I am new to this forum but not in rebuilding/repairing vintage speakers. A few months back, I replaced the crossovers and foam on a set of 4 Large Advent Speakers and stacked them after discovering that was a popular thing to do. While that set up does sound good, I felt they were still lacking.
A few weeks back, I found a pair of AR-9 for sale on Craigslist in Houston. All the drivers looks fine and had obviously been re-foamed. There was damage to the veneer approximately 3 inches around the very bottom from what believe is dog urine. One of the previous owners had removed the damaged veneer area then painted it black. I will repair that in the not too distant future but the rest of the cabinet appeared to be undamaged, so I feel lucky in that regard.
I got them home and when I played them for the 1st time, they sounded harsh and very bright. Very disappointed. Then I thought perhaps it was where I placed them 3 ft out in the room. I did the research and AR states they need to be placed no more than 3" from the wall. While that helped bring the low frequencies back, I noticed there was still something missing. The drivers all worked fine, but it seemed to lack the clarity and crisp imaging I had expected.
So I pulled the woofer on the right speaker and concluded the crossovers were untouched original. So I ordered all new caps (except for the very large 2500uf cap for the 12" crossover) and replaced the caps on the upper range crossover on only the right speaker last night. I played them for a limited time, and from what I could tell there was an improvement in sharpness and clarity. I plan to replace the upper drivers caps on the left speaker tonight.
So my question is this: What sound improvement should I notice once all the caps are replaced? I am using the NPE type from Parts Express.
