GD70
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Posts posted by GD70
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On October 7, 2016 at 1:01 AM, tysontom said:
Glenn,
The ADS 910 has always been considered a fine loudspeaker, but when you say you found them to "outperform... AR12s, AR-3s, AR-LST/2s, KLH Fives..." I think you mean that you prefer the ADS 910s to those speakers, not that they will outperform them, for they won't.
For example, the AR-LST/2s easily have flatter and more uniform power response into the reverberant sound field than the 910s, meaning that the LSTs are much more spacious and 3-dimensional when properly placed and when listed to well back into a listening room. The 910 has superior low-frequency output when compared with the LST/2s, but throughout the midrange and treble, the dispersion and smoothness of the LST/2s is far superior to the 910. On axis—and up close—the 910 is certainly as smooth or smoother than the LST/2, but not off axis.
The AR-3, if it is in 100% original working condition, has slightly lower harmonic distortion than the 910 down in the deepest bass range, but the 910 has a somewhat lower resonance frequency and bass extension, somewhat greater overall power-handling capability. The 910 can't equal the AR-3's woofer in low harmonic distortion, especially at frequencies below 40 Hz, but few speakers can match, let alone surpass, the AR-3/3a in low distortion. The AR-3, in original working condition, is probably smoother in the midrange and treble as well, but high-frequency response declines more rapidly in the AR-3 than with the 910, making the AR-3 sound more reticent, and the biggest problem for the 55-year-old AR-3 is that only a rare few models left today still have sufficient output in the midrange and treble to be comparable to their sound when new. The sensitivity of the dome midrange and tweeter in the AR-3 (and the tweeter in the AR-3a, AR-5 and LST/2) tends to drop off the older the speaker get, unless these speakers had been stored in climate-controlled areas for many years in boxes, etc.
Yet overall, it's what a listener prefers that counts in the long run. Some speakers do better when listened to up fairly close; others do better when listening back in the sound field, as with most of the AR speakers of the earlier generation. Nevertheless, the 910 is one of the premier loudspeakers from ADS, and it has always been a reference standard in the industry.
—Tom Tyson
Hi Tom,
Thank you for the technical descriptions of these.
My AR3's are superb no doubt. I've never felt that were lacking in the mids and highs, and bass output is terrific as we all know. I'm sure the mids would benefit from Roy's restoration work though, which I do plan to have him do in the near future.
The LST-2's do have an amazing dimensionality, and soundstage. All the tweeters were dead when I bought them. Roy guided me through the restoration, and suggested using the HiVi tweeters with the crossover mods which I did. The mids sound great, and to my ears, don't seem at all deficient in output. Woofers surrounds were replaced with the correct Boston surrounds, which Roy sent to me.
I suppose I do prefer the 910's to the others. Of course environment plays a huge part, but in the current space, the 910's can't be beat. I hope to do some experimenting with speakers in different rooms in the house and see how it effects their performance and my ears!
Thanks, Glenn
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Being a 910 owner, early sequential numbers, with original stands, this thread is invaluable! Incredible information here.
Regarding the 910's sound, I have found them to out preform just about every speaker set I own. This includes AR12's, AR3's, AR LST-2's KLH Fives, among a few others, (all restored). The only set that comes close are a set of Prototype/DIYs, labeled "Angelica's", I found at a GW a year ago that are incredible. I have a lengthy thread over on AK about them. Anyway, I sent my mids and tweeters to Richard So for preventive maintenance more than for sonic improvement. They sounded great prior to the rebuild, but a bit better after. Just a bit cleaner and crisper in the mids and highs than before, though not at all harsh or too forward sounding. In my space in my cave/basement, they sit about 10 feet apart. The sound stage spaceiousness and dimensional clarity are quite amazing. I too had wondered why these were not mirrored, and assumed it was a cost issue vs. sonic benefits. The cross overs are original and will be left alone. I was able to find and purchase the bi-amp & tri-amp cards as well as the LED cards, and may some day try to bi-amp them, but for now I'm quite happy. I'm driving them with a JVC M-7050 power amp rated @ 150wpc, but on my techs bench was putting out 210 wpc. This combination is just spectacular, and as stated earlier, at extreme volume, the 910's output is effortless and distortion free.
I would love to hear the later models just to see how they compare some day.
Glenn
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Well, I hope the next time a deal like this presents itself, read almost never again, you jump on the opportunity! These are wonderful speakers, and though maybe at the bottom of the classic AR food chain, still highly regarded.
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1 hour ago, genek said:
I sometimes wonder how many audio owners have ever actually been to a live acoustic instrument performance.
Dozens.
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How can one really and accurately remember how a speaker sounded 56 years ago when they were 2 or 3 or 8 years old? I doubt I could. I believe we think we remember, but over the years, our ears change, usually for the worse, the caps start to go out of spec, these changes are so gradual we don't notice. Then we do a recap, and they usually sound great again, we hear an imidiate change, and we hope close to what they were like when new. I'm sure a lot of speaker drivers do not physically degrade over time, yet the AR3 mid does as Roy has stated. My 3's sound terrific to my ears, the mids and highs, very nice and clear, but I would guess they were better when new.
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I doubt there are any 3's or 3a's that currently sound as they did when new. I had the 3a's to restore the cabs, and had the opportunity to do an A/B comparison.
I did a crude video in an attempt to show the difference in sound between the two. The 3's are to the far right & left grills on, the 3a's grills off.
The 3a's are definitely more forward in the mids and highs, though not as smooth as the 3's to my ears. My 3's are early with original oil caps and pots, the 3a's were later with foam surround woofers, and had been recapped and ohmite rheostats replacing the original pots. The bass is deeper with the 3's.
Both had the rheostats set to maximum in an attempt to equal the settings as much as possible.
When the owner of the 3a's came to pick them up, we listened to both, and he also preferred the 3's over his 3a's.
The amp is a JVC A-X9 pushing 105 wpc. (Excuse my attire, it was s cold winter evening in the cave) ;-)
Glenn
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Hey lakecat,
After I had the 12's in my possession, I read through all these threads, which provided great information, especially for reforming the mids. These are great sounding speakers, will keep these for a long time.
Glenn
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On 4/11/2016 at 3:19 AM, xmas111 said:
Glenn,
Followed your restoration over at AK. Another fantastic restoration from start to finish. It's your attention to the details that make them look new.
Your getting a very impressive stash of AR speakers and they all look great because of your masterful skills!
John
Thank you John!
That means a lot! I'm very anal about details, and keeping originality, or duplicating original parts, in this case the decorative foam gaskets.
I still need to do the woofer foam ring.
A few more pics showing the tweeter gaskets being made.
Prepped for painting. I used spray mount lightly on the template/stencil to hold it in place on the foam sheet while painting. I applied 3 very light spray paint applications. If you put on a heavy coat, you'll get paint bleeding under the stencil edges.
The cut outs for alignment when cutting the gasket.
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11 hours ago, DavidDru said:
Great, another one to put on the list. Thanks Glenn
Worth it!
I'd like to hear the 11's compared to these some day.
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15 hours ago, owlsplace said:
Post-Classic and pre-AR-9 period:
Haven't heard anything bad about the 12's -- only praise. Since they are somewhat rare and needing rebuild quite a few have already made it to the landfill.
Roger
Thanks for that Roger.
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17 hours ago, stupidhead said:
look great Glenn. Enjoy
Thanks Geoff!
These were an enjoyable project, especially because I didn't need to do a major cab restoration!
Glenn
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40 minutes ago, owlsplace said:
Nice job, Glenn, on those ADD versions of the 2ax. They don't show up very often.
Roger
Thanks Roger!
ADD version? Excuse my ignorance.
Glenn
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Hey Robert!
Thanks for the kind words. When I first saw them sitting in the owners basement with the other stuff, I admit I was being a vintage AR snob, thinking these later models didn't live up to the AR standard, and frankly, didn't need yet another project to figure out where they would fit in with the rest of the herd. Boy was I wrong! They are special and rare.
I do believe these ferro fluid mids are unique to this model only.
Glenn
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Last September, I made a large audio purchase from my co-workers best friends husband. His wife wanted everything out!
My co-worker said I know the perfect person. Ends up the best friend is someone I worked with 16 years ago! Small world indeed!
Included in the purchase were my ADS 910's, Magneplaner SMG's, a Luxman receiver and McIntosh amplifier. I sold everything except the 910's, AR's and Maggies, which need rebuilding. Anyway, Iinitally passed on the 12's, which he was going to bring to the city dump! Stupid me! After doing a little research on these, I went back and grabbed them for free! He was the original owner.
I've restored them with help from Roy, and reading through some threads here. They have been re-capped, new surrounds and new foam gaskets for the mids and tweeters which I made. Luckily, the cabs were beautiful needing only a sanding and refinish with Watcos.
I need to build grill frames and get cloth. My plan is to make them the original shape as the foam ones with the angled sides.I've finally had the entire day to listen to these and they are extremely good! I put them on some stands I had, which really made a noticeable improvement.
I have a thread on the restoration over on AK also.
Glenn
This is how they looked when I got them.
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Nice that you still get to hear them once in a while.
the grills look great!
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On 1/2/2008 at 0:57 PM, JKent said:
Hi Vern
Thank you for the compliments and your comments.
Yes--I had not noticed the wafers on the switches, but there is a difference between my all-npe xover and the mylar/npe one I just finished.
Also did not notice the penciled SN on the plywood, but now that you mentioned it, the xovers that have the "brown wafer" switches are marked in pencil "#240" and "#263." I did not see numbers on the "white wafer switch" plywood. There was a date, hard to read (Sept something) and I see I covered it with Goop to glue down the caps
Interesting note on CR's take on the Twelves vs AR3a's. I don't think the Twelves get the respect they deserve! They are essentially identical to the well-
regarded Fives, but with bigger cabinets so they go deeper. That asset is also a liability.
I bought mine for $100 with local pickup, and that included a KLH Eighteen tuner and an old speaker selector switch! Only problems with the Twelves were:
Missing 3 knobs, terrible sound because of bad caps, a few minor nicks and scratches, tired-looking grille cloth.
They now sound great with the new caps. I'm in the process of refinishing the cabinets and patching the veneer in a couple of places. Not sure what to do about the grille cloth. I have the metal logos but have not reinstalled them yet.
Your comments about the paucity of KLHs in your neck of the woods is interesting. Of course, in New England they were very common. I notice a lot of Dynaco speakers on ebay come from Canada. Guess Dynaco did a better jo of marketing up North!
Yes--the speakers are sometimes sold without the crossovers. Hard to imagine, unless buyers are opting for external electronic crossovers. Expensive, but
probably nice. As I mentioned, I plan to sell one pair of crossovers (don't need two!) so I hope I can recoup the cost of the caps and knobs. Originally I had bought some nice inexpensive retro-style knobs in Rat Shack (shown in one of my previous posts), since 3 of the originals were missing. But the second pair had (only) 3 original knobs, so now I have one complete set!
Could have used that schematic! Maybe then I would have bought the right number (and value) of caps!
Here's a photo of one Twelve. Not finished yet. The xover was moved for the photo but is normally attached to the back with Velcro. More work to do on the finish. New cloth needed. Reinstall logos. Too bad these are in the hall OUTSIDE my rec room!
Kent
They look great! The cloth is in pretty good condition, personally, I'd leave it as is. The veneer looks fantastic too!
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On 1/2/2008 at 0:57 PM, JKent said:
Hi Vern
Thank you for the compliments and your comments.
Yes--I had not noticed the wafers on the switches, but there is a difference between my all-npe xover and the mylar/npe one I just finished.
Also did not notice the penciled SN on the plywood, but now that you mentioned it, the xovers that have the "brown wafer" switches are marked in pencil "#240" and "#263." I did not see numbers on the "white wafer switch" plywood. There was a date, hard to read (Sept something) and I see I covered it with Goop to glue down the caps
Interesting note on CR's take on the Twelves vs AR3a's. I don't think the Twelves get the respect they deserve! They are essentially identical to the well-
regarded Fives, but with bigger cabinets so they go deeper. That asset is also a liability.
I bought mine for $100 with local pickup, and that included a KLH Eighteen tuner and an old speaker selector switch! Only problems with the Twelves were:
Missing 3 knobs, terrible sound because of bad caps, a few minor nicks and scratches, tired-looking grille cloth.
They now sound great with the new caps. I'm in the process of refinishing the cabinets and patching the veneer in a couple of places. Not sure what to do about the grille cloth. I have the metal logos but have not reinstalled them yet.
Your comments about the paucity of KLHs in your neck of the woods is interesting. Of course, in New England they were very common. I notice a lot of Dynaco speakers on ebay come from Canada. Guess Dynaco did a better jo of marketing up North!
Yes--the speakers are sometimes sold without the crossovers. Hard to imagine, unless buyers are opting for external electronic crossovers. Expensive, but
probably nice. As I mentioned, I plan to sell one pair of crossovers (don't need two!) so I hope I can recoup the cost of the caps and knobs. Originally I had bought some nice inexpensive retro-style knobs in Rat Shack (shown in one of my previous posts), since 3 of the originals were missing. But the second pair had (only) 3 original knobs, so now I have one complete set!
Could have used that schematic! Maybe then I would have bought the right number (and value) of caps!
Here's a photo of one Twelve. Not finished yet. The xover was moved for the photo but is normally attached to the back with Velcro. More work to do on the finish. New cloth needed. Reinstall logos. Too bad these are in the hall OUTSIDE my rec room!
Kent
They look great! The cloth is in pretty good condition, personally, I'd leave it as is. The veneer looks fantastic too!
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Hey Geoff!
You're doing a great job with these and great documentation! You will be quite impressed at how good these sound when you're done.
The black liner grill cloth was used so you would not be able to see the drivers through the linen fabric, and the cloth shielding the woofer basket is the same as the Six's and Twenty Threes. I prefer this over the thin tissue type paper used in AR's, which is always shredding and falling apart when I open up a pair.
Looking forward to your listening impressions. If you have a space where you can spread them out, do it and be prepared to stage like sound!
Glenn
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Hey Geoff,
So not too bad. I think in the end after a recap, some work on the cabs, woofer and mids surrounds resealed, they will be very nice.
Have fun!
Glenn
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OK Glenn, done. Picking these up on Thursday. 150
Hey Geoff!
Good deal for sure. Post pics, I'd love to see what you got!
Glenn
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It's funny this thread should crop back up. I have recently been toying with getting a set of 5s that are selling locally (50 miles North) for $160. Seems like a reasonable price and they look pretty good. My house project has had me totally consumed and I have a number of other sets waiting for rehab so I am not that motivated.
hmmm....
I paid the same for mine, and already recapped! Well worth the 160.00. Grab them,get to them when you can.
I forgot to mention, I also restored a set of Seventeens, which also sound great, more of a comparison to the AX4a's. My daughter has them now.
Glenn
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Peters thread on AK is a great one. There's very little info on these, his documentation, and restoration work was outstanding.
Geoff, I've had 4 pairs of KLH's, still have three. The Five, Six, and Twenty Three.
Of these, which are the most easily found, I rank them in this order, Five, Twenty Three, Six.
The Fives are outstanding, period. They give my AR3's a real run for the money, and a performance bargain, though prices are creeping up.
The Twenty Threes are Sixs on steroids, the cabs are bigger and they share the woofer with the Five which can handle a lot more power than the Sixs.
Ahh, the Sixs. Absolutely love them. Mine are 1963 models, with the glued woofers, and one glued tweeter. The other tweeter is screw mounted. This is the year the screw mounted tweeter was phased in. I believe 1965 the screw mount woofers came. My other pair were 1972's, end of the production run with vinyl clad cabs. Both Sixs sounded virtually identicle, except, the 1963's go a tad deeper due to the epoxy mounted woofers longer excursion. I have them hooked up to my Scott LK-72, and it's a sublime mating.
Hopes this helps you a bit, but any of these I'm sure you would be very happy with.
Glenn
Stopped for toilet paper, found a pair of AR3's!
in Acoustic Research
Posted
A couple weeks ago, I had to pick up my son at the train station. I was a half hour early so I stopped to get some T.P., In the same small shopping center is a GW. I maybe stop there 4-5 times a year, always nothing or crap. The donations area door was open and when I looked in, sitting on the floor against the wall were the backs of a set of AR's! Wasn't sure yet if they were 3 or 3a's. Yup 3's! 50 bucks and they were in my back seat and trunk! Also they are sequential!
The cabs are in overall very nice shape, but will need some minor veneer repairs and refinishing. One original grill was crudely spray painted black including the badge & 3 pin, the other grill is MIA.
The metal screens over both mids were removed. ;-( My guess was to boost the output. Got them home and as I expected, no sound from the mids & tweeters, rotating the pots did nothing. I have a bunch of pots I cleaned up in good condition to swap out, hoping this is why there's no output. I'll also put in new caps.
I'll probably send the mids to Roy for rebuilding once I confirm they are producing sound. I hope he has some spare covers for the mids in his parts stash!
Here's some pics.
Glenn
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Someone spray painted something on these, note the over spary!
Tweeters domes are not lifting!
Lots of corrosion in the pots.