Brand New AR3a pair in factory sealed boxes for sale on e-bay

[soundminded]

OK, I don't think I'm going for them and it's a crap shoot if it's even for real but here it is. Don't say I didn't give you fair warning, there's still 8 days and 21 hours left to bid.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5721620022&rd=1

There's even a telephone number to call the owner and talk to him about them.

I can hear all your hearts skipping a beat right through my computer.

[soundminded]

The winning bid was $1462.89. It started out at $250 and went slowly for a while with a big rush at the end. Someone must have wanted them awfully badly. The seller had originally estimated the final price at about $1000.

[Guest Droog]

True, it's rare to find NOS AR's but the problem is if you open them and enjoy them which is what speakers are for, their value drops 60%-70% ! I just can't get with the idea of showing my friends my AR 3a's in the box in my living room, being left to say "I bet they sound great....but we can't open them". Now, if one buys them for an investment, is it such a sure thing you'll get $2,000 - $3,000 for them in ten years ? A better investment might be some AR 1's or some other hard to find piece of AR history.

[Guest pbda]

The buyer seems to be located in Germany, so on top of the selling price I assume there will be added a pretty hefty shipping fee.

For some people the thrill of simply owning (and using) equipment that has never been used before is worth the price of admission, steep as it may be.

[soundminded]

Like buying a bottle of very old wine from a great winemaker in a great vintage, what's inside is always a crap shoot. Unless you open the boxes, they might as well be filled with sand just as the wine bottle might as well be filled with colored water unless you uncork it. Will the foam surrounds and control potentiometers have deteriorated? There is a good chance that the answer is yes because that's the result of oxygen and moisture in the air. The deterioration is chemical, not due to merely flexing back and forth I assume. At least the cabinets and grill cloths should be in mint condition. And like other AR3as, they can be repaired. I think it was Tom or Ken who pointed out that there are no AR3as which sound exactly as they did 30 years ago or at least we don't know if they do. That may still be the case.

[tysontom]

>Like buying a bottle of very old wine from a great winemaker

>in a great vintage, what's inside is always a crap shoot.

>Unless you open the boxes, they might as well be filled with

>sand just as the wine bottle might as well be filled with

>colored water unless you uncork it. Will the foam surrounds

>and control potentiometers have deteriorated? There is a good

>chance that the answer is yes because that's the result of

>oxygen and moisture in the air. The deterioration is

>chemical, not due to merely flexing back and forth I assume.

>At least the cabinets and grill cloths should be in mint

>condition. And like other AR3as, they can be repaired. I

>think it was Tom or Ken who pointed out that there are no

>AR3as which sound exactly as they did 30 years ago or at least

>we don't know if they do. That may still be the case.

Since these were 1975 AR-3as -- the last versions -- they did not have the original beige-linen grills anyway, but a newer version in a white linen. Still nice, but the material is thicker and stretches much easier than the original, no-longer-available beige linen. This pair of AR-3a's would also have Velcro attachment for the grill panels, which sticks the grill frame out almost flush with the molding. This is fine, but it doesn't look as "finished" as the original attachment of USM glue. These newer speakers would also have the mid-70s iteration of the 12W woofer, which has more power-handling capability, but is stiffer than the earlier versions.

The foam is probably still okay if the speakers were stored in conditioned space; however, if they were stored anywhere near humidity or heat/cold cycles, the surrounds have likely deteriorated. The level controls oxidize, so the same would apply for them as well, but a little twisting back and forth should clear them up. All in all, the new speakers should have that "new" look, but there may be some underlying deterioration of internal parts. I sold a pair of AR-7s last month that had been stored in the box since being used in 1973, and the surrounds were still in very good condition when inspected this year, so the AR-3as might be okay. My AR-7s, however, were always in conditioned space and low humidity, and I suspect this would make a big difference.

--Tom Tyson

[Guest Droog]

It's too bad a foam has not been developed that will not rot, a friend re-foamed a pair of later AR2ax's in 1995 and recently noticed noticed some they were starting to rot again. I would think that paying $25.00 for a kit, they would last more like 15-20 years ! Is there a kit that has a longer lasting foam? This is why I like early AR with treated cloth surrounds...they seem more durable, but I know you lose a little in performance.

[tysontom]

>It's too bad a foam has not been developed that will not rot,

> a friend re-foamed a pair of later AR2ax's in 1995 and

>recently noticed noticed some they were starting to rot again.

> I would think that paying $25.00 for a kit, they would last

>more like 15-20 years ! Is there a kit that has a longer

>lasting foam? This is why I like early AR with treated cloth

>surrounds...they seem more durable, but I know you lose a

>little in performance.

Some urethane-polymer foams are better than others, but you should really expect the foam to last 10-15 years, I've been told, if the speaker is kept in a relatively dry environment. The newer foams are much better, I believe, and have some inhibitor in the mix to retard the oxidation that occurs. Most manufacturers are now using rubber surrounds to prevent the rot, but the performance is not quite as good as the old urethane foam mainly because the foam surrounds have this wonderful property of absorbing unwanted cone vibrations and reflected energy, and this greatly improves response mainly at the woofer's upper range of operating frequencies.

Some companies use bextrene or polypropolene cone materials; these work fine at very low frequencies, but are quite difficult to manage in the higher frequencies. Good old felted-paper cones, such as used in the older AR speakers, seem to work best. AR took the foam surrounds one step further (at least in the pre-ADD speakers) and treated the foam surrounds with a butyl-rubber compount to further reduce standing waves and resonances in the cone. The result was a very uniform output from those drivers.

The treated-cloth surrounds do seem to last much longer, but even they dry out after a period of time. AR treated them with a butyl-latex compound, and this seems to last a long time before becoming brittle. Once that occurs, air leaks through the surround can occur, and the surround can also make noise. Usually, a good polymer treatment, such as Amor All, helps a little bit to keep the surrounds supple.

--Tom Tyson

[soundminded]

There's a thread in the KLH board which gives a material and supplier for restoring the pneumatic integrity of cloth surrounds. It's only $10 for a small bottle. The only problem for old KLHs like my pair of sixes is that you have to cut the grill cloth away. It was not removable.

[tysontom]

>There's a thread in the KLH board which gives a material and

>supplier for restoring the pneumatic integrity of cloth

>surrounds. It's only $10 for a small bottle. The only

>problem for old KLHs like my pair of sixes is that you have to

>cut the grill cloth away. It was not removable.

I never quite understood why Henry Kloss chose to fabricate the speaker basket and magnet assembly around an aluminum tube frame, epoxied to the front baffle board (in the early KLH Fours, Sixes and Sevens, not to count the practically unknown KLH One, Two and Three). He even got a patent for it! I think that the flegling KLH Research and Development Corp in the late 1950s simply did not have the resources to buy speaker frames, and decided that the gains in mounting rigidity with the epoxied-in tube frame would be the answer. It was all virtually hand made, and even the magnet assembly was epoxied into a coffee-can like pot, all in one operation. Remarkably, the grill cloth can't be removed without ruining the cloth, as there was no grill-cloth frame. The grill, with a black ticking underneath to hide the outline of the drivers, was tucked and stretched into the cabinet edge and glued. There was never any anticipation that these speakers would need to be field repaired, but that they would always be returned to the factory. Not surprisingly, no other manufacturer in the world ever infringed on the KLH patent, nor did anyone every pay KLH or Henry Kloss royalties for this strange design. By the early 60s, KLH realized that they would have to change the design, and went to a ferrite woofer, stamped frame, that was screwed into the cabinet.

Users of the early KLH designs must be very, very careful not to damage any drivers. One problem, however, was that early KLH Sixes and especially KLH Fours (this was KLH's answer to the AR-3) had serious problems with crossover capacitors. Repair to these old speakers is virtually out of the question these days. As mentioned earlier, the cone has to be ripped out of the speaker if there is a failure or if a repair needs to be made to a crossover part of something, and to my knowledge there is no one other than an old KLH employee, Dominic DeAngelis, in Abington, MA, capable of making this repair to my knowledge. He once told me that he was soon running out of repair parts he had salvaged from the old KLH company. I bought some of the last of the grill material for a pair of KLH Fours that I had at one time, just before the crossover went bad in one speaker. It couldn't be repaired.

--Tom Tyson

[ninohernes]

>These newer speakers would also have

>the mid-70s iteration of the 12W woofer, which has more

>power-handling capability, but is stiffer than the earlier

>versions.

>

>--Tom Tyson

Yikes! More power handling? I thought the original Alnico magnet woofer had pretty much endless power handling. I recently found an old AR-3 alnico magnet woofer that was damaged beyond repair in a flood. I decided to disassemble it, so that I could see the voice coil. That thing is a beast! Thick windings, it looks double wound to me, and an aluminum former!

[soundminded]

If I ever have to reseal the cloth surrounds in my early sixes, I'll have a real problem. What I will probably try to do is cut the cloth as close to the edge as possible with an exacto knife and remove it with as little damage as possible. In any event, I will have to make a new grill cloth frame from masonite. If I can salvage the old cloth, so much the better but it may not be feasible. Here's the excerpt form the other thread;

"Hi David.

I am not sure what the material was they used in the old days, but it has

not been available for about 15 years. We do have the new version. It used

to be an MEK base coating. Now it is a water base. It's got latex in it and

it will dry clear. It is not as tacky as it used to be. But it works just as

good (or probably better). We sell it for $10 per 1oz bottle. Shipping is

$4.95. The part number is XL49. You will need to call us to order it. We

don't have it on our website.

If you would like to place an order, please give us a call. We accept Visa,

Master Card, Discover, and AMEX. Or you can email me your full name,

address, phone number, credit card number, and the list of items you would

like to order.

Regards,

Bryan Sunda

Orange County Speaker, Inc.

12141 Mariners Way

Garden Grove, CA 92843

800.897.8373 M-F 10am to 6pm Pacific Time

714.554.8520 M-F 10am to 6pm Pacific Time

http://www.SpeakerRepair.com/

This product has been applied in two thin coats to the front of the KLH surrounds, and the technician tells me that he is very pleased with the result, and that it sticks well to the remnants of the old black sealant, although I expected that it might not. Those places with remaining heavy amounts of the black stuff were still well sealed, so this is not critical. It was very easy to see light through the leaky cloth, upon inspection."

[tysontom]

>>These newer speakers would also have

>>the mid-70s iteration of the 12W woofer, which has more

>>power-handling capability, but is stiffer than the earlier

>>versions.

>

>>

>>--Tom Tyson

>

>Yikes! More power handling? I thought the original Alnico

>magnet woofer had pretty much endless power handling. I

>recently found an old AR-3 alnico magnet woofer that was

>damaged beyond repair in a flood. I decided to disassemble it,

>so that I could see the voice coil. That thing is a beast!

>Thick windings, it looks double wound to me, and an aluminum

>former!

>

Joe, the original AR-3 Alnico woofer is very robust, but it also has limits. The voice coil is 2 inches in diameter, and the coil is a heavy-gauge copper wire wound on a bronze bobbin, or voice-coil former. The magnet structure is 9.3 lbs., which consists of a 3.3 lbs. Alnico-5 magnet and 6.0 lbs. Armco Iron. In contrast, this voice coil has about twice the thermal power-handling capability of the AR-2/AR-5 series, KLH Six and Large Advent voice coils, although the Advent, with its smaller cone, does have nearly the excursion capability of the AR-3. The height (or length) of the windings on the AR-3 coil is about 1-1/8 inches, which means that the coil, suspended in a 1/4-inch gap, has an excursion of 1/2-to-5/8 inches, peak-to-peak, in a linear fashion. Before "bottoming," the woofer's excursion is >1-inch, but there is serious distortion and the fear that the moving system will bottom on the top (not bottom) plate of the magnetic assembly. Occasionally you will find woofers in which the voice coil has separated from the cone itself, and this is usually the cause.

In most earlier AR speakers, especially the AR-1 and AR-3, distortion remains very low right up to the point that the speaker "lets go, at which time the distortion rises quickly. This has always been a very desirable characteristic in speaker design. A gradual increase in distortion is audibly more objectionable. With the later designs, especially into the mid-1970s and later, AR began to stiffen the suspension to increase the power-handling capability of the woofer. The idea was to prevent "bottoming" in the newer ferrite-magnet design, and increasing the stiffness of the spider succeeded in this goal. Distortion at moderate power in this newer design remains low, but increases more quickly as power goes up (increased stiffness in the suspension adds in the non-linear aspect of mechanical suspension). It's a trade-off, of course, and a more practical way of dealing with over-driven woofers.

--Tom Tyson

[tysontom]

I said in my last post, "suspended in a 1/4-inch gap," I meant to say "suspended in a 1/2-inch gap."

--Tom Tyson