michiganpat

when I did my 58S's years ago, I actually used some linen for the grille cloth, gives it more of a 3a vibe.....

I've got their slightly older, bigger cousins, 312HO's. are you sure the woofer is metal? my 312's midwoofs are smooth poly w/rubber surround, IIRC.... these were pretty darn good speakers for their price point when they came out IMHO, but yes, they only share the name with the classic era AR's....and maybe some of the tweeter technology of the TSW eras (titanium domes on these as well, IIRC)

you're seeing the phenomenon you're describing in the classic car marketplace.....the tin lizzy through 40's cars are stagnating/depreciating as large numbers of enthusiasts from these eras age out/die off, and there's softness in the 50's/60's cars as the boomers start to do the same, and there's some strength in some of the rarer cars of the 70's-90's as gen X'ers like me start pursuing the dream cars of their youth now that they have some disposable income (i.e. buick GNX, etc) same thing with the motorcycle market....why is Harley struggling? because their clientele is aging out of the market.....

my biggest reason for leaning towards this route is these woofers are designed very similar to the AR woofer: acoustic suspension mounting and natural rolloff w/o any sort of crossover....looking through 8" woofers at parts express, a lot of the higher ones, the T-S parameters lend themselves much more towards vented designs, or the Qts is so high (>1) that you'll end up with a sharp bump in response and fast fall off on the low end, and a lot of them have a response peak at 3-4khz instead of a smooth roll off at 2khz that will require at least a coil to tame... the Oaktron by MISCO are intreguing (and I believe made in the USA), but their T-S parameter lend more towards vented designs, I feel... https://store.miscospeakers.com/products/find-oaktron-high-quality-speakers?size=94

if I were buying new, that's the one I'd gravitate towards....

teledyne bought AR in 1967 and sold in 1989.....so a large number of "classic era" AR's were teledyne era (Ar3a, AR5, 6, 7, the redesign of the 2x) though the ADD series, the vertical series, the LS series, to the TSW series.... Allison left I think in '71 and didn't have further involvement with AR after that

it's an open cell foam . I've made some out of felt on mine, and have also cut out foam rings....

I'd think the easiest way would be to run a single tweet and UMR in a vertical array, and one 8" lower midrange to one side with the same crossover as you 90's, but w/o the woofer section and the high pass to the LMR deleted (so that runs "full range" on the low end if it doesn't already).....if you wanted 8"W (MID/Tweet) 8"W arrangement with the woofers (LMR) wired in parallel, theoretically whatever components are on the LMR low pass crossover, you should be able to halve the inductance and double the capacitance and get pretty darn close. if you wire the woofers in series, you'd do the opposite (double inductance and halve capacitance).... I'd size the enclosure something between an AR17 and 18 for 1 woofer, about double for 2.....

for my 58S's, I just recovered the MDF grille frames in linen, look great. in hindsight, I wish I would have run them on the router table at work with a 1/2 chamfer bit and put a bevel on it like the original ADD grilles. on the 58S's, the posts are on the box, and the grille frame is 3/4" MDF with holes to receive the studs....I have a spare badge, if it's the same as the 58S, but not a filler panel.... I've thought long and hard about pulling the vinyl off my ADD 18's and using real wood veneer....just never got around to it. shouldn't take more than $30 worth of veneer for the pair....

nice.....years ago I tried to buy a pair but the seller was kind of a putz, and it fell through...if I had to guess, the white dustcap might be heavier to add mass and lower the driver's Fs, much like the "spitwad" dustcap on the smaller advent woofer.... and BTW the AR94 is technically a 2.5 way, IIRC, with one woofer running full range, and the other low-passed at like 200 hz....

if you disconnect the crossover to the tweeter, and measure across the tweeter terminals, you should get some nominal resistance, IIRC between 4-6 ohms. if it reads open, the tweeters have a break in the tinsel leads or the voice coil is shot. there is a member here IIRC who is able to redo these tweets (or is it the older orange dome 3/2ax tweet), otherwise your (well documented) options are to roll the dice on another used pair, or the hi-vi Q1R replacement. if these are "daily driver" speakers, I'd probably look more towards the Q1R tweeter replacement.

Those turned out great!

I don't have experience with the B, just the original 18 and the rock partners....like them both.....I also have had some Holographic Imaging M5's (regret selling), 2ax's (were OK, but not overwhelming) 312HO's (in our home theater, great speakers from the recoton era AR of the late 90's), and some 58S's, which I need more time with but like so far....

yes...essentially tonegen versions of the 18S/B drivers. sound like them, too....xover is a simple cap, 5uf, same as the S and B. I have a pair, and ended up putting the drivers in some advent prodigy cabinets with the recapped RP "crossover" since one of the grilles was all bent up....they're run by a Marantz 2230 in my 9 year old daughters room and sound pretty much the same as the 18's that were on it before (and are now on my 6 year old son's stereo)

the issues with the frame of the woofer look like artifacts of the metal stamping process, and this is what AR woofers looked like in the late 70's/early 80's....

either the JBL or the 8" filled fillet for boston acoustics are the recommended surrounds

my uncle gave me 2 pair of ADD series 18's and a marantz 2265 that he bought while in the air force in 1977....one pair has the tweeter level switch, the other doesn't....both were bought at the same time, and both have the same woofer....

the cap difference came with the revised tweeter (0038 I think are the last 4 digits in the PN)...it was a tad more sensitive...it has the S shaped vs, straight leads of the older (0014 pn I believe) tweeter in the 18....

you might be best off getting some brand new single edge razor blades or xacto knives and very carefully slicing between the rubber and the paper to remove it....

the question would be, which might have more variability in output, the left vs. right channel on the same amp, or the same channel on 2 separate but identical amps? in a perfect world they should all be the same so it doesn't matter....my gut tells me there'd be less variability on 2 channels of the same amp than 2 separate amps, which would lead me personally to horizontally bi-amp...

since you're replacing drivers, have you looked at the eclipse woofers offered by meniscus? they're made by MISCO in Minneapolis instead of asia, and are pretty reasonably priced.... here's the 10" http://meniscusaudio.com/eclipse-w1038r-p-567.htmlis the 10"...here's full specs on MISCO's website http://www.miscospeakers.com/speakers/OC10W-8D and the 12" http://meniscusaudio.com/eclipse-w1238r-p-568.htmland full specs on MISCO's website http://www.miscospeakers.com/speakers/OC12W-8D IIRC when I was playing with the t-s specs, either one sim'ed to a -3db cutoff at about 40hz, with -10 in the mid 20's in about 1.8 cubic foot sealed.....

funny thing, the same day I filed for unemployment, I received an offer letter. Been super busy at the new job, but loving it, other than the fact I don't have my own office so I'm resigned to earbuds off my laptop. the 2230 marantz/AR18's are in my 7 year old daughter's bedroom, and the sub in the living room off of my 2265. my 4 year old is starting to want a stereo, too, so I'm on the prowl for anotehr reasonable marantz. I have some Rock Partners I refoamed, but still need to do some repair/refinish on the cabs, and there's a set of AR93's that have resurfaced on my local craigslist....

well, I had picked up the 2ax as a project, and the M5's were in my office setup along with my AR18's....I do have seller's remorse getting rid of the M5's.....the 2ax's were too big for any place I could use them at home (kids bedrooms and living room) and my 10x10 office was too small for them, really.... I built a passive sub and am running that on the B channel of my marantz 2230 with the AR18's, and that adds that bottom octave that I got with the M5's.I picked up a 2 channel, 120hz 2nd order xover on ebay for $15, and that blends very well with the 18's... and I'm a few days away from being laid off, so my office system is most likely going to end up in my daughter's bedroom, where the AR18's will be a much better fit size wise...

pics or it didn't happen