AR surround

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.

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.

Or perhaps using a soldering gun...i.e. Weller 140 W...and prying up the caps a little bit at at time.

+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.

Must be fun keeping track of them!!! ? Neat video, Frank.

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?

I was not aware that you had the B&W's. "I personally felt that the AR9 was a superior loudspeaker overall." If there was ever a statement that tells me just how good the AR9 was/is, it's that one. Regarding your statement, "There is likely more reduction in your hearing acuity in the intervening ten years than reduction in output fidelity in the AR9s..." Geez, the truth hurts!

Yes, you might have to deal with that situation although I'm quite happy with my current rig.

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.

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.

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!!! ?

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.

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.

Good idea...to F it, that is!

David, do you think it may be necessary to test the transformers to see if they match up?

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

$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.

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.)

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. )

Granted, but does it still make sense to replace tweeters in both speakers rather than just one?

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!)

"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.

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.

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.

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.