genek

I have no idea how any of this stuff would sound. I'm just browsing product specs and trying to play the "how would you" game.

And if what you want is something AR-3-ish, can live with bass-reflex rather than acoustic suspension, have $15,000 to spare and can wait for them to be shipped to you from overseas, there's this: https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/contents/audio_visual/ns-5000/index.html

For someone wanting to recreate a 4-way, this might be of interest: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/speaker_systems/ns-6490/index.html But I wonder, would you need two 12" subwoofers for each, or would one each be enough?

In which case your "modern" speakers will have to include the equivalent set of drivers. And then they will still need to be EQ'ed.

It would probably be more accurate to say that the differences in voicing would have to be handled by EQ. Because the chances of finding speakers whose voicing is already consistent with the sound of a 40+ year old speaker design are nil.

The biggest difference between "modern" speakers and speakers that produce that "AR Sound," whether classic or post-classic, seems to be how the drivers are distributed between cabinets and how low the bass goes. I think we've already established that differences in voicing would be handled by EQ.

I was referring to "modern," i.e., currently being made products, seeing as how that's what this whole discussion is theoretically supposed to be about.

No idea. But it seems as if everything suggested here so far is based on powered subs (is anybody still making passive subs?) paired either with satellites or smallish sized bookshelf speakers.

Everything I've seen in this discussion leads me to conclude that it would cost a lot more to buy new speakers and try to get classic AR sound out of them than it would to buy classic ARs and restore them, even if you had to pay someone to do the work for you.

Of course, this begs the question of whether today's subwoofers are even capable of producing decent output outside their normal HT ranges. There may be a good reason why their low pass settings all seem to top out at 200Hz or under.

In the absence of that external crossover, you'd need to line up a subwoofer whose low pass filter can be set in the 200-600Hz range if you're of the opinion that those frequencies coming from a 6" woofer aren't going to be comparable to them coming from a 12" woofer. I have spent virtually no time listening to satellite/subwoofer combos, so I have no opinion on that one way or the other.

This is pretty much the way subwoofers used to work in the olden days before home theater, and if the goal is to make the new speaker stack sound more like a "classic" bookshelf or floor standing AR, it's probably still the way you want to go. The AVR's subwoofer out would just not be used at all. And if the LFE setting on the SVS is the bypass for its low pass, then you'd need an external crossover.

I don't see a setting on the SVS that bypasses its built-in low pass filter. So even if your preamp can send signals above 160Hz to it, it's still going to cut them off. I had a conversation about 10 years back with one of the designers of my preamp (Sherwood Newcastle 5.1). His recommendation for subwoofer usage if music was the primary consideration rather than home theater was to use two subwoofers and to not use the LFE channel, which for my model meant setting the LF and RF speakers as "large" and connecting the subwoofers to the LF and RF outputs rather than the subwoofer pre outs. The reason for this, he explained, is that when you use a HT amp's LFE, the lows from left and right are mixed together to produce a single LF channel, even if you have connections for L and R subwoofers. By not using the LFE, the preamp sends discrete L and R to the subwoofers, and the subwoofers' low pass filters rather than the preamp determine the rolloff points.

I never put much stock in subjective listening tests, even back in the days when there were publications with real tests. I used the measurements and specs to determine if I was interested in listening. The only subjective listening impressions that matter to me are my own.

All speakers sound like speakers. You only have to go to a few live concerts for it to be obvious that speakers can't reproduce the sound of real instruments. In fact, go to a few amplified concerts, and you'll realize that most speakers can't even reproduce the sound of other speakers.

I was. My 5.1 preamp is an old model, but it allows me to manually adjust the delay in the rear surround speakers. If modern surround systems allows the same delay adjustment for all the side and rear firing satellites, then theoretically it might be possible to feed in two-channel stereo and create a simulation of the reverberant field of a wide dispersion stereo pair and control the size of the "virtual room." 7.1 or 9.1 might not do the job, but maybe the new 10.2, 12.2 or 22.2 schemes.

Yes, and unfortunately, KLH's new subwoofers are ported. A mixed-brand stack like the one Jerry describes is the only option if someone wants a acoustic suspension system with a large woofer.

The two bookshelf models in the new KLH line are acoustic suspension. I haven't heard any of the new speakers mentioned so far (I actually haven't heard any new speakers at all for several years now), but I'd probably start by checking the KLH "Albany" out first if only because I'd prefer wood cabinets to black or white. Whatever new speakers you start with, you'll probably have to reproduce the classic AR on-axis response with a good EQ, but there would still be the dispersion to deal with at least if the sound you're after is that of a classic AR with dome tweets and mids. Possibly, a 7.1 or 9.1 surround system with a lot of manual adjustments could be tweaked to produce a simulation of the reverberant field, at least horizontally. Otherwise, you'd be looking at ganging a bunch of the smaller units together into some sort of 3D array similar to what Micro Acoustics did with the tweeters on their FRM models.

I doubt there has ever been any receiver made designed to run two pairs of four ohm speakers at the same time. If that's what you want to do, you need another power amp for the second set of speakers.

At certain frequencies, the impedance of the 3a can dip as low as 2 ohms, which means running two pairs may result in 1 ohm across the amp. You shouldn't even be running one pair of 4 ohm speakers on an amp rated for 8 ohm speakers. Find another stereo repair shop.

Roy, are you planning on taking measurements? Would be very interested in seeing what the off-axis numbers look like, and since AR originally measured their drivers individually we should be able to get an apple vs apple comparison.

My guess is that whoever put the Peerless woofers in added those components to try and compensate for the difference between them and the original AR woofers. If I'm right, removing them will probably make everything you don't like about the way the speakers sound now even worse. About the muffled highs, have you checked to make sure there's actually sound coming from the tweeters?

You need to replace the woofers with real AR units. Refoamed 8" AR woofers typically sell for $60-$80 for a pair on eBay. The Sprague Compulytic caps are probably still ok.

It probably does, if only because one dead tweeter is like one worn out tire; when one goes, the rest are probably not far behind.

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.