crumpets

Thanks Adams, much appreciated. I've ordered everything. Should be here in a week or so. I'll have a good read over that material in the meantime. First step will be having a little practice with the soldering iron, then recapping the 6's. Should be interesting.

That's great, thanks.

Thanks again, that clears it up. I can order the 6uF just in case. I think I can put that together, so I think I'll place the order. Cheers.

I have been doing a fair bit or reading. Sorry, but I'm still a bit confused re. the hivi assembly. Do I just need the hivi tweeter from PE with the 0.05 inductor coil added, or is there more to it? Thanks Roy, I'll stick with 4uF. Would you recommend assembling the hivi myself in this instance(inexperienced, but happy to give it a go) ?

Thanks for those suggestions, Adams. If I can get hold of some 2ax woofers, I will put these 040-2a's in the 92's. The mids in those 92's also look to be 2 different drivers. Not sure what's going on there. Anyway, I'll think I'll go with the hivi replacement driver in the 5's. Is this the "fully pre-assembled" driver you referred to? https://www.parts-express.com/hivi-q1r-1-1-8-textile-dome-tweeter--297-417 I checked PE and the shipping to here is less than $40 for the parts I think I need. Along with the caps I listed earlier, I believe I will also need to order the 0.05 18AWG inductor coil that is recommended. I am also going to replace the 4uF caps with 3uF, going off Roy's recommendation in another thread in reference to using the hivi in an AR5, " reduce the 4uf cap to a 3uf cap to bring the HiVi a bit closer to the original tweeter".

Thanks Adams, I have done what you suggested. I did it on both tweeter and yes, only one is working. Very disappointing, but there you go. After having another look at the AR3a guide, I noticed the pic of the 1200029-1 tweeters in the appendix. Could this be an option for the replacement? My father has a pair of 92's that he picked up cheaply. This is a pic of them. The tweeters appear to be original, so prob. the 1200029-1's. I haven't asked him to check them yet, or if he would donate them, but is this an option?

Well, I've just discovered that one of the AR5 tweeters is not producing any sound. I just noticed it when I turned the MID dial down to zero. There is nothing coming out of that tweeter, no matter where I turn the HIGH to. The tweeter in the other speaker is very responsive under the same test. Looks like I need to do some troubleshooting tomorrow. I wonder if I've made another rookie mistake and not picked up that this tweeter has not been working all along. I suppose I can swap the tweeters over. If the "dead" tweeter works in the other box, I guess it narrows things down. If it doesn't work in the other box.....perish the thought!

Great job with the AR3a guide you guys. What an excellent resource. Thanks Roy, no resistors required eliminates one task, which helps. I am trying to get my head around the AR5 tweeter performance being discussed. Adams, "the sparkly atmospherics" is a very good description of what seems to be missing. It hadn't entered my mind that the tweeters might be functioning below par. I thought that because the level switches were affecting the tweeter output, that the tweeters must be ok. I can see why Roy is tempering my high hopes of bringing that sparkle back with just the cap replacement. I appreciate the 2 options given(repair/replace). I have no idea if there is anyone in Aus qualified to rebuild that tweeter, or what it might cost. If the recap is not satisfying, I will look further into both options. Which brings me to the parts list for both the AR5 and AR6 that I hope to now order. AR6 2 x 22uF + 2 x 2.2uF 100V NPE's for the woofer R/C attachments 2 x 10uF Dayton 250V Poly Caps AR5 2 x 4uF + 2 x 25uF Dayton 250V Poly Caps for tweeters/mids 2 x 68 + 2 x 3.9 100V NPE's to replace the 72uF woofer cap Does this look ok? I've gone with your suggestion ra.ra. in regards to AR5 woofer caps. The closest wagner has to 72uF in those NPE's is 68uF. I'm guessing that is not quite close enough, hence 68+3.9. One other thing I should mention is that while I do have a soldering iron, I am yet to ever use it. Don't laugh, I told you I was a newbie! I remember seeing somewhere that there may be an alternative way to connect the new caps, but can't remember where I saw it. Should I just do a bit of practice honing my non-existent soldering skills, or is there an option that may give a better result than a below par soldering effort? I've been listening to the AR5's a fair bit. The new gaskets on the woofers definitely improved things. If the recap improves the bass just a little more, I think that will be ok. My concern is, if the bass output does improve to a satisfactory level with the recap, is there still an underlying issue, having those non-original 040-2a woofers installed, that could keep a lid on the mid/high range performance, even if the mids/tweeters were working properly? Or should the 040-2a's be "close enough" for that not to be a huge issue? I keep coming back to the "sparkly atmospherics". At least with new caps and fresh gaskets on the mids and tweeters I will have a better idea of where things stand. Thanks for being patient with my lack of knowledge. Btw, ra.ra, my collection was never meant to get to this. It was only about a year ago that I stumbled across my first pair of AR's, the 94's. I had bought/sold a few pairs of modern speakers over the years, in an attempt to find that feeling I used to have when listening to music in my teens(from early 80's). That connection to the music that could literally make you cry. I saw the 94's in an online ad. I'd never heard of AR speakers before then, but the unusual appearance of them piqued my interest. A quick search led me to this site and some glowing praise of that model(much appreciated!), so I jumped on them. The same fellow also had a Sansui 555a, which I grabbed as well. When I hooked them up, I was completely blown away. It had been a long time since I'd heard anything quite like that. I continued to read more threads here and got a little ahead of myself. The collection obviously grew before I had sufficient knowledge to identify potential issues, like I am now trying to address with the AR5's. I guess the AR bug has bitten me, because I can't bear to part with any of them. So, there's only one thing left to do. Try to bring them back to their best, and hopefully enjoy them. I can't thank you guys enough for giving me the confidence to have a crack at it.

Thanks lakecat, I'll be sure to update when I get something done.

Just been searching re. the noticeable effects of drifting caps. Well, I really am a newbie! The prospect of lifting that veiled effect is very exciting.

Working my way through that AR-3a repair manual now, Kent. So much great information there. That is good news about the replacement pots, the orig. mid and the tweeter being a suitable replacement. But, the woofer! I guess this is what happens when you buy with very little knowledge of what you're getting. Am I right in saying that one of the 2ax versions shared the same driver? Anyway, unless someone happens to have a pair of AR5 woofers they would part with, I may have to make do with the 040's. Highly unlikely to find others here in Aus. I did install the rubberised cork gaskets on the AR5 woofers today(pic). I think it has certainly helped quite a bit. I would still need to replace mid/tweeter gaskets to get a better seal, I think. I had a good listen to them and played around with the pot settings. Best I could come up with was with the HI on full, and the MID approx. 75%. They actually sounded pretty good. Well, what you can hear sounds very good. It's just that there is some detail/separation missing, more on instruments than vocals. I hope I'm describing it accurately. On the 18's you can hear every little detail, which I guess is what I like. Is that missing detail the effect worn out caps might have, or should I just not expect the same personality from such different AR models? Mind you, comparing the sound of my 5's to my father's 2ax results in the same conclusion - Where are the details, the subtleties? Regarding caps... the article states that "If you install PP capacitors, you may wish to add a small amount of series resistance to compensate for their reduced ESR and maintain the authenticity of the AR crossover." As I would likely be going for the same Dayton 250V poly caps in 4, 24, 72, do you guys think the additional resistors would be necessary in this case? Maybe I should get NPE's to avoid wondering. I've included another couple of pics of the cabinets. I'm not sure what the veneer is. It is not dissimilar to my 9LSi's. They are the "real walnut veneer", so the 5's may also be. I'll include a pic of the 9's. I'm also having a bit of trouble getting the best out of them. Not sure if it is my Crown/Sansui amp combo or what, but I'm pretty sure they should sound better. They are in great condition cosmetically and, to date, I have not so much as undone a screw. So basically, I currently have just the one pair that sound comparable to the beautiful AR sound you guys discuss, the 18's! I got some work to do! Again, thank you all for your help.

After some great feedback on how to restore my Ar6's, I thought I'd share these pics of my AR5's so that I may order the required parts for this next project. I must admit I really had very little knowledge of these when I got them a few months ago. The one thing I was able to notice is that the tweeters no longer had the external wiring. At the time I wasn't sure why, but turns out the tweeter has been replaced at some stage with this 200013-2 replacement tweeter. The mids appear original and are certainly working. Pretty well, if beautifully vocals are anything to go by. The woofers are 1210040-2A's. I can't really work out if these are original or replacements. They sounded pretty dull and lifeless, but when I unscrewed them I found them to be without any gaskets at all, so that wouldn't have helped. The cabinets are very solid, and apart from a few deepish indentations on top, seem like they could come up nicely. One other thing that seems like it has been already addressed is the potentiometers. They look very clean(newish) and are working well. As far as replacing worn parts, I am clueless. I will post the pics and hope for some advice. I am about to order some caps for AR6's, so thought it would be good to order what I might need to get these 5's working to their potential. Any advice would be much appreciated. Maybe I need to remove the filling to take some better pics inside. I was playing them quite a bit when I first got them. As mentioned, the realistic warm vocals stood out. There was a distinct lack of punch in bass, and a lot of the detail seemed absent. I probably should give them a run with new gaskets to get a truer benchmark.