Jose

Great collection of the classics Giovanni. Thanks for sharing ! Best regards, Jose

ok thanks. that is a pity But anyway, I could download the tif files one by one from this folder : http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/library/acoustic_research/special_sections/drawings/drawings/ that worked

Dear all sorry for restarting and old topic again, but I can not find any of the AR drawings for the AR-2ax and AR-3a The only links I found are listed in a word document but they don't work, at least for me here in Germany. Is there any accesible folder containing the drawings using simple tif or pdf format ? Any response would be great Thanks in advance Jose

I just read the complete thread of your AR94 work. Very interesting and well done. Once I hear the 93 refoamed and recapped I will take a decision about the L-Pads. I will try to restore the 93s as original as possible and if I'm not satisfied with the final result and sound will probably begin doing changes. Thanks in all case for your interest and help

Thanks David, ja I thought about something like that. Simple and solid

No worries, it was my decision to buy them. You helped me with the ebay notice. I had a look at the Falcon site. Its quite impressive what they all have. Need to find out about if they charge customs apart from shipment (because of brexit). Thanks anyway it will help me to decide which binding post to use

Thank you very much Stimpy. I didn't know about the front wiring of the 4xa tweeter. Not sure if the 4xa tweeter includes the magnetic cooling fluid of the more modern 18b tweeter. I bought the ebay tweeters you mentioned, thanks a lot for the hint. The cost for shipment ($135) to Germany and customs ($70), is quite high but ... Even if they would have lost with time some of the original brightness I guess they will sound more like AR designed the 93 to sound than the strange ones currently mounted in the cabinets. I will give feedback about the sound quality after refoaming, recapping and mounting the new tweeters. The sock covering material needs also to be replaced for both speakers, and also the wood covers on top need some cosmetic treatmemt. One of the plastic basements has a broken corner, I'm thinking about replacing it with a base made of wood with same dimensions. I don't think this will influence sound. One of the wiring connectors in the base has the clamping parts missing. I am thinking about replacing both with a better connector interface. Not sure which one, do you have any recommendarions for this interface?

I recently acquired a pair with original 8" woofers and midrange drivers. Unfortunately the tweeters were not. I read in other threads the tweeter used in the 93 is the same as the AR18 which is very rare in germany where I live. Also read that the tweeter of the old 4xa is a drop-in for the 93 and this one is easier to find here in Europe. My question is if there is any difference in performance or characteristics between the tweeters of the 4xa and Ar18 ? Thanks in advance for yor responses and support

In the last three days I finally had some time to work in the 2ax. Here is the update I began with one of the loudspeakers and focused on the stuffing and on the sealing between drivers an cabinets. About the stuffing, I took the white polyfill out and left only the fiberglass stuffing. Checked the remaining weight 644gr (22,5 ounces) which is quite close to the recommendation and left it so. I worked quite long on the woofer sealing trying to get a good flange surface. Spent quite long removing the old putty from the woofer flange and the seating surface of the cabinet. Used plastic wood to fill some dents in the recess surface of the cabinet. I sanded the surface after that achieving a flat and smooth seat. Using a thin foam gasket (it has a strong adhesive on the cabinet side) the woofer seat is now really air tight. I checked then the sound quality comparing with the other 2ax loudspeaker expecting to hear a huge difference, but...was a little disappointed to hear only a tiny improvement. The next was to carefully remove the midrange and tweeter to see if the air leak was coming from there. The midrange was sealed only partially with putty and two of the screws had no clamping force. The tweeter had no sealant of any kind at all. By the way JKent you were right, the tweeter flange is really delicate and this one had a crack on the plastic flange and quite big plastic deformation in the area of the screw holes. Someone before me applied too much torque to the screws... That's why I tryed to use gasket around the tweeter magnet trying to seal it radially in the cabinet instead of using the gasket in axial direction as usual. Unfortunately it did not work as the gasket is quite thick and the diameter clearance between the tweeter an the hole in the cabinet too small. So the tweeter did not fit in the hole...and it took me another 1/2 h to go one step back and remove the gasket from the tweeter body... After that I filled some dents and used sandpaper to prepare the flange surfaces of the cabinet and discovered then that the nuts of the midrange in the cabinet were losen. That was the explanation to the missing clamping force of the screws. Summarizing... I repaired all that mentioned as good as I could, put all together and compared finally the sound again with the 'unchanged' loudspeaker. I can definitely hear now the soft and deep AR bass in the repaired speaker. So it was not only one root cause, but several things that led to a bad bass performance. I also checked polarity of the woofer and the other drivers, everything was fine. I will repair the second speaker in the same manner the next few days. Thank you all again for your support and the good recommendations !!! It was very nice after the effort to hear the 2ax performing well again. That great sound we all like to hear... The time went by so fast, it has been great fun. Lessons learned for the next project... a pair of 3a from 1974... But I leave that for another thread 😉

Thank you Adams. Good recommendation. Also thanks to AR55. I'm trying to find a good gasket tape here in Germany. Your recommendation to reduce the roughness of the cabinet recess is good

Thank you all for your replies. Regarding the tightness check JKent, I tried the check pushing the caps with the well working speakers and the problem speakers and did not notice a big difference between them. But I will pay more attention to the stuffing and the tightness of the cabinets and sealing surface between the woofer and the cabinet. Your recommendations about reducing air leakage make sense and I'm happy to hear that the woofer itself are not the root cause. I will change to the foam tape to seal all the drivers, check the contact surface of the cabinets and try to get new stuffing to refill the cabinets. Thanks a lot for your support, we stay in contact

Thanks for your feedback JKent and Aadams. I'm happy to be part of this AR community The woofers are the 10'' with bigger outer diameter and 6 holes, but no cloth surrounds. And yes the surrounds were replaced before I bought the speakers, and I guess the foam used is too hard so that the travel of the woofer is somehow limited. You are right with the capacitor, they are original and should be replaced after so many years...but this seems not to be the root cause for the different bass sound. The other 2ax I have have also the original capacitor and sound much different. Do you know if these early woofers with the 6 holes sound different than the later 10'' with 4 holes?

I'm new in this site and hope this topic was not discussed already. If so, please give me a hint in which thread. Thanks!! I am very pleased to be part of the community worldwide enjoying the same affinity for these exceptional speakers. Sorry if my English is not good, I hope good enough to communicate with you and understand each other well I have three pairs of 2ax, two of them working and sounding very well. They are become important to me, I spend hours every week enjoying music with this great speakers The third 2ax pair on speakers is an early model, I guess 1969-1970 with a 6 hole 10'' woofer (bigger outer diameter circa 11'') The cabinets of this third pair are in very good condition, and so the drivers. All drivers are basically working but the warm, deep and very pleasent to hear topical AR bass is missing in these speakers. If I compare the bass response of them with the others with the 10'' woofers and 4 holes, they are by far not so good. I checked the crossover, everything looks original and fine. Potentiometers are not the originals but look and work fine. I did not checked the weight of the stuffing and maybe some of it is missing. I believe though these speakers should forgive some misalignment of the original manufacturing specs. But anywayI the sound quality of these speakers is not good at all. I bought them refoamed from a private ebaY seller and I guess the foam used might be too hard i.e too stiff for the 2ax original acoustic design. Any ideas where the problem might be would be very appreciated Thanks in advance!