Nick in Brooklyn Posted November 1, 2020 Report Share Posted November 1, 2020 Hello all, first post. I recently inherited a pair of AR8b speakers. They look like they’re in pretty good condition except for one of the woofers (pics attached) and possibly the tweeter. Several questions: Judging from the photo, should the woofer be repaired or replaced? If repaired, what does this entail? If replacement is needed, how does the original come off?* If replaced, what’s a good replacement 6 1/2” woofer? *I can’t find any info online about how to safely remove woofers in speakers like these and I don’t want to damage the wires. Many thanks for any feedback or insight into these questions. -Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JKent Posted November 1, 2020 Report Share Posted November 1, 2020 Welcome Nick I have no experience with the 8B but looking at your photo, the wires have Sta-Kon connectors that just push on to tabs on the woofer. Just pull them off. The photo below shows this. Ignore the black wire in the photo. Your woofer has just the 2 wires, like the red and blue in my pic. Those are 6.5" woofers and both need to be re-foamed. Easy enough and you can get help here. But that protruding cone leads me to believe there may be more going on. Maybe a detached spider and if that's the case the voice coil could be damaged. Maybe take a better pic behind the cone once you disconnect it. The simplest solution would be to send both woofers to Bill LeGall of Millersound. He'll fix them better than new and quite reasonable. But if you're up to doing it yourselfone of the speaker gurus here can help. Kent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lARrybody Posted November 1, 2020 Report Share Posted November 1, 2020 Early last year I found a pair of 8b at a local thrift. I initially bought them for the tweeters, but decided to go ahead and re-foam the woofers. Upon some online research I found out that these woofers originally came with filled fillet surrounds much like Boston Acoustics woofers. Looking around I found that eBay seller Audiodogs had the correct surrounds. I ordered a set and re-foamed them. Larry from Audiodogs was very easy to deal with. I guess you could use the surrounds others are selling for these, but I like to keep things as original as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woofer_01 Posted November 2, 2020 Report Share Posted November 2, 2020 NOTE: GET A RED SHARPIE and color cod the spade that the RED wire goes to so you hook them back up correctly. My AR 18b rebuild See comments on pictures I snagged this pair on line... Cabinets were rough, grills have holes, surrounds where gone, and on AR badge was missing Woofer surrounds were toast... as expected Grills will need recovering... not an issue with plastiv frames IF they are in good shape. Original input terminals and the dreaded SN label New input terminal with these really slick spring loaded input terminals Woofer out to be repaired and the first peek at the Crossover Crossover out and exposed New cup and new Dayton Audio 250V 1% Tol Caps. Original value is 5uF so I had to use a pair of caps wired in parrallel (2uF and a 3uF) wich electronically "looks" like a 5uF cap. Hot glue and strong nylon tiewraps should work long term to keep things together All together and breaking in. The new input terminal cup required the original AR Labels on the back to be moved. Used a heat gun and they easily came loose. Repositioned them slightly higher. NOW... Here is the amazing part... These little book shelf speakers SOUND AMAZING!!! I am quite stunned how nice they sound!! Cabinet work and new grill work still to be done. More pictures coming. AR 8b wiring diagram PLAN VIEW Also... I now have a set of AR 18s... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick in Brooklyn Posted November 3, 2020 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2020 Thanks JKent for the welcome and all for the quick responses with pics and wiring diagram. I was able to get the wires off and detach the woofers as you explained - the wires were very tight but luckily I pulled them out without damaging them - I will likely send into Millersounds to get both woofers repaired. Thanks again, this is a great community. Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ligs Posted November 3, 2020 Report Share Posted November 3, 2020 I had a pair of AR8B for a while and they sounded pretty good. You may be interested in the review here. http://www.hifi-classic.net/review/acoustic-research-ar8b-349.html George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JKent Posted November 4, 2020 Report Share Posted November 4, 2020 16 hours ago, Nick in Brooklyn said: I will likely send into Millersounds to get both woofers repaired. Here's how: http://www.millersound.net/contact-bill-legall-millersound.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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