swanng

Restoring or replacing the pots is the next item I have planned. Testing/replacing caps will follow.

Latest news: Connected both speakers to my SAE-A502 testing amplifier, which is preamplified by my CX-1000, playing a Saint-Saens Symphony No.3 CD on my CDX-720. I had two pairs of speakers connected, my old faithful Cerwin Vega U-321's and the AR3a's. After verifying everything was connected correctly and having tested audio out with the U321's, I switched over to the AR3a's. Bass driver working OK, although muted, no abnormal noises, driving with about 2 watts. No output from either left or right channel mids and tweeters. Rotated pots-very, very rough feeling and horrible sounding. Powered everything off, disconnected AR3a's, tested voice coil resistance, both mids tested about 3.8 ohms, both tweeters, between 3.5 to 4 ohms. So the voice coils are good. Now I'm in the process of testing components on the crossover-my AR3a's have serial numbers indicating first generation, verified by the crossover and especially the woofer design. Adams was asking for more photos, so here they are. Troubleshooting is ongoing, trying to figure out how to replace that big giant 5 pound capacitor block with Al non polarized low ESR caps. Ideas are welcome. I have the restoration document. And I used an old-school can opener to remove the woofer safely without damaging the cabinet. Greg

To me, it looks like the cone is torn or separated. And the restoration guide does not reference this particular issue.

I acquired a pair of AR3a's gratis that have been sitting around for a number of years, and I am in the beginning stages of restoration. I am not familiar with the design of the midrange driver and wanted to ask the knowledgeable folks here if it is normal for the midranges (both speakers) to look like the images I took. Please let me know if this is normal for them to look this way, as a normal (i.e., what I am used to looking at) speaker would be considered cosmetically damaged if it looked this way. I have not connected these to any of my amplifiers, and have not tested resistance (or impedance) with a meter (yet). Neither have I tested the crossover components. Thanks in advance, oh sages of AR. Greg