DavidDru

Pete, you still selling this stuff? I tried PM you but it said you can't receive messages. ?

Grab em if you come across them for sure! Replacing the surround on the mid and the trim pads around the tweeters and mids make the restoration a bit more work, but well worth it. I really like how the cabinets look with the thin edges too. I will post photos as soon as I have the grilles done. Time to find the 11 or 10pi, although these are probably all I really need in my room with the quality and power of my amplification.

I think the surrounds are already there Glenn! Thanks for the trim pieces for the tweeter and mid. They look great. Whatever the adhesive was on the originals is some tough gooey stuff. Now to do the grille frames.

Great idea Larry. In fact I did do just that last week on a connection to a pair of super tweeters I added to my Concert Grands. Early ones for me too I think. They are some sort of metal. I didn't do the bypass caps. Suppose I could have since I have those little caps here for that.

Shockingly good after a recap and new surrounds on mid and woofer. New trim pads on tweeter and mid that I got from Glenn. WOW! is all I can say. I have them in my 12' x 12' room hooked up to my WOPL 400 (230/ch) SS amp and tube preamp and they absolutely jump out at you and image great. Really good detail and the bass is all you need in this room at all levels. Also tried them with the Dyncao ST70 and now with a The Fisher TA600 tube receiver and those do well with them also. A bit more gain is required of course. I used Dayton 1% poly's in the recap. Will probably go back in and replace those darn AR binding posts. Damn things drive me crazy! Next up though is fabricating some new grilles. Going to go with the raised beveled edge like Glenn did in his. I may contact foamspeakergrilles to see what they would charge to make some up like I have for some big Altecs. I am full in on looking for AR11's or 10pi now.

Lucky once again and acquired a very nice pair of the AR12's today from the one and only owner since he purchased them new for 10% off list at $450 in March of 79. The purchase receipt and brochures and manual all come with these so that is cool. Serial numbers are 2 numbers apart. The cabinets will require very little work but new grilles are needed. All the drivers interestingly enough are factory replacements. He told me he thought he had them replaced around 1990 and right before they were no longer available. Phew! All of these drivers need the usual age-out attention, but all work. Woofers just need new surrounds as do the mids. Tweeters and mids need the outer plate foam pieces and I hope Glenn can help with those. Hey buddy. Will get a recap too of course. 40, 20, 10 and 6. The ferro fluid thing is interesting. I recently replaced the ferro fluid on some KEF104/2 and it was pretty straight forward easy as long as you know the amount. Check out the photo with the teledyne acoustics sticker on the bottom of the rear plate and how it was meant to cover the AR logo. I hope I summarized the approach well enough. I gathered together this strategy after reading various threads on the 12's here and at AK.

Well, outstanding timing as i too need it to know what value caps I need to order for the 1's I picked up today.

Picked up a great pair of RDL Acoustics F-1 this weekend. A mere $80. All is good with them. May need new surrounds on the top woofers. They are in-tact but in that stage of where it seems like you could put your finger through them. No biggy. Great cherry finish and overall styling with these, which I think Roy A. was pretty good about over the years. Currently being driven by my fully restored Pioneer SA-9100 at 60/ch. I will put them in the main system where I can go 240/ch SS or 35/ch tube and see what they do. They seem a little in want of power. Love Roy's tweeters. I feel fortunate to have a pair of these as they seem rare as hens teeth these days. They proudly join My Allison Ones in the collection. Hey from the Mountain Pacific Northwest!

"no sales ever allowed" Can't even imagine that approach these days, and it's a shame.

Hmm, Rob, those do look odd, including the mids and tweets. Here is my 710:

cool!

Got the new woofer driver yesterday, refoamed it last night and have them up and running now. Sound pretty darn good. Again makes me question a recap, but I guess I should just to reset the timeline. Now that everything works I will remove all the drivers, clean-up the paint job, do a nice job with the exposed capstone tops with maybe a piano black finish and keep looking for a replacement material for the socks.

What was the big picture with the 9's when they hit the market? Were they cutting edge best of class etc? If so, go to today's similar best and see what they cost and there you go.

I think I have seen it spelled out before, but can someone tell me exactly what bypass caps actually do? In english, not engineer.

Anybody know where I can get suitable replacement grill material for these? It's a lot like the better grill material from Part Express you can use on Ar9's etc but stretchier.

Right? We so often jump to recapping things and I bet 75% of the time it isn't needed. Although it resets the clock I guess. I don't mind these situations as much as thinking about the high dollar commitment my AR9's will be.

Good to know David. With that bad woofer the spider is actually unglued from the cone. I found a replacement for $19.99 free shipping so I just went with that rather than mess with this one. Anybody have an impression/take on these caps?

Hooked them up to real power. Much much better but one of the side woofers will need to be refoamed. Getting a VC rub rattle. Previus owner suggested it might. That pushed me to remove it and open that one up so I took a photo of the CO. Unicon caps. 60mfd, 120mfd, 4uf Same as the drawing above

Excellent, thanks ra ra! I'm with you for now, I'll wait on the refoam since it isn't pressing to get these working. Other things to spend my time on to improve these. Actually, you have successfully reminded me of the Ar 18s's in my sons room having this tweeter. Well, I have one replacement badge and am going to want to source one more, so if anybody has any of the square plastic ones.... I wonder what the deal was with the white dustcap on these side woofers? Maybe helped identify they were not the same as the front 8" mid woofer. ? The wrap around stocking grille material will probably be the hardest aspect of this.

Picked up this set of AR93's yesterday. All drivers are functioning and listening to them now. Not bad. In my garage and the Dynaco ST70 was in #1 position so hooked up to that for the time being. Probably be better with a little more power. A little beat up. Came with the socks off so of course the painted black particle board is rough. Should be an easy clean up and paint though since they don't need to be perfect and are covered by the sock. The top caps will need a little more attention and hopefully I will be able to smooth them out with some sanding and don't need to fab new ones. The bottom stands are plastic and are fine. I reinstalled one of the socks to get a feel for what they are supposed to look like. Of course these socks are not great and will try and figure out how to replace them. At least I have them to use as a pattern. Might be cool to go with a different color than black for a little fun. A wine or burgundy color might be nice if that material is made in something like that. I am into MCM furniture and could do something pretty cool along those lines too. Would just need to be a little stretchy and good for acoustical use I guess. The 6 8" drivers have all been refoamed at some point not so long ago and unfortunately they adhered the inside edge to the underside of the cone. huh? I should probably re-do them. ? Tweeters work.. One has the dustcap mushed in and I will try to get that straightened out. Are these tweeters considered any good? I was reading the go pretty low to match up with the frequencies of the large 8" mid range. The felt surrounding the tweeter is missing on one of them. Am I going to be able to find similar replacement material that thick? Have not gone inside them yet. Here is something I found from TT on them from a previous thread. How about the AR93 and AR94? Both of these speakers—from 1980—were true 3-way, 8-inch designs, but granted, these were notconventional 3-way designs in the sense of the AR-5/3a, etc. These were floor-standing models with 3-way crossovers, using the updated, Ferrofluid version of the 1¼-inch tweeter. These speakers were "parts-bin" engineered speakers using conventional drivers that took advantage of new thoughts on boundary issues (the "Allison Effect"), giving pretty solid bass down to the low-40Hz range (-3dB of 44 Hz), and these speakers were relatively inexpensive and could sound impressive if placed properly. The crossover frequencies were 350 Hz and 2000 Hz. —Tom Tyson

Nice Matthew! Love those 28's. They have been on my radar for a couple years now after finding some stands for them (yes odd). How do they sound. Never seem to get a report on what they sound like so I have been cautious about spending a lot of money. My collection consists of the following: Five, Six, 17, 23, 24, 32. Model 27 receiver and the model 26 stereo with turntable. The Fives are in my master bedroom and still need a cap refresh that I never got around to a couple years ago when JKent helped me figure out what I had and needed for them. The six's also need work, but are a daunting task so are a bit down on the list for now. I have a post on the forum here about them and the one with the odd cabinet. (There is a good looking pair on CList here now I am watching) The 17's I recently traded away but will be on the lookout for replacements. I think KLH hit a sweetspot with the 17. One of my favorite. The 23's are great and just need cabinet refinishing. The 24's will pair up with the 26 stereo. Here are a couple photos of the 26 stereo I don't think I have ever posted.

Sometimes we try to tackle too big of a range of time or info because we want to be thorough and comprehensive, but this can lead to it never getting done. Maybe tackle it in logical steps presented in volumes or some other catchy manner like "AR - the early years" or something based on eras of the company. Might help you get your head and available time around it more productively. Also, a go fund me page if successful might help you pay for a professional researcher that you can task to dig into finding things or people that just takes your time away from other activities or writting. Those researchers are really good at what they do and know how to find stuff typically.

This is pretty.

Just use them as is. If they don't sound good, sell them off. Unless they have been mistreated, they should be fine.

i like it. Great clean work. Soldering is all about jumping in. A little practice on not so important things is of course best.