AR 58S Rebuild

[briodo]

Time for an update.  While the project is not yet complete, the majority of work is behind me.  The cabinets pass the Wife acceptance factor and now have the opportunity to join the household for musical enjoyment.

The cabinet with the broken top was repaired with bondo and both cabinets had their tops and bottoms finished with  wood grain filler to achieve a smooth finish, then painted with Dark Walnut spray.  I tried 3 different types of stain before giving in to paint with a polyurethane top coat as I just could not get the tops to look correct.  I was not able to ever get the tops smooth and the stain just magnified all the surface imperfections.  Wood filler, sand paper, paint and polyurethane at least got me to the point where they are acceptable.

The rest of the cabinets came out well, using gel stain and sanding to get things smoothed out.  I had to keep remembering these were never going to be in a fashion show, so focused on just being good enough.  I'm happy with where they are.

Some front and side shots...

[briodo]

Now for the painted tops and back

[briodo]

Zoom in where the bondo repair was done and my supplies

[briodo]

I did replace the crossovers with AR91's purchased off ebay.  New Dayton caps and connectors.  The connectors are really very nice by the way.

[briodo]

Finally the tweeters are from the original AR58S, and just needed a good cleaning.  The mid-ranges were another ebay purchase some time ago from someone parting out an AR92.  I had to spray paint to match the original drivers they replaced.  I was going to leave the silver, but the brown outer ring from the AR92 was too much, so painting was really the only option.  Some scratches on the plastic are evident if you look close while removing the velcro patches that hold the AR92 foam cell cover in place.

[briodo]

I did add a brace above where the 12" woofer is installed to increase cabinet strength.  More pictures as I put things together.  

[harry398]

great choice on caps.

my favorite.

 

these produce very good sound.  a touch more forward then a ar3a....diff bass presentation, if I may say ..more accurate.

I rate this speaker very high   

[lARrybody]

Briodo, you have turned those cabinets into a silk purse. They are looking excellent. How did you attach the crossover boards? Get those drivers installed and hook them up.   

[briodo]

I used a bead of caulk and 6 small screws for each crossover board.  The reason for delay s the original tweeter/mid-range screws had rust which I had to repaint and several threaded screw inserts fell out of the particle board around the 12" drivers.  Gluing them all back to avoid having to deal with a loose insert if the drivers ever have to come out again.  

But I am pretty excited to hear how they sound.

[DavidR]

Superb work !

They ought to sing nicely.

[briodo]

Struggled with the little metal inserts for the 1" driver.  Most were falling out and tacky glue did not work, so resorted to clear caulk, which provided a solid adhesive connection between the cabinet and metal insert.  Drivers are in and the speakers are installed next to a pair of AR91's with original finish.  The only thing I believe has been done to the AR91's was 12" refoam and caps replacement.  You can compare the difference in color between the factory finish of the AR91's and my redo using coffee colored gel stain.  Not sure I would use gel stain on a speaker again, BTW.  While it covers a lot of imperfections, it is painful to work with, which is what I went through on the tops.  I finally gave up and accepted the dark walnut paint job over stain.  And with polyurethane top coat, I can finally have potted plants on these speakers without worrying about the ring :-).

Last step is new grill cloth, the original looks pretty lame now the rest of the speakers have been cleaned up.

I'm running out of amplifier capacity to drive the 2 pairs of 12" 3 ways, but use the A/B switch on my Luxman to sample.  The AR58S sound really very nice.

 

[michiganpat]

when I did my 58S's years ago, I actually used some linen for the grille cloth, gives it more of a 3a vibe.....

 

 

[JKent]

11 minutes ago, michiganpat said:

I actually used some linen for the grille cloth, gives it more of a 3a vibe

Very nice if that's the look you're going for. If you decide to go with the stretchy black cloth I'd suggest the Mellotone rather than the standard stuff. PE has both but the Mellotone is better quality. 

Great job on those speakers!

[DavidR]

+1 for Mellotone

 

[dna]

You can use bondo to fix the busted corner or precision saw it and glue in a replacement piece, I'd bondo it and apply vinyl veneer as matching as possible. I have the same silver ring around my tweeters....I wonder if those are factory replacements because the P/N on mine doesn't match the OEM P/N.

[briodo]

Bondo is my friend and what I used for the broken corner.  Memories of my youth fixing rear quarter panels on my Plymouth Duster.  The challenge after was getting a smooth and consistent base to finish, which is why I ended up using paint.  After reading what JKent did on his AR11's, I now realize there is a much better way.

Also, I would not use Gel Stain on a speaker again.  While they came out OK, the finish is imperfect and does not match the true color of the factory finish as shown next to the AR91.  It's not a true stain and will require sanding to remove it, which probably won't happen until the next time I have to repair these 20 years from now.  Meaning, yeah, probably good enough for now.

Good question on the tweeters, while the mids came from a pair of AR92's, the tweeters are original.  No pic of the back of the tweeters to share

[briodo]

And I finished the frame.  I do not know the source of the cloth, as I bought it years ago and have enough left to do many speakers.  Not sure that was a good idea, but it is what it is.  Also the colors in person do not match the photo.  The AR91 is original and the two look identical in pattern and color, not sure why my cell came to a different conclusion.  All in all I'm happy with outcome.

The AR91 and AR58S sound alike, which should not be a surprise. My wife helped me do AB test using speaker out switch on the receiver and we could not tell the difference.  

Next on the bucket list is make like Frank Marsi and stack them.  That should be fun.

  

[JKent]

Beautiful!

[DavidR]

Stacked ARs

 

[briodo]

That is awesome. How did you wire?

[DavidR]

The AR91's were driven by a 500wpc SS amp (bottom shelf of the rack) and the 10Pi by a 60wpc tube amp that is behind the right tower. It wasn't a good match as the gain of each amp is different and the tube amp bass is way different than the SS amp bass sound. Probably because damping factor in a tube amp is very low and the SS amp is >500 DF into 8 Ohms.

I did this while I was recapping my 90's which are/were the speakers used with the SS amp.

[DavidDru]

briodo, if you ever get the notion to do so, it wouldn't be difficult to re-veneer the top on the 58's.  Id did my 3's and they look original.

[briodo]

3 hours ago, DavidDru said:

briodo, if you ever get the notion to do so, it wouldn't be difficult to re-veneer the top on the 58's.  Id did my 3's and they look original.

Agree it would be the correct way to address the top.  I've decided to use them until I get ambitious enough for that project!

[frankmarsi]

briodo, “Next on the bucket list is make like Frank Marsi and stack them.  That should be fun”.

That’s a nice idea and fun to do but, to do so correctly for maximum sound quality you’d need two separate matching amplifiers and all speakers should be identical also. 

When I was a very young teenager and playing in a band, we would stack our guitar amplifiers together with none of them matching and it would always sound like crap. I even attempted to do so with the few speaker cabinets I built in the mid 1960’s and again, the easiest drive-able speaker was the loudest and it sucked with the bigger speaker hardly doing anything and the smaller speaker being over driven. I see guys all over A.K. and here stacking speakers of different ohm-age, size, and usually with one amp and I’m certain the sound quality is awful. That is such a novice way to do things.

Traditionally the best approach is to have matching speakers otherwise using two mismatched speakers will in essence provide only the lowest common denominator of the two combined. Certainly not the best way if one strives for the best of sound quality and is just plain silly.

I use four matching AR-LSTs with two separate matching Phase Linear Series II PL-700 that output about 700 watt RMS per-channel X’s four (2800watts), matching cables to the amps, matching speaker wire size (12AWG) and  the sound quality rendered, is beyond what many here have ever experienced or ever will.

I was astonished and overly thrilled the first time I heard it myself, I realized that I've finally arrived and that my system was super-special and beyond most others.   I know, I know, I'm bragging but, I deserve it as I've been an AR speaker user for almost 50 years and it's taken me that many years to get to this place of audio greatness, good-gosh!!!  I've got the four AR-LST's and super-high power feeding them!  Relatively speaking, it's a mega-system.

Sadly, I suspect my system is partly why some here despise me beyond my original NYC attitude and way of speaking. Obviously, sometimes human tendencies are difficult to suppress but, easy to recognize. They're not my concern so, let my detractors continue being whatever they want to be, I haven't a care.

 After all of this concern, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the set-up of my turntable's tonearms and my concern of seeking out quality phono-cartridges, not to forgetting my strong belief in cleaning my vinyl disks with an ultrasonic cleaning regiment. I am a firm believer that the quality of input sources is equally as important as the end is, in this case the speakers. It seems many only think that if they have AR speakers at the end of the audio-chain that they're listening to quality audio however, it's every link in that chain that counts.

I'll laugh all the way to my seating position and I'll continue to be amazed every time I put a vinyl disk on, full well knowing that I've done everything I can to keep that chain strong.

Other  than that, it looks like you're doing a smashing job on the restoration. Continue enjoying yourself with AR speakers.

FM

 

[briodo]

9 hours ago, frankmarsi said:

That’s a nice idea and fun to do but, to do so correctly for maximum sound quality you’d need two separate matching amplifiers and all speakers should be identical also. 

Thanks for that tip Frank. This is the first time I've had two AR's that are as close to identical as AR58S with AR91 xover and the AR91's.  Honestly I admire someone like yourself who took years putting their system together and finally finding Nirvana.  It's clear you have built a truly unique system that we all secretly yearn for!!  

Will try out the stacking using a Crown XLS2002 running the 2 pair in series which should produce 375 w/c at 8 ohms.  Not quite the same as the famed Phase Linear, but will be fun to try out.