Ar2ax capacitors?

[Mcintoshkid]

I think these speakers sound really good. I have been playing them for 2 days 10 or 11 hours a day at various volumes settled in on pot setting high full volume and mid on the normal dot. I am not going to open them up I think the crossover is doing its job. They sound fantastic almost like I remember my uncles ar3's sounded ethral.

[xpat]

  I have original AR5s and they still have the original capacitors.  I love the sound of the speakers and wouldn't think of changing the caps.  I did restore the pots a few years ago and they are still working fine.  If the 2ax sounds good to you, leave them alone and enjoy those classics.

[Mcintoshkid]

In summer I think I will clean the pots.  exercising them has helped and their set were I want them so it can wait. I'm just enjoying them. Enjoy those 5's I read a thread on those. I bet they sound excellent.

[C.R.James]

Mcintoshkid,

Sounds like you have a good pair of AR's. A few words to consider. The original tweeters were prone to blowing out- so try to not crank them too high. I don't know what the reason for this was, so if someone can enlighten, please do. I got mine when I was in undergrad, and the tweeters were already blown, BUT the AR's came with a pair of Micro-Static tweets, which were connected to the AR's at the rear knurled connections, just as the main AR's were wired. 

Be careful if/when opening the front of your speaker cabinet; (to replace or repair the pots) to carefully lift up the front grilles closest to where the AR badge is 'screwed' into the grille board. You can screw in an appropriate sized screw, in place of the badge and carefully lift without too much pressure while sliding a flexible, thin putty knife to pry the grille up and off whatever was used to mount it to the speaker cabinet.

If you might today or sometime in future consider yourself a collector of things like the AR's keep anything you remove and things inside the cabinet, like old caps, etc. leave in place if you can work around them. Most old caps, in these vintage AR's are out of value from original specs, by some amount due to age if nothing else. I know you did not say you wanted to mess with the crossovers, but keep in mind if you go in to do the pots, you might as well read the caps to see where they are at, as a reference point for later. They may vary from speaker one to speaker two, possibly. If you do pot replacements, do one speaker at a time, then you have easy reference for where things go from the other speaker too. Keep and reuse the fiberglass/wool? that is packed into the cabinet and reuse all of it. If you don't do anything other than pots cleaning/replacement, make sure the woofer surround if an airtight seal to the cabinet when you put it back together.

BTW, from what I've heard the speakers were designed to be used horizontally, NOT vertically, and if I heard wrong someone please chime in here. If so, when reinstalling the speaker it might benefit it's longevity by rotating it's 'found' 12 O'clock orientation, by 180 degrees to minimize the effects of Gravity _ _ _ _ _ _ ? Sorry can't remember the second part of the phrase, but it has to do with the pull of gravity over time could, possibly affect the magnet and other things about the speaker....

Can you shoot some pics of your ARs and what else you are driving them with. turntable, amp, etc.

Thanks.

Have fun with them, they are excellent speakers, IMHO

[genek]

1 hour ago, C.R.James said:

BTW, from what I've heard the speakers were designed to be used horizontally, NOT vertically, and if I heard wrong someone please chime in here.

You're thinking about the AR-2, which had a pair of cross-fired cone tweeters, and the AR-2a, which added a dome supertweeter and moved the cross-fired cone tweeters to the position later occupied by the single front-fired midrange. Both of these needed to be placed horizontally, but the AR-2ax can be used either vertically or horizontally.

[C.R.James]

17 hours ago, genek said:

You're thinking about the AR-2, which had a pair of cross-fired cone tweeters, and the AR-2a, which added a dome supertweeter and moved the cross-fired cone tweeters to the position later occupied by the single front-fired midrange. Both of these needed to be placed horizontally, but the AR-2ax can be used either vertically or horizontally.

Thanks Genek,

I stand corrected

Thanks for clarifying my error. It's good to have the facts....

[Mcintoshkid]

Amplifier clipping is I feel the biggest problem with popping these tweeters and or killing any speaker for that matter. I have a 270 watt Mcintosh amp running my Ar2ax. It is a speeker friendly amp it takes a lot to clip this amp.Push them with a lower power/quality amp and you will risk of clipping the amp and taking out a tweeter. I have not blown a speeker with this amp. I don't recommend running a low power amp with these speekers.