genek

"Locally" is a much bigger factor than it used to be. I'm seeing shipping quotes on many vintage speakers that are higher than what those same models were selling for 3-5 years ago.

Sounds like AR-3s rather than 3a?

If it came with that resistor already attached, then what you have is probably a 4 ohm 1200013-1 tweeter designed for the AR-3a with the resistor added to convert it to a -2 equivalent.

It's always a tough trade-off, whether to expend time, money and effort to produce improvements you're not sure you'd even be able to hear. I decided a while back to hold off on rebuilding tweeters unless/until they actually stop working. What I have sounds good enough to me as it is.

What you experienced is most likely a common psychoacoustic effect. You had expectations of a particular sonic improvement (much higher tweeter output), and didn't appreciate the different one you actually got until you stopped looking for the one you had expected. BTW, those speakers will sound considerably better if you can raise them up off the floor. 10-12 inches is good; double that would be better.

I started a project with a pair of AR-11 cabs I bought cheap from Goodwill (was going to add 3a-style face frames and grills). Put it aside at the start of the pandemic, our cats claimed them as their new kitty condo and I haven't got the heart to take them back. Might as well see if I can find a pair of the real thing.😗

Aren't the inner walls of the cabinet "inside" the cabinet...?

The 1ms cabinets are made of aluminum.

I have two pairs of these (used to have three, sold one to one of our members a while back). I question whether they really added all that much to the higher end AR speakers back in the day, but considering that those old speakers' tweeters are now operating at less than optimal performance, for what I paid for the Microstatics ($50 and $75/pair), they're an obvious alternative to having to rebuild or replace all the old tweeters.

The 1ms is a pretty tight squeeze, but if the foam doesn't make things bind up when trying to fit the internals back in you should be ok. Probably won't make much difference in the sound. BTW, I'm pretty sure the 1cs didn't have an actual cabinet, just a front face with the drivers and crossover attached to it.

I have two pairs of 1ms, and removing the front plate basically turns the open housings into bells. When they're fully assembled and screwed tight, they don't ring.

A blonde AR-1w with a black Janszen l-30 was sold on eBay in February for $630. There is currently a blonde AR-1 with original Altec tweeter for sale on eBay for $4000.

Unfortunately, either another blonde AR-1, an AR-1w with that tweeter in blonde or just that tweeter in blonde is going to set you back quite a lot.

The original owner would most likely have started out with a single AR-1 in a mono system, then later expanded it to stereo with a second AR1, this time a W with an add-on tweeter because an exact match to the first speaker was no longer available. That was apparently a satisfactory solution at the time, so there probably no reason why it shouldn't be one now.

These look more like the earlier AR-4 to me.

The problem with original pots is corrosion, not fiber infiltration. It's when you replace originals with open-back units like Ohmites that fiber becomes an issue.

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The odds of finding a good match at a price a sensible person would be willing to pay are slim. If this was part of a vintage mono system the original owner had, might be a good idea to see if the rest of it is still available.

The power required to generate enough heat to damage the pots would fry all the drivers first, but the minute levels of heat generated from normal use may hasten oxidation. The best way to reduce the likelihood of this is to coat the windings and wiper in dielectric grease to block their exposure to air.

The RS woofers will almost certainly not be well suited to the cabinets. In 1979 AR was supplying the same service woofer for the 8 as for the 2ax, so they should be easy enough to find. Original badges show up on eBay from time to time. Have not seen anyone offering new repros.

Yes, 2 5s in parallel would be the equivalent of a 10. The most likely reason would be cost. Either 5s were a lot cheaper than 10s, or the need for 10s wasn't great enough to justify the cost and effort of stocking them in inventory.

That's a bit higher than what was typical when those speakers were new, but "typical" is highly dependent on placement and room characteristics. For dispersion, an easy test is to put on some music with a lot of high frequency content and walk around the room while it's playing. If the "sweet spot" where the sound doesn't change as you walk around seems to extend from one side wall to the other, you're good. This is the test where ARs with dome midranges tend to beat the 2ax with its cone mids.

The preferred add-ons of the period (Janszen and Microacoustics) were not so much about more highs as different highs, or highs in more places. Their goal was to produce a wider dispersion pattern and a more enveloping soundfield. The concept would reach its zenith with speakers like the Bose 901, AR's LSTs and a variety of omnidirectional speakers from others. Modern super tweeters are all about more on-axis highs, and most of us here don't think very "highly" of them.