them. They did not disappoint. The place to buy discounted equipment in my area was a storefront in East Orange, NJ called Sound Reproduction. I got everything from there..Dual turntable, Dynaco amps, and AR speakers solely based on the reputations of these companies and hearing some variation of these products in others systems.
I never even considered going into an audio house to audition products because at 17 to 18 years old and working a part time job I couldn't afford those prices. So the audio houses had two and a half strikes going against them when young people such as myself were entering the hi-fi market.
During that time frame, the only "bad-mouthing" of AR speakers I witnessed was by an audio salesman demonstrating a pair of Marantz speakers to a customer. They did not carry the AR line. And I wouldn't call it bad-mouthing per se because he was explaining the virtues of the Marantz compared to the AR's...more efficient and punchier playing rock music (Albeit "colored" which he didn't mention.
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1 hour ago, genek said:
Unless someone's been keeping a NOS original packed in nitrogen for the past 40 years, don't see how we'd ever know that for sure.
Granted, but does it still make sense to replace tweeters in both speakers rather than just one?
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My question would be: What do these tweeters sound like compared to the original units when they were new? I would imagine that there are nuances that may be heard at times, so one should replace the tweeters in both speakers to get uniform response. No?
(Frank, with your double-stacked LST's, you would need 16 of these tweeters. Ouch!)
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"Made In China" I'm a bit squeamish when it comes to speakers made there. So someone else is going to have to take the dive.
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On 9/5/2017 at 8:21 PM, ra.ra said:
You're probably right, harry398, and I'm just trying to find someone to address this notion from a qualitative experiential perspective rather than solely from a quantitative set of laboratory data points. I very much like to obsess over comparative numbers as much as the next geeky dweeb, but as one sage advisor often noted, "It's all about the music." So my question boils down to: Unless someone can identify audible differences, why is anyone fussing with this in the first place?
Until I am convinced that there might be noticeable audio improvements as a result of various tweeks or substitutions (new caps, new foams, functioning controls, etc.), my own re-build projects tend to focus on two other areas that are important to me: 1) improved visual aesthetics (cabs, grilles, etc.); and 2) improved build qualities (wiring, connectors, terminals, straps, etc.). For both of these areas, the term "improved" relates only to my own personal preferences, and is not meant to suggest an improvement for anyone else's speakers.
ra.ra, it would be possible to do a qualitative experiment if someone outboards the crossovers and lays them out in a manner that makes changing/maneuvering one component at a time relatively easy. However, removing drivers and getting in there with a soldering iron over and over again is simply asking for eventual trouble. So most of us are limited to making a handful of changes at the same time and speculating if and how each change may contribute to what we then hear. Frankly, I have no idea if reorienting the coils in my AR9 or AR90 made any difference; but I am extremely happy with the rebuilt speakers as they now exist.
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Regarding coil realignment, here is how I did it on my AR90's. (I did the 9's as well). Thanks again for the advice, Carl.
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5 hours ago, harry398 said:
Is there a reason for juggling 0.1 And. 0.01?
It's what Carl said in the sixteenth post in this thread:
http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Board/index.php?/topic/9683-ar-9-mid-and-hf-cap-suggestions/
One can mess around with caps, bypass caps, etc. endlessly. I stopped with the experimentation once I got my quiver of reference recordings to sound the way I wanted.
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AR surround suppliers - Who to use ?
in Acoustic Research
Posted
Although my handle is "AR Surround," I'm afraid I can't help you David. ? Did you try vintage-ar? I know that the surrounds Larry supplies are the correct roll and compliance.