AR3a speakers just bought

[Guest crawlspace]

I am very new to this site. By chance last week while shopping in a used furniture store, I went to move a pair of speakers to look at a dresser and found they were quite heavy. Since they were only $25, I bought them and lugged them home. The front tag says AR3a and a sheet on the back says serial numbers 3A 24621 and 3A 13775. Since I've bought them, I have been on this site alot and it is very interesting. I connected t;hem to my modern Yamaha receiver and they appear to work quite fine, except one tweeter sounds out. My question is did they ever come painted white from the factory? These are white and when I tried to use a chemical stripper to take some off, the stripper didn't do a thing, just gum the paint up a little. I read where they came in walnut finish. I also read on t;his site how the serial numbers ran. I believe these are of the earlier version, '67, '68? Thankyou and I have really learned alot about audio equipment here.

[onplane]

>I connected them to my modern Yamaha receiver and they appear

>to work quite fine, except one tweeter sounds out.

There is a very good chance that the tweeter is OK and that you get no sound out of the tweeter because the adjustment pot is corroded.

There are serveral a good articles here on the pots with ideas on work arounds and fixes. The pots are a well documented problem!

Hope this helps ...

Regards,

Jerry

[Guest hilltroll67]

>My question

>is did they ever come painted white from the factory? These

>are white and when I tried to use a chemical stripper to take

>some off, the stripper didn't do a thing, just gum the paint

>up a little. I read where they came in walnut finish.

They didn't come in white, but may well have been painted because the veneer was in bad condition (hey, there had to be *some* reason). It's obviously your call, but I suggest sanding them down some and then repainting them in your choice of color. Satin black with light gray grille cloth would be stikingly attractive to me.

Jerry is giving you the straight dope about the non-sounding tweeter - it's likely the pot that's bad.

Good luck with the speakers; kind of wish I had 'em.

Bob

[JKent]

Depending on how handy you are, you could also sand them down and apply real walnut (or your choice) veneer. The 3a's are sought-after collector's items, so you may want to do a true restoration: Clean up the pots, maybe replace the caps while you're in there, apply new veneer and new linen grille cloth. Warning: This can become an addiction! I'm headed down to the rec room now to put away 3 pairs of speakers and 2 radios--all partially restored but in pieces--to make room for holiday guests.

You could get hooked!!! ;-)

[Guest crawlspace]

Thank you for everyone that has replied. After reading throughout this site, I feel kind of lucky to have stumbled on them. The grill cloth appears to be original and in really good shape. There is only one small stain which is hard to see.

I took your advice and took my orbital sander to the bottom of one speaker to remove the white paint. The wood/veneer underneath appears to be okay. I'm just not sure if this is the walnut layer i'm looking at.

It took my a couple of hours of reading discussions to finally understand what the 'pots' are. The reading was all very informative though.

Rather than take them to surgery, I think I'll listen to them as is. They sound quite good the way they are. I did notice that when my small Yamaha speakers are connected, I can turn the volume way up and it gets loud. HOwever, when the AR3a's are on, and I turn up the volume to the same spot, the speaker aren't as loud. But I think that I'm hearing sounds/instruments that I didn't hear before. I really like the speakers.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Guest matty g]

New speaker owner;

Congratulations! AR3A systems are quite a find and almost ALWAYS worth restoring electronically in spite of how rough the cabinets may be. There may not be a finish or even finishable wood under all of that paint anyway. AR offered those systems in unfinished pine as well as walnut and (I think) cherry finishes. The owners manual states that the unfinished pine is for painting only. You will find a finishable band of wood around the very front of the cabinet, but the majority of the unfinished cabinet is pine.

The reason for the unfinished offering was to reduce cost. These speaker systems were (and still are) highly accurate, and they were used in applications where finish was not a consideration. I have found AR3 systems in college surplus warehouses and I wouldn't be surprised if the military had a use for them at some point!

Try working the tweeter pot back and fourth to see if you can find a "sweet spot" where it will work. This, of course, is a temporary solution and it would be well worth your while to correct the problem with one of the solutions found on this excellent site. It's a pretty simple procedure, and there are no speakers currently produced that have that AR3A sound.

Congratulations on the find!

Matt

[Guest crawlspace]

Thankyou for your response. I now believe that I have the unfinished pine cabinet. I took your advice and moved the high control back and forth, while also pushing in on it. After about 5 minutes, I could not believe my ears but it started to sputter, and now it is working beautifully. My first speaker repair has been free. It's funny how things work. Just this afternoon I finally found an electronics shop in southern New Jersey who sounded like they knew about pots and fixes them. Thankyou all for saving me $$$.

I put on a Rippington's CD and it sounded like the drummer was sitting my living room when the cymbals crashed.

Awesome.

[Guest tgw]

Removing the grill cloth and taking out the woofers gains you access to the inside of the speakers, which will allow a good cleaning of the potentiometers. Usually the removal of the grill cloth will result in the need to install new cloth. This happened with a pair of AR-3's I obtained from a friend, but with a good cleaning both inside and outside and new dark brown grill cloth, these speakers look and sound great.

As far as the paint, as others have correctly indicated your pair might be the unstainable pine finish. If so you can have then reveneered or repainted.

If you go inside be aware of the fiber glass batting that you will encounter. Use gloves and a mask when handling this material. You will find a wealth of material at this site from experts that know much more than I do.