Andre_Db66

With original tweeters so no gaps around the faceplates of the tweeters. Everywhere there has been a gasket applied and i sense no air movement. Depending on the volume of the amp and the material played, with extreme basses and kick drums, one seems to hold back and i dare to play very loud, the other seems to be getting much more energy to the woofer. It doesnt feel like it is the acoustic suspension playing a part. I know it sounds weird, but this odd sound coming through the mids with the tone gen really worries me...

Can an autoformer be faulty?

The hivis are not in them anymore. Using the tone generator i can hear minimal leakage around 1 tweeter. There is some restistance pushing the woofer in. So to be frank i dont think it is mechanical. In which way does the crossover influence the excursion or lowest frequencies restrictions? I do notice smth else strange on this particular cabinet. When i have the tone gen on the good cab only gives bass but the bad cab gives a buzz in the mids also. This could indicate smthn amiss in the xo?

Simple tone generator? 30hz? What do you suggest as frequency? I was testing untill now with planet dada/Yello. My woofer almost exploded on one side... 😁

I also have 3. I will not need them at all... Sending 1 @ shipping cost would be fine. Andre

I have a problem with the bass. The speakers are supposedly finished but there is a big difference in how one handles bass as opposed to the other. One woofer reaches its xmax very quickly and is moving a lot as though it is trying to reproduce frequencies it cannot, whereas the other woofer doesnt doe that. I have exchanged them and the problem stays in the same cabinet. What is exactly responsible for the excursion excess? The "good" cabinet can take a lot more power from the amp, the other seems to explode and reach bottoming out dangerously... Anyone?

Hip hip hurah... I have gathered the correct tweeters when i bought the 2ax remains yesterday. Luckily i had not sold any of the others yet, so i have now 4 with outer connection and 2 with inner. The latter are the same so will make a nice clean faceplate for the lst2 as i place 1 on each side in the front panel. I have bought all the other stuff which is unfortunate, but the 4 2ax speakers were only 10€. The sprague 12uF measure fine so i can start rebuilding the LST-2 to original standard. Off to the hardware store for some materials and start the new quest...

Unfortunately it is a scramble of casings. It appears nothing holds together. It is not worth refurbishing as there are differences. The grill cloth colors, the tweeters. 1 appears to be the last incarnation with a red 5 on it. The other with outside wires. I shall remove all drivers and see what i have. The drivers can always be used for others to refurbish. Quite the collection by now.

I just bought 4 speaker casings 2ax, 2 x USA and 2 x EU. Containing 1 woofer, 3 mids, 3 tweeters, 8 pots, 4 xo and 5 badges. The anomaly is the badges on 1 front, namely AR2xa. I dont know what to make of that. The others have 1 2ax badge each.

Well there is a subjective setting pleasant to the ears. After finding this setting one could always opt to measure the impedance and replace it with the correct resistors. To buy them with the resistors to someone elses taste is not how i want to start out with these speakers for myself. As Roy mentioned, it was an equivalent of them being almost open fully clockwise and that is certainly not to my taste. Each his own...

I hooked up these babies to a Accuphase C222 with a Sansui AU-919 as the power amp, separated from the integrated pre. It is amazing how much volume displacement it can achieve and sound good at the same time. I cannot take the C222 from muting and the sound is deafning with no harshness and bass is quite well defined for a 15 inch soft surround edge bass reflex speaker. I am uase to JBL 15 inch bass and they have folded linnen edges which are more sturdy, giving them a little better defininition. Still a very pleasant venture and the 300 watts i would not dare to implement, i would go deaf.

These were for sale at 55mile drive from my home. Took them for asking price. Since i read about the square magnets here, i asked the man to kindly open them up, so he did. I am very pleased to see the first type with correct woofers and i am very eager to hear first hand what these speakers will do compared to all the AR i have in my collection. 120€ Sound is wonderful. Much alike the AR vintage. Excellent bargain if you ask me. Patina included... Andre

On close inspection... Vinyl vineer 😪

Monstrously loud! I havent tried that. At least not louder than i dared without any specs available. Although hearing the perfomance on a 100 watt tube amp, which is underrated i realise now considering the specs, i was scared of blowing them to hell, when i once tried to crank them up. I think 300 watts is very optimistic. The more subtle approach of a single end tube amp or a small Bryston gave me great satisfaction at normal listening levels. Nice low bass and natural laid back mid/highs. I found another AR item today with 15 inch woofer, so the SRT is not lonesome. However the build is quite different and the manufacturer presumably also. The hires series AR-1 with Sunfire bass amp. It should work also very well with low power amps as it is helped by the 500 watt bass amp. This model however is acoustic suspension. Strangely enough named after the first model ever.... confusing a search even here on CSP.

Isnt that a predominantly USA productline? Very similar drivers and it seems not bass reflex. TSW - Next to none on craigslist in EU. SRT i have also never seen in Holland. The guy who sold them to me said they are very unkown here, and i mentioned how the saying goes in this country... Looking at fleebay listing the brochure cannot be sent to Netherlands. Will PM them.

Very tempted to buy... if i do i will contribute this to the library. Cheers

Does this glimpse into the specs possibly suggest reasonable to fairly good performance, objectively speaking? I mentioned they have beautiful low bass notes coming from them. The specs also suggest this. Debateable if SS or tubes is the preferred boost here, but i was very much surprised. Generally speaking i am not a fan of bass reflex one note bass cabinets but i can compare directly to acoustic suspension, transmissionline, motion feedback, open baffle, electrostatic. These all have their own qualities and also flaws... Is there an active link to this fleebay listing?

Indeed

NICE! Now were talking... This is what i sought after. Which hat did this come from? 😁 Perhaps a different angle on the brochure would be greatly appreciated...

They are rare speakers... UK https://www.ebay.nl/itm/256154214833?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=1346-53482-19255-0&campid=5338421020&toolid=10001&customid=9af8c478-cdd5-11ee-a8f5-653931366338 USA https://reverb.com/item/77226114-acoustic-research-ar-srt-170-studio-recording-bookshelf-speakers?utm_source=aw&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hifishark.com&sv1=affiliate&sv_campaign_id=536903&awc=67144_1708202565_7df20d8f14859be25684c3b8791bc42f There are only a few on hifishark. Suprised to see another label on the latter...

Here you go, not so butt ugly, good sounding speaker including label at the back... Liquid cooled strontium.... how about it. I have totally overlooked that label at the back i must be honest. Perhaps it makes sense to anyone and how this correlates to Sears? Or the US army? Fables going round the net? Never sold in the USA? Was a dutch person closely involved in the development of the 3a improved version? Another myth being strewn around here in Holland unsubstantiated...

I understand very well what you are saying and agree to all of it, but my initial question was if and why there is any available info or documentation on this product line rather than vague rumours. Supposedly produced for Sears is to me another one. It must have been advertised somewhere, sometime in the past. Like i said, here on the site i can find stuff on the holographic series and they are also questionable. Being a forum on AR products i believe it should be unbiased and more informative possibly than google. This is actually what i am trying to achieve. I have these speakers, and because i speak for one person only, it should be considered subjective and biased. However, in an objective way these speakers are reasonably build quality, and above standard sonic quality. Yet specs i cannot find and when i google them i am not reassured. Admittedly, specs on the vintage models are also scarce (GOOGLE), because when looking at them, one had to contact AR to find out about power capabilities. Shrouded in mistery is what they will remain i am afraid, and i am a little dissapointed with that. Perhaps they do not deserve a place next to the legendary models, yet to be mentioned unashamed would suit them to say the least. They have an AR label after all... that is what this forum is about, i hope. I mentioned Tannoy before, they are now produced in China. There are still people buying them and yes that is disputable, i agree. Today, branding and appearance is all that matters. What you actually said is that this phenomena started with AR a long long time ago. Meaning the 303 is also not worth mentioning or writing about. Yet is has followers and believers that because it has acoustic suspension it must be considered good. The exact same thing with Tannoy... being DC doesnt necessarily make it a good speaker or live up to the enthusiast standard. I rest my case... I hope someone, somewhere, magically can make a document/brochure appear to enlighten us. Cheers Andre

We have a saying in holland, what the farmer doesnt know, he will not eat... What is unkown cannot be appreciated. What is treated with silence cannot be bespoken. I am emphasizing that these speakers sound very good despite all the prejudice i have encountered. Also on craigslist comments... They give though, the same laid back general experience to music listening as the other AR models i own and do not invoke tiresome listening. Rather than starting an endless debate i just want to defend these speakers, for stepping out of line wasnt a bad choice in this case. Being produced for Sears perhaps sounds cheap skate but giving the general public a wood vineer box with these sonical qualities is not a bad thing. Advent did a similar thing no? Causing part of the demise, and quality choices like vinyl vineer etc. I do not exactly find AR an example of continuity of quality in general. All the different xo's and approaches to building the cases and drivers... you actually never know what you are in for. I steered clear of the brand for years because of this general appearance. Always seemed some nephew or the likes had repaired the speakers.... until i heard my first pair of 3a and closed my eyes.

Fair enough... general subjective prejudice. The reason mentioned does not rhyme(to me)with the holographic series. There is documents on that and appraisal.

Yes generally speaking a tube amp has next to no damping factor. My appraisal of the low watts tube amp was to emphasize the sensitivity which is a contrary to the power hungry speakers AR tends to have produced, making them an oddball in another way. These speakers do clean up a lot soundwise when connected to lets say a yamaha or bryston amp. Then again there are a lot of people who dont like the general woollyness of tubes anyhow...(subjective) Talking of power, which not many people have at their disposal when it comes to tubes, that same woollyness comes back to any earlier model even when 100 pch is available. That is just how it is and becomes less when feedback is turned on... Still, very subjectively speaking, even when using my Bryston SS i enjoy the sound of the srt very much and cannot fathom why there is so little background to be found on them. Then again, if it werent for this forum, the same would be for any given model of AR i believe. It is by now a niche market thing. Still, why the silence within this group of enthusiasts? A search on srt delivers 0 results here... hence my post.