Brad1234

I got an old pair of Dynaco A25's in rough shape off an ebay auction to try them out and restore them. Much to my surprise they sound amazing and are a rare mirrored pair! I had to replace one tweeter that had a break in its voice coil wire. I removed the drivers and thoroughly sanded down the cabinets to raw walnut. They looked pretty amazing, but I decided to stain them a classic darker "honey" wood stain and wish I hadn't. The natural walnut looked so good I should have just kept it and done a natural wood stain. How do y'all think they look? Online I see lots of them stained darker and some more natural walnut color. Did I ruin the vintage look by staining? You can see in one of my pics uploaded the natural color vs darker wood stain.

I have not heard any other model, but these early model woofers produce some incredibly deep bass effortlessly. The size and weight of the magnet is also very impressive, they truly don't make woofers like this anymore. I have a restoration question. Anyone have any advice on how to best restore/protect the paper labels attached to the backs of the cabinets on the AR 3a's? I was thinking just carefully rubber cement the loose edges back down?

Nice job! I have always wondered if the smaller, cheaper caps produce the same, or even better, sound than expensive ones? I recapped the exact same model with the pricey metalized foil polypropylene caps (Jantzen) close to $200 and have been happy with it, but it was a big expense. My AR's are currently my favorite speaker, close behind are my JBL L100s. When I tested my old AR 3a brick caps, they were crazy off, I got 325 uF for the 150, so they were shot. I also doped my woofer surrounds and dust cap with the same Vintage AR sealant I bought back in Dec. made them look shiny and beautiful!

I recapped my very early model AR 3a's about 6 weeks ago and they broken in nicely! The hardest part was restoring the pots within the cabinet to avoid unsoldering them, but they were badly corroded and needed cleaning and greasing to work well again. I just ziptied my Jantzen Crosscaps to screw down plastic brackets. Night and day difference from the old brick type capacitors that were in there. Good luck and take your time!

Well, in my humble opinion, the AR 3a's are the superior sounding speaker, the bass goes so low and powerful it actually hurts sometimes, like ur body reacting to an imminent threat instinctually, and I am very used to loud bass. It's just different with these AR's. But the AR's sound best up close, they don't project into living room as well as other speakers (cerwin vegas, JBLs). The mid and treble on the AR's are also much lower sounding than other speakers, which is great up close on couch, but if u crank it u hear the difference. I am wondering if my AR mids may need rebuilding/replacement w rebuilt ones? Will need to save $ for that later. So, in summary, I think my AR's are better overall sounding speakers. My KLH 5's are well sealed with the Vintage AR doping sealant, so they are very tightly sealed. But the real battle is between my AR's and my JBL L100's first gen inline speakers. They are all around great sounding and project some seriously loud, clear sound long distances. But I do prefer AR/KLH acoustic suspension for bass response over JBL bass reflex.

I will just spray paint the cover frame black and check that the baffle and speaker frames don't show thru. Don't need to waste more time searching for the black scrim. Thanks Roy! I have my KLH 5's up against my AR 3a's now, let the east coast battle begin. I have to say the AR's are kicking ass, but 5's have more mid volume, which can be good or bad. You can see how the 5's need new cloth, those stains didn't really come out.

It makes sense they would share an enclosure since both mids are wired in series. They are producing identical sounds. Roy, while I have ur attention, I need help finding the black scrim cloth for the liner for my model 5 grill cover replacement. I cant seem to find it anywhere, I am close to dying some cheesecloth I have black to make it myself. Everything I find at fabric stores is too thick and/or tightly weaved. The original scrim bled a ton of black when I washed it and basically disintegrated when I touched it. That explains the staining on the original cloth on 5's.

I definitely think that was what was happening thru that very small air leak where the wires go into the mid cabinet. It's amazing how sensitive the mids are to air pressure in these acoustic suspension cabinets. I'm glad I took the time to seal those holes up because they do sound better now.

Here is a pic if the little wire holes I sealed up.

Nice looking Model 5s! I have the older model with the black mesh tweeters and aluminum frame crossover board. Out of curiosity and a little OCD, I took my woofers back out and sealed the speaker wire holes to the mid cabinets and resealed the woofers back in, and I think the mids do actually sound better now, not as loud and more balanced. I cant believe enough air was passing thru those tiny speaker wire holes but I think it was just enough to make a difference! But I also may be crazy, not sure anymore.

Hi Jessi, the mids may be leaking thru the surrounds and thats why u arent seeing the other move when pushing on one. Once you get them doped u may see a huge difference. Now I am worried about my fives because I completely forgot to add sealant to where the 2 wires go into the mid enclosure! The wires were in there pretty tight and were hard to pull thru a little when removing the mids, so it's likely not leaking a lot. My mids are a little loud though compared to other speakers after my recap, thinking I should go back in and seal those 2 holes and see if it makes a difference?

I will need to find some of the Blue Coral Upholstery Cleaner. The gorilla glue fabric glue is pretty hardcore, its $7 a tube, but very effective. You squeeze a line of it along the fabric, smash the fabric down, then separate it and set a timer for 15 mins. After it dries tacky in about 15 mins the rejoining is super strong, very limited time for adjustment but it holds super strong. I still weigh it down a couple hrs with landscape stone blocks i have to make sure it doesn't loosen while drying. And the corners are tough to glue with all the folds and cuts in fabric

Thanks Roy and Kent! I guess you are right I could try removing the original cloth and hand cleaning it real well to see if it cleans off? I could save the grill cloth for another project if it works. I dont understand why the KLH cloth stained over time just where the driver openings are cut in the masonite backing? I think I will just go with gluing the new ones on since staples might puncture thru masonite. I use the gorilla glue fabric glue on my advents, it sticks well and works fairly quickly but its just messy and time consuming gluing and weighing it down to keep it stretched tight from side to side.

Thanks Jkent! I found some vintage-looking advent/AR/KLH fabric at Midwest Speaker Repair online for $20. They have a beige-ish brown and an off white. I have used the off white on my Advents and it came out fantastic! Do the grills really need the black scrim behind the grill cloth? I did try vacuuming the grills and it helped a little. If i should reuse the scrim cloth I will be sure to hand wash it before reinstalling to try to keep it from bleeding on to the new fabric. Also, any advice on where to get an electric stapler to use the tiny 1/4" staples to install the fabric? Gluing them is a pain.

I had this exact same problem with an A25 tweeter not working and found the broken connection in the voice coil wire where it was soldered to the tinsel wire. Dynaco glues the tinsel/coil wire connection down at bottom of voicecoil and it is a pain to get to and resolder/fix. I ended up damaging the voicecoil wire so much I had to unwrap the coil a revolution for each solder joint on the tweeter and feed the wire through dust cap onto front of tweeter to get a good solder connection. Now my tweeter has less voicecoil wire and lower ohms (about 5 ohms), but it works! Anyone else have experience with unwrapping a revolution or 2 of voicecoil wire and how much it affects sound? I ordered a replacement used tweeter just to get the speakers back to original condition.

I just finished a restoration on some Model 5's and think they turned out pretty incredible and wanted to share my photos. I have 2 questions for the forum, 1) what do u think a fully restored set like this is worth and 2) is there anything I should do about the grill cover staining? The grills appear original but are in great shape other than the discoloration where driver openings are. Is this a "vintage" characteristic ok to leave alone or should i remove and wash them, or replace them? I havn't found this shade of brown linen (or polyester fake linen) for sale anywhere.

I found a set of the square magnet woofers on ebay for $150 w shipping. I sold the other round magnet woofers on ebay last week for about $100, so just lost $50 on the deal but the sound difference with square woofers is amazing, so worth it. They may be hard to find and frequently need new foam, which is an easy DIY job. You just need to be sure the voice coil slides smoothly to ensure they're not blown. The seller should verify this as terms of buying them.

Thanks Roy! I figured those resistors would be fine but just wanted to check.

Thanks Dan! I worked really hard on this recap because I wanted to keep the changes in the cabinet to the bare minimum, so just used screw down ziptie brackets and silicone glue to hold the caps. I just wish I had checked that single resistor in the cabinet just to ensure it is still functioning in spec. Not sure if that would really make a sound difference anyway.

I used all of the original fiberglass insulation, and added a little more just to account for volume of old capacitor box I removed. U have to wear long sleeves and gloves and a mask when dealing with the insulation or yes it does stab you all over and cause itching. I was working with it in direct sunlight and u could see the fibers flying all around. The fiberglass insulation gives the best sound, so its worth it.

Just finished my restoration of my AR 3a's and playing them to "burn in" the new caps some, if that is really a thing. They sound much better with the new caps! I had a quick dumb question though, I just noticed the nichrome wire resistor in the schematic after I have already closed up the speakers, was I supposed to test that and make sure it is still in spec? I didnt see anything about checking it in the manual. I'm hoping its one of those resistors that works fine or not at all? Just not sure if I should have checked it or looked at replacing it along w the caps?

I am working on recapping my AR 3a's, my first recap so first time working with caps, so newbie alert, but have soldered wiring forever. I have wired the black wire into the 150 uF and the green wire into the 50 uF with the common wires out for both caps going to the blue wire. I think this is how the AR 3a restoration guide diagrams it, but want to make sure I am right. Is the blue the ground? I think I am confused because black is usually ground. See pic.

Thanks RTally and CYNR for the responses!

Oh man, I didn't realize the factory wrote those numbers on there?! Thanks Roy. I wish I hadn't wiped them off, I didn't use much abrasive action wiping them off with just water, so I hope I didn't change their response characteristics? I guess I learned my lesson.

I know the response will likely be don't mess with the vintage woofer cone at all, but thought I would check if anyone has had any luck with re-staining the woofer cones on KLH woofers? I got a little carried away wiping the woofer cone with a damp rag and now it has a little discoloration throughout. Someone had written numbers on the actual woofer cone and I wanted to wipe them off. I dont want to apply any paint that would affect the sound, but maybe gently wiping a water based stain or watered down acrylic paint or dye? Just trying to figure out if this is something others have done to restore discolored woofer cones with success? Probably not but thought I would check. Also, do I put the surround sealant on the voice coil cap?