sWilly

Yeah, the Crowns might work well. Although, I'm not sure I can stomach putting a vintage Marantz next to a Crown from a visual standpoint. Ha.

I recently acquired a pair of 1968 AR-3a's that I am currently restoring. I understand that these require quite a bit of power to sound their best. I am looking for suggestions for power amps to pair with a Marantz 2238b or NAD3020. Hoping to keep it under $500. I'm open to vintage or newer amps. What would you suggest for minimum wattage? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the info. NAD might be a good option for me. I could use my 3020 as a pre and get a power amp to match.

Good to know, thanks! I'll see how it sounds when I'm done. What was the cost of the tweeter rebuild? I live in Colorado. Our climate is really dry so the potentiometers were almost perfect. I cleaned them and hope to keep them but we'll see. I've heard that about having a good powerful amp. I have several nice vintage amps but none over 50 watts. I guess I'm going to have to seek out another one. Bummer.

Thanks for the link. Looks like a cool project. I decided on the Mundorf E-cap's since the Solens (PartsExpress) seem to get mixed reviews. Glad to hear they worked out for you, though!

Thanks, I just ordered a full set of the Mundorf E-Caps. They seem like a good middle ground. We'll see!

Woops my fault, I meant to respond to bjmsam but it's good to get your take on the Jantzens. I think I'm going to try the Mundorf E-caps. If they don't work out it's not a huge loss.

Ok, I'm liking the 5% tolerance on the Mundorf's. I will need to combine 47's and 3.3's to replace 50uF cap. I'm assuming that will be ok to be slightly off?

Are the Solen's any good? They have exact uF value's for everything which would make the install nice and clean.

Thanks, weird, I don't know why those didn't show up when I searched.

Thanks, this is helpful. The ECap 70 series looks interesting and reasonably priced but I'm not seeing the higher uF values available. I'll keep searching.

I'm restoring a 1968 pair of AR-3a's now and had many of the same questions. It looks like you went with modestly priced electrolytic capacitors. Are you happy with the results. Trying to decide between those and the more expensive Daytons or Jantzens right now.

After digging through these pages a bit it looks like I need: 50uf 100v, 150uf 100v, and 6uf 100v bipolar caps. Is this correct?

Yes, I've been referring to it. Thanks!

I made a little progress tonight. The date stamps on the drivers are 1968. That makes them almost as old as me. Almost! I opened up and cleaned the pots. They didn't look too bad so hopefully they're going to work. I haven't tested the capacitors yet but I plan to replace them regardless. Can anyone guide me on purchasing new caps and the appropriate wiring? I'll need to replace the 6mfd 50v as well as the large brick. I could really use some help there. Also, I believe I have the alnico woofers with fabric surrounds. Should I treat the surrounds in any way??

Ha, I'm a newbie as well, just acquired a pair of 3a's. I hope I can get my wife to respond the same way! Jazz sounds wonderful on mine too. Modern stuff not so much. I will probably recap mine, it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Hi, new member here. I just purchased a pair of AR-3a's at an estate sale for $350. To be honest, I did not know much about these speakers, but a quick eBay price check convinced me to snap them up. From what I can tell, they likely had one owner who took amazingly good care of them. The cabinets are in excellent condition with only a few minor scratches and dents. The grills are near perfect with only a couple light stains. After some internet research I've come to understand the history and significance of these speakers and I'm now excited to get these speakers running their best. I did a low volume test and, after a lot of turning of the pots, everything works! I listened to some jazz and was really impressed by the sound, piano was fantastic. I did my usual Donald Fagan test and was not so impressed- really limited highs and not much punch. My suspicion is that these will benefit from a recap, but I'm hoping to get some suggestions from the experts here. After reading through the restoration guide (what a fantastic resource) I opened up one up to determine what year these are. Removing the grill proved extremely challenging. Starting with a screw in the badge hole, I worked on it for an hour with putty knives, long screwdrivers and whole host of other items. I got it off without any damage to the cabinet but did crack the grill frame in one spot. So there's my first question: are there any suggestions for removing the grills without damage before I attack the second one? The glue on these is crazy strong. I pulled out the woofer but the year on the date stamp is not legible so I'll have to wait until I dig in a little further to know exactly what year these are. Maybe late 60's base on the look of the drivers? In any case, I'm excited to get these restored and welcome any information and suggestions as I move forward. A second question for now: should I attempt to restore the pots before buying new one's? Thanks in advance. More photos and questions to come.