genek

Sounds like a job for a supertweeter.

The models overlapped: AR-2 1957 - 1964 AR-2x 1964-1970 "early" AR-2a 1959 - 1969 AR-2ax 1964-1970 "early" AR-2x 1970-1973 "late" AR-2ax 1970-1976 "late" There are a couple of members who can rebuild tweeters. Will let them say whether their services are available.

The 2ax was a 1964-1976. Your is an "early" model, between 64 and 70.

If you watch the video, the covers of the books on the table are not reversed. The image is not flipped.

It's a video.

The logo plates appear to be on the wrong side of the grills?

I think the question is whether the OP wants a full-on restoration or just to get them looking and sounding halfway decent. They have aftermarket drivers that have aged out, so someone was probably listening to them not sounding original for a long time.

No-name tweeters, too.

If you try removing the grills, there's a better than even chance you'll break them, so consider that as you're deciding whether you want to clean them. You can probably conceal most of the cabinet blemishes with some lightly tinted paste wax. And if you get them into their most optimal position off those stands and into that shelving you'll only be looking at the front moldings anyway.

Restor-a-Finish is not a stain. It's designed to soften an existing finish to enable the removal of scale and trapped contaminants. The color is pretty faint. Your best bet to darken the face frame is to mix up some additional tung oil with more dye in it and then wipe or brush it onto the lighter wood. Put some painter's tape along the joint so you don't get any on the rest of the cabinet.

You can try dipping a pad in some stain and wiping it along the too-light strip. The color will be laying on top and will be more subject to wear than the finish overall.

Looks more like some kind of plastic film to me. I have a couple of AR service tweeters with this kind of covering, except that they're black rather than white.

Make a very dilute mix of dye stain and apply to the bare wood. In places where the color is too light, wipe on more stain in between coats. When the color looks even, then start applying the dye tinted oil to get overall darkening.

They look the same to me as they did in the pictures you posted last week. You can't go back and stain over the tung oil finish, and just adding more coats won't make the color any darker. What you can do is add oil soluble dye to more of the tung oil and then put additional coats on. https://www.constantines.com/lockwoodoilsolubledyepowders.aspx Dissolve the packet of powder in a couple of ounces of the same spirit you used in the tung oil and use an eyedropper to add a little bit at a time until you get enough color. Keep the tint light and do multiple coats. Too much at once and you may get uneven coloration.

Can you post some pics of what they look like now? Also, what tung oil finish did you use?

If the veneer is real wood you can do a lot to restore it. If it's not, there isn't much you can do at all.

Are the cabinets real wood, or vinyl? The grain looks kind of fake to me.

The pair on the right are later versions with backwired tweeters. They were painted darker when made because the grills were removable. What kind of shape is the veneer in? If the cabs are decent generally, you can splice in a new mounting board for an original size tweeter. If you can post pics of the veneer faces and the backs we can give you better guidance about the cabinets.

My guess is there's probably nothing wrong with the amp at all. As previously mentioned, volume control all the way down does not mean there's no signal, just that the signal is hugely attenuated. If CDs are the only source that causes sound to come out of the speaker, then it's the CD player. Its output is probably grossly higher than the standard 0.775 VRMS @ 0 VU. If the CD player doesn't have an output level control, try to find a service manual for it online and see if it has internal trimmer pots.

Zero on a volume control is not a disconnect. There is still voltage going through the amplifier to the speakers. And the CD players I've had over the years have always had the highest outputs of anything I plugged into my amplifiers. A very sensitive speaker could receive enough signal to produce sound. Although the idea of any classic era AR speaker being called "very sensitive" kind of boggles my mind.

Second that. Wood filler never absorbs stain the same way as wood. Unless the damage is large enough and you have the skill to cut in actual pieces of real walnut, your best bet is to fill nicks after refinishing and then touch up the color.

The color is a combination of wood patination and yellowing of the linseed oil finish. To get back to a "factory fresh" look, I would apply a light wash of a dye stain to even out color variations in the cabinet and face frame and then a clear finish (I prefer to stain first and then oil, rather than coloring the oil because it's easier to control the color). If you use linseed oil it will eventually yellow again in 20 years or so, or you could use tung oil, which doesn't tend to yellow. These are the ones I like: https://www.shellac.net/ngr_dye_color_list.html - Behlen Solar Lux "Van Dyke Brown" diluted 50/50 with the reducer https://www.realmilkpaint.com/shop/oils/half-and-half/ - tung oil and citrus based solvent blend I have not tried the Osmo product Weak4Teak recommends above, but the results do look good.

When you sand wood that has been finished with penetrating oil, the dust will be colored even if the wood hasn't been stained, because there isn't a topcoat to sand through and you are removing wood from the start. After you refinish the wood, it will be a different color compared to what it was before, because you have removed the patina (the color change that occurs in the outermost fibers due to years of exposure to air and light). Over time, light colored woods become darker, dark colored woods become lighter. Woods with reddish or yellowish undertones, like walnut, cherry, pine or teak become more strongly colored. The contrast between lighter heartwood and darker sapwood in the same piece of wood becomes stronger. If you want to even out these variations, you'll need to use stain even if the wood wasn't originally stained.

On a AR3/3a, the place you want to compare color is along the side of the face frame, where it mates with the cabinet veneer. If wetting this area down looks good, just leave it be. Any finish that uses a pigmented stain will obscure grain somewhat. If you want to avoid that, you need to use a dye stain. Dyes are my preference, because you can dilute them as much as needed to make very light washes you can apply in stages to get exactly the color you need. With a pigmented stain you can never make a wash lighter than the color of the pigment particles in the suspension. At one time Watco made a matte finish Danish oil that was a pretty good visual match for BLO, but it's long since discontinued. If you want to use an oil/varnish blend, you can let it cure for a week or so and then take the gloss down to a satin with a scuff pad. Do that by hand, not with a power sander or buffer, and always rub in the direction of the grain.

BLO will give you a matte finish. Just be sure it isn't a blended finish with varnish added, like Watco. If the face frames are way off in color from the cabinet veneers you can mix up some diluted alcohol-based stain and do touchup. Best to dilute it a lot so it's very light and just keep doing it until the color builds up right.