TomK

Keep in mind, I last played these 35 years ago, as my AR-2X's are keeping me entertained, I wanted to break the LST/2's out of the basement closet to see if they worked. A little history about these. In high school I purchased a Marantz 2235B and Sansui LM-330 (I think) speakers. I purchased them at my cousin's husband's brand new Appliance and Stereo store. I was quite happy with this combo, but I did look at the higher-end AR speakers, but they were way beyond my budget. Unfortunately, his store eventually failed (I think it was something like J&M or J&B Stereo and appliance in Pottsville Pa). I was really bummed about that. Anyway, the brother of my cousin operated a small TV/Stereo fixit shop, and I went over one day and I noticed a pair of AR-LST/2's in the corner, brand new. I asked him about them, and he said he got them from his brother in law, and he'd sell me the pair for $300, but the tweeters were blown. If I gave him cash, he'd get me all new tweeters (all 6). He lived up to his word, and I took them home to my tiny bedroom where these things were just massively too big, but I loved them. There's more to this story, but I'll stop and talk about he present day. I didn't take the speaker grill off, just replaced one of my AR-2X's, fired up Steely Dan Aja album and listened to all the drivers . All the drivers were making sound, the mid-range and tweeter had that amazing sound that I remembered last time I listened to them. I noticed however, the bass was noticeably lower than the 2x, so I took off the center grill to see what was happening with the woofer. Enough typing, now some pictures.

I enjoy getting up early on a Sunday morning, especially when it's a beautiful day like today in my area. I ordered a well-reviewed TEAC CD player from Amazon, because I'm not quite ready and comfortable with ensuring my Dual turntable is read to go. I checked out how the surround seal works, it's still slightly tacky, but I figured it's meant to stay that way to do its job. Last night after it arrived I dug into my CD collection (currently put away in boxes) and pulled out some of my CD's and this morning I listened to: excerpts from Dianne Reeves - Sky Islands Rippingtons - Curves Ahead (featuring Kirk Whalum) Holst - The Planets (A out-of print Chandos recording featuring the Scottish Symphony Orchestra; It's a little quirky) Mitsuko Uchida - Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 23, K488 & No.24, K491 (Uchida is the best at Mozart) Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (This is a very sad album) Pat Metheny - Offramp Eagles - One of These Nights (IMHO, their best album) Steely Dan - Aja The Best of Earth Wind & Fire Capital Sings Duke Ellington (it has my favorite arrangement of Satin Doll sung by a Nancy Wilson) I listened at a medium volume. The bass was firmed up considerably with the fixes and I adjusted the tweeters more to my liking (basically dialed them back a bit). The receiver I'm using currently is a Sansui 2000a, which I believe is about 35 watts/channel. I took it apart about 3-4 weeks ago and vacuumed and then used compressed air to clean it out. I need to clean up some noisy pots, but it otherwise works fine (no noise/hum). Anyway, these speakers are way better than they have any right to be. I had a stack of magazines I was looking through and I repeatedly put them down and thought "oh, I never heard that before". They really shine with well recorded source material, the bass is solid, the treble is nicely balanced, and overall you forget about the speakers after a while and just listen to the music. I couldn't be more pleased by them.

I've done a single application and it seems more than enough, I think that's done. I checked where you mentioned, and that seems fine. I'm going to pronounce them electrically and sonically "done" at this point.

Further update, Roy sent me the sealant (he is a real gentleman), I purchased the polyfill that JKent suggested from Amazon, and set to work after lunch. I took the woofers back out, and scraped all the old clay out that was sealing the speakers and replace it with foam tape meant to seal speakers. The foam tape finally sealed the speakers properly. While the speakers were somewhat sealed before, as soon as they are sealed properly you can tell they actually resist being pushed in. I did put a coat of the sealant on the cloth portion of the speakers and let that dry for a few hours. I think the foam made the biggest difference, but one of the speakers clearly has air leakage at the cloth. I still need to clean up the cabinet and then do the speaker cloth. I'll give an update on how they sound tomorrow.

Thanks Rick. --Tom

JKent. Thanks for the tip. I'm pretty sure the woofers are sealed properly to the cabinet. I'm looking at the cloth speaker sealant on ebay; a little pricey, but I'm willing to give it a try.

So after it was all done, I needed a better quality source than the FM radio. I had my old JVC DD-9 cassette deck in the cabinet, and I wasn't even sure it would work after not being used for 30 years. I crossed my fingers because this was a state of the art deck in 1981 and it has no rubber belts, using three direct drive motors....and it worked perfectly. The only thing is the slider for output volume was dirty which I just pushed up and down to get the right channel working. I connected to a 45 year old Sansui through the tape monitor and I used the tape that was in it, a jazz tape I made from my car in the late 80's. And I listened, and despite the tape not being likely demagnetized after 30 years it sounded...... Really good. Seriously. They won't fill a room with bass, but what's there is tight, well-controlled, and after I adjusted the tweeters quickly to balance them out..... dang. Guys, I haven't had a room to listen to music and decent speakers in decades. I listened to both sides of that tape and I'm very satisfied. These are good speakers. I have no idea what they sounded like in the early 60's, but I couldn't be happier. I do have a question on placement. I've moved them away from the walls on tiny chairs about 18 inches high. What placement do you recommend? I want to get out my old Dual DD turntable with the Shure V15 cartridge and play some of my old vinyl. I apparently cannot find my old CD player, I may track down a nice used one. I am really psyched tonight. Left to do: Apply a bit of light walnut stain in areas where the color has come off, oil the wood. And I have to recover the speaker grills with the correct cloth. Thanks everyone for you help so far. I am having a blast.

14.the shaft from the new L-Pad is much longer. I used the fasteners to set the depth with the rubber gasket off the last one. This is my easy trick to match the shaft length. 15) Yes, I soldered directly to the LPad. Some people may wince, but I'm convinced this will last another 50 years. 16) Here's the completed resolder. Despite how the middle terminal (yellow) looks, it actually is soldered properly in real life. 17) I looked at the rubber gasket, and darned if it wasn't still gooey and in one piece. I decided to reuse it. I Re-fastened the screws like I would a car tire, doing a snug in a star pattern and then doing a final tighten around the perimeter. And that's it!

10) I used a Hakko portable soldering iron which is the perfect tool inside the speaker 11) The parts I used as part of the refurb 12) Checking the picture that JKent sent me. Thanks! 13) Note in this last picture, the negative from the tweeter comes through terminal B on the original l-PAD. The positive thinner green wire from the tweeter is to the right on terminal 2. Note that the wire on the terminal ALSO goes to the terminal on the back of the speaker. On the bottom is the thicker green wire from the capacitor on terminal 1.

6) Note the backside of this woofer has the AR logo stamped into the frame. That was unexpected, and interesting that they would spend the money to do that in a place that would never be seen 7) The fiberglass bats are really clustered around the woofer to isolate them from the rest of the box. The tweeter seems to be sealed from the rear. For the first speaker, I took it all out. For this speaker, I pushed it away from the bottom which made re-assembly much quicker 8 ) To remove the old l-pad, use a 9/16 socket and only use your hands to get a grip 9) Looking from underneath the workbench, you can see where you can easily get access to the knob of the l-pad

I've completed the wiring of both. I have to admit I got a start today when JKent sent me that photo, and I checked my pictures I took of the finished product in the first speaker and fortunately it was correct. Let me walk you through this evening's speaker work. I'll do this in a couple posts because I took a lot of pictures, I made them smaller than last time, if anyone wants the full size picture please let me know, I'll be happy to send them to you (probably via google drive). I learned many lessons last night that allowed me to complete the 2nd speaker in 45 minutes without hurrying. 1) Put it on a workbench, not the floor. And since I wanted access to the bottom and top, the B&D portable workbench an in-law bought for me 30 years ago came in handy. 2) Use an impact tool to remove the screws. The fasteners inside will often start twisting in the wood because of age. This will get them out with no twisting torque, and when one or two of them breaks loose anyway, reverse directions to tighten and it will get the wood nut/fastener thing to grab the wood. 3) Between the tar of the gasket and the fiberglass inside, use surgical gloves, choose a size too large so they go on and off quickly. 4) If you use a thin blade screwdriver carefully around the edge of the woofer, it will eventually break loose. If that doesn't work (as on the first speaker), use an exacto knife to cut around the edge 5) When you lift the speaker out, you'll see paper covering the fiberglass. I believe this was originally glued to the backside of the woofer (continued in next post)

It will be great when I have it all working. And lol on "forces of evil". I mainly cuss at myself for being incompetent when I mess up. I am my own force of evil.

I didn't wire it the same way as the AR-4. That was the original plan, but when I looked at the schematic of the AR-4, and compared it to what I was looking it inside the 2x, it became obvious it was not the same circuit. Which I have to say is weird. It is, for all intents and purposes the same speaker, with the same tweeter, but the guys who designed it are probably all gone to a better place, and not in a position to argue with me. When I took apart the existing l-pad it gave me a good sense of what the circuit should be, and in the pictures I took of the existing wiring (and the wiring diagram on the side of the box of the new L-Pad) I noodled through precisely what you have here. I also tested it with a multi-meter to validate my understanding. I wish I searched the forums more for that diagram. It would have saved me two hours. Oh.... and no, it did not have an oil-filled cap. It was the standard one you see in every classic AR out there (wax filled?). Thank you very much for your help. I'll take all I can get between screws that wouldn't come out of the cabinet, bats of dirty old fiberglass and cheesy terminals inside the speaker cabinet.

I finally got the new LPads and Caps Friday night, and I didn't get around to working on the speakers until Sunday night. I was using the AR-4 circuit diagram (because it's also 2-way), but it seemed to me the 2x is/was slightly different in terms of the connection to the LPad. And it didn't help that I couldn't test the existing LPad because it was so badly corroded, so I make some educated guesses. A bit of common sense, and staring at the existing wiring helped, and I got the first one working properly last night. I took a fair amount of pictures, and the second one should go quicker. I won't give you any impressions of sound quite yet, because I was listening to highly compressed FM radio, and that's not fair to the speaker, but I can hear the beginnings of a decent sound. I'll try to dig up a CD player that I"m sure I have stacked in closet somewhere to do some critical listening. Hopefully pictures tonight if all goes well. I was relieved and excited that I got the wiring right on the rebuilt crossover.

One last post. I've ordered all the parts as recommended, and I tracked down the speaker cloth on ebay. 1. Detail of "left" woofer 2. A quick video of the right speaker playing some FM from a vintage Sansui 2000a receiver. You can see I did a quick wire-around the l-Pad to see if the tweeter worked. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0pNnWJ61y1JBNwzS8yupan7IA

1. The top of the "right" speaker. Overall the wood looks nice. A wipe with some teak oil could make these look spectacular. 2. The grill of the "right" speaker showing the ugly black cloth. 3. Both emblems. I will probably not try to restore them, just use them as-is. Not sure where they're supposed to go

(I'm breaking these up because of the 200M limit) 1. Full-on view of the back 2. AR-2X paper with serial number 3. Connection posts with l-pad

A few photos as promised: 1) The front of the "left" speaker (it's where it happens to be 2) A 3/4's view of the side/rear 3) The warranty card stapled to the back

I'll take some pictures likely tomorrow, but it's definitely the model on the right with the cloth surround. In fact it looks exactly like that. I've ordered the new l-pads already, and I'll pop off one of the woofers so I can do a little spelunking with the crossover and get the new caps ordered. The original cloth was replaced with a black cloth which looks fairly terribly (it was done well, but you get my point), and the original badges are still there. Interestingly, they do not have the speaker model on them, they just say AR Inc on them. As I said, pics tomorrow.

[I've lurked on here for years, I finally registered today] These speakers were an in-law's who purchased them new; and decided they were too big for the new remodel. He asked me if I wanted them and of course I said yes. They looked nice enough, I figured it would be fun to get them working. I finally got around to testing them (I was trying out a vintage Sansui 2000a), and the woofer was working fine, the tweeter had no sound. I popped out one and tested it and it's fine, so I'm assuming the crossover need to be recapped and the l-pad replaced. What I don't know is how I get to the crossover (I assume you have to remove the woofer), and what type of l-pad and capacitors to purchase. Since the 2x seems to be fairly uncommon, there isn't a lot of information out there and I was hoping someone could perhaps give me more information. ...and this is my warmup for fixing a pair of AR-LST II that I've had for about 40 years, and as I'm getting more time for myself with my kids out of the house, I'm eager to jump back into things with some vintage gear. Appreciate any help --Tom