genek

Positioning these speakers vertically is giving you a wide midrange dispersion... vertically. If you tend to stand up and sit down a lot in the same spot, that's probably great. Not so great if you ever intend to leave the single location your horizontally beamy speakers are optimized for and move around the room.

How many years ago? The site had some long downtime periods in 2009 and 2013 and a lot of library and forum content was lost and unrecoverable both times. If you look at https://web.archive.org/web/20091001000000*/classicspeakerpages.net there are snapshots of the site where you may be able to view lost content.

The very last run of classic era ARs out of Norwood had backwired drivers. The backwired driver for the AR-5 and LST2 was P/N 200010-2, A.13 in the AR-3a restoration document. Possibly the single rarest AR driver out there.

They were also often found in the PA systems of schools and office buildings. Good speakers for the narrow range of the human voice, but IMO overrated as collectables way out of proportion to their actual performance as full range music speakers. Like depression glass, they've become hard to find because they were once relatively cheap ($20 in 1950) and were considered unworthy of being preserved when the buildings they were installed in were demolished.

The Carnegie Hall demo was a chamber quartet in a space with concert hall acoustics. The amp and speakers only needed to recreate the original sound level of four musicians at their actual locations in a space specifically designed to project unamplified sound toward an audience. The last time I was in Grand Central (back in the 80s) I could barely understand the announcements coming from the PA speakers. I don't know if acoustics were even a consideration in the design of that space, but if they were it was a colossal fail.

60 WPC Dynaco tube amps were sufficient to power AR-3's for AR's live vs recorded demo in Carnegie Hall. The amps reportedly did not survive the demos, but while they lasted, they were able to produce enough power for a chamber quartet in a concert hall.

Oops. Thanks for catching that.

A later model 3a would have the same back wired mids and tweeters as an LST2, and the woofer would be interchangeable with many later 12" ARs and not all that hard to replace. It might even have Compulytic caps that don't need replacing. If I was in the market for a pair and the cabs looked good I wouldn't exclude without checking them out.

Recapping won't make any difference if the driver is distorting. That's what that "crackling" sound is. The Norwood-installed service mid in the AR-3 is probably closer to an AR-3a mid than a 3 anyway, so I'd try using it.

When first introduced, the vinyl covered 2-way AR-8 was a whopping $16 less than a real walnut 3-way AR-2ax. And I doubt that anyone bought the idea of an "accurate rock speaker."

Accurate reproduction was the AR mantra under Villchur. Once the five-year transition ended in 1972 and Villchur's people started to exit, product development was controlled by Teledyne management and chasing their perceived "consumer preference" resulted in the introduction of "low end" stuff like the AR-8.

Looks great. But just in case your lacquer experience wasn't painful enough, check this out... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.woodsmith.com/article/rubbing-out-a-high-gloss-finish/&ved=2ahUKEwil8reDg-7yAhXEHzQIHW-0Am4QFnoECEwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1oFVMDLIqmRtwB4_MMPA7h&cshid=1631057754750

Assuming that refinishing is needed, my current go-to for an oiled finish is Tung oil cut with a citrus solvent. For a coating finish, wipe-on varnishes or "danish oils" don't vary a lot by brand. But if the side faces of these are in the same condition as the front edges, they probably don't need anything more than some cleaner/polish.

"Teak oil" is an absurdly expensive product originally formulated to weatherproof teak boat decks. There's no need to use it for any indoor applications.

The biggest difference I noticed when I compared the 3a to the Five way back when they were new was that the 3a had wider dispersion and a slightly more "airy" quality to the sound. Any other difference between them could be compensated for by the level controls.

Scott's is mineral oil with a small amount of naptha added. The naptha acts as a cleaner and the oil as a polish. Replace the naptha with d-limonene (citrus oil) and you have "lemon oil" furniture polish. Both are effective cleaner/polishes, but they do not catalyze (harden) so they are not wood finishes. Boiled linseed oil catalyzes, so it is a wood finish. But I wouldn't use it as a polish.

I don't know what kind of home environment AR envisioned for their oiled finish cabinets, but I have 50+ year old ARs that have never been reoiled. A bit of furniture cleaner/polish/wax from time to time is all they've ever needed. Reapplying finish oil is what you do when your original finish has worn or oxidized to the point where bare wood has become exposed.

Probably walnut. The straight, ribbon-like grain appears to be the result of using narrow bands of veneer from very young trees.

FYI, Watco and other "Danish oil" finishes are oil/varnish blends, and it is the varnish that is acting as the binder to turn the sanding dust into a viable grain filler. If you use an oil (linseed, tung, etc.) finish that doesn't include varnish you may get a goo that never hardens. The traditional technique for making filler out of sawdust involves mixing the sawdust with wood glue, or applying multiple coats of shellac or varnish, sanding between coats and rubbing the wood/finish sawdust blend that results into the wood between coats. Note that these techniques will result in a finish that is a coating and not a true "oil finish" that can be touched up later by wiping on more oil the way AR originally recommended.

The 1986 AR replacement parts list shows 200010-1 for the AR-19, 11, 3a and LST.

The mids definitely look like the 20044-0 for the AR-58s.

Do not mod the crossovers. There is nothing you can do to turn a 4 ohm speaker into a 6 ohm speaker. You should contact the receiver mfr and ask if it can safely be used with 4 ohm speakers. You might be ok as long as you keep your volume low. If not, you can try adding a 2 ohm resistor in series with the speaker, but then you'll be losing amplifier power.

In the 50s and 60s, birch and teak were popular choices by people living in very modern homes (what today is called "mid century modern"). People living in more traditional homes would almost always opt for walnut, cherry or mahogany. And the pine boxes would mostly be bought by people planning on putting them inside console cabinets or painting them. My guess is the korinas all went to musicians, specifically, guitar players.

Use the 4 ohm terminals. That's the nominal impedance of the speaker.

AR-3a can actually dip down as far as 2 ohms at some low frequencies. Most amps rated at 4 ohms can handle that, but it never hurts to check with the mfr before making a buy decision.