genek

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.

The most common original finish for walnut was BLO ("boiled linseed oil"). A lot of people like tung oil finishes or Watco Danish Oil, but either of those will produce a much glossier finish than original. If the solid wood face frames look close enough to the cabinet veneer when wetted down, you shouldn't need any stain. ARs in walnut, cherry and other woods were also available finished with glossy clear lacquer. Much more difficult to apply.

It was. But they probably weren't giving a lot of thought to how well drivers with ferrofluid were going to hold up compared to ones without it 45 years in the future.

I'm still waiting for one of our members who is familiar with the sound of classic KLHs to listen to the new "KLH 5" and tell us if it sounds anything like the original. Because if a "new" KLH or AR made by a different company sounds like a modern speaker, is putting "KLH" or "AR" on the badge and styling it to resemble a classic KLH or AR make it a real KLH or AR? Not to me. Corvettes, OTOH, are a different matter because the new ones are being made by the same company that made the old ones. And they're not even a revival, because the model has been in continuous production with a continuous evolution of changes since it was first introduced. If the original AR was still in business and turning out an "AR-LST MkXX," we might not like the way the current production version looks or sounds, but there would be no denying that it's an authentic AR.

Back in the late 80s, before I had the internet and before I had heard of refoaming, one of the woofers in my 1975 AR-2ax's lost its foam. Assuming that where one failed the other was soon to follow, I ordered "service replacements" for both, which by then were Tonegen. After replacing the failed woofer I compared the speaker to its still-working mate and could not hear a difference. And, of course, the mate also failed within a year. 30 years later, both of the service replacements are still in place and working fine, so there was definitely some difference between them and the originals that failed in just under 15 years.

Yes, you'd remove the tweeters and their housing and replace it with a plywood panel with a cutout for the single tweeter.

If I wanted to place the speakers vertically, I'd look for a tweeter to turn the AR-2 into a 2x.

Never seems to be any vintage electronics at pawn or thrift shops where I live. It's all newer stuff that is probably near the end of its life thanks to planned obsolescence. I think most people with good stuff to sell put it on Craigslist or eBay before their situations deteriorate enough to resort to pawning.

Have you hooked them up to see how they sound? Someone probably owned a mono system with the AR-1 and then added the AR-3 to make it stereo, and I can't help wondering how well that worked.

This what you want if you're going to do very many of these: https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/specialty-hand-tools/picks-hooks-tweezers-probes/pick-and-hook-set-7-piece-69592.html

It's not just glue. There are staples hidden in the fabric, you have to hunt for them.

How solid is the bond on the lower part of the panel? If you can, your best best is to work the panel completely off the cabinet, then scrape as much glue as you can off both before reattaching the panel. Pretty much any good construction or wood adhesive will do the job.