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AR Serial Numbers


Guest alcon

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Can you tell when a specific AR loudspeaker was manufactured by looking at the serial number? If yes, how is the serial number deciphered? Do they all have serial numbers and are they all located in the same place? Thanks!

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>Can you tell when a specific AR loudspeaker was manufactured

>by looking at the serial number? If yes, how is the serial

>number deciphered? Do they all have serial numbers and are

>they all located in the same place? Thanks!

There is information available inside cabinets that can provide the date items were manufactured. The most recent date of a component is likely to be reasonably close to the real mfg. date. If one then ties that to the serial number, one can learn a bit.

Early on, tweeters and woofers were marked with a date stamp, no problem here. Later both tweeters and woofers were marked with a seven digit code "ppp yymm" where ppp was the code for the AR plant; yy = last two digits of the year; mm = week of the year. The old Chicago Industrial paper/wax/oil capacitors were marked with a three digit code yww where the year was 196y -- by early seventies they were no longer used, so there is no confusion between, for example, 1966 and 1976. The Callins electrolytics also used the YYMM marking.

For two models you might try constructing a simple plot with a straight line connecting the following two points.

AR-3a:

Begin production- ~1 Oct 1967

sn- 97,000, date- 1 Jan 1975

AR-4x:

Begin production- ~1 Oct 1965

sn- 345,000, date- 1 Feb 1971

I have no idea how many units of each were produced. The AR-4x was produced through 1973 and the 3a through 1976. (See Forum Archives.) However, the data points I have collected from a few of you make a reasonably good fit to a straight line.

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