Where to look for LSTs

[Guest Rickysa]

I've never owned top-notch audio equipment but have always longed to...now I am!:-) (or at least I'm going to try)

Other than checking eBay, is there another site (other than here...which I just found today!) that might be likely to list LSTs for sale?

A google search brought up a nice pair from a first time seller without any history in Bangledash....so I'm a little leary of those (lol)

Thanks for any input,

Rick

[frankmarsi]

5-9-07

As a proud LST owner of more than 17 years now I can sympathically say to you-GOOD LUCK! I have in the past only dreamed of these monsters and one day I was lucky enough to acquire 4 of them. Since then I've learned that they require very high powered amps and they demand critical room placement.

I've learned through experimentation that they are rather unusal, not as easy to place as a standard box speaker let's say. Because of their three sided baffles, reflected sound waves make for placement away from near walls and that in of itself requires a large room. Than there's the weight problem, at app. 100lbs each, so a strong stand is necessary.

One of the most important aspects is amplifer power. Forget using anything under 200 to 400 watts RMS per speaker. There are persons out there who speak of little 'flea' amps, etc. These individuals probably never heard an LST with a monster sized amp before. The old cliche; power in equals power out, that is how these speakers should be addressed, period. If you're the casual listener and would state that you don't listen at loud levels, I would then suggest using AR-3a's or something along those lines. I myself use four stacked LST's and two Phase Linear 400 amps, and I can state that bigger amps could easily be used also for even more musical listening satisfaction.

There are others out who may have more LST knowledge than I so stay tuned and await more information-I'm curious to hear more comments myself.

Frank Marsi

[Guest Rickysa]

Frank,

Thanks so much for the response, and you answered my next question that I meant to add to my first post...a recommended amp for the LSTs.

I am not an "audiophile", but I appreciate quality equipment and have always wanted a quality audio system...who knows maybe I am a closet audiophile and just don't know it yet.

The AR-3a was first recommended to me, then I was told, "but if you can find LSTs they are the real deal". I've found a pair of LSTs at $1500, and I see the 3a is considerable less expensive...big difference in sound? (not to start any arguments on my first day here or anything..lol)

Again, thanks for the input, and I also look forward to any other input.

Rick

[Guest hilltroll67]

>

>I am not an "audiophile", but I appreciate quality

>equipment and have always wanted a quality audio system...who

>knows maybe I am a closet audiophile and just don't know it

>yet.

>

>The AR-3a was first recommended to me, then I was told,

>"but if you can find LSTs they are the real deal".

>I've found a pair of LSTs at $1500, and I see the 3a is

>considerable less expensive...big difference in sound? (not

>to start any arguments on my first day here or anything..lol)

>

Well, here I go alienating folks. At $1500 you have left my notion of why to own classic AR (which is very good sound fairly cheap) far behind.

For that kind of money, I suggest you go to Madisound.com and look at the Seas Thor speaker.

Bob

[Guest Rickysa]

Bob,

No alienating here...I'm here to learn, as I know ZERO about current/vintage equipment. I certainly don't have any desire to listen to salemen's pitches for info, so any and all input is appreciated.

I chimed in on another forum (actually a boating forum..lol) where folks were discussing high quality audio equipment, and was told that new stuff can go for stupid $$, and to look at AR-3As...great sound at less than new would cost...then the mention of the LSTs

I'm not looking for loud...might scare the chickens...just good.

I've got some Polk Audio speakers for our home theater...then got a little Klipsch (sp?) boombox for my iPod from my kids and couldn't believe the difference in quality of sound. Clean is the only way I can describe it.

I'd love to have that on the home stereo.

Rick

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Rick;

From my own personnal experience, I feel that the AR-LST's are twice as good as AR-3A's.

When new I felt that and if the price is twice that of AR-3A's then this is very good value.

With AR-3A's now going for maybe $500.00 a pair and LST's going for $2,000.00 plus today, it appears that only the wealthier listeners can have the ever disappearing supply of LST's.

The AR-3A is a very fine speaker on it's own, in my opinion.

I go back in time to AR-4X's, I have had several upgrades up to, finally, the LST's.

Each step up was an overall improvement in my opinion.

If you really want AR-LST's, then you must bite the bullet and pay the high price or even keep your eyes open for a local estate sale, you never know.

I cannot say what new amp to buy today, as I have used a Crown DC-300A and Double Dyna 400 for years now.

Initially I used an AR amp, rated at 4 ohm output of 60 watts per channel, with no problems.

The most dramtic improvement I have ever experienced in only a few minutes was switching from the AR amp to the Crown, drop dead gorgeous gut wrenching bass from the AR-3A's.

Not that there was no bass from the AR amp but not the same stomach massaging bass from the larger output Crown.

If you are not superstitious, buy an older classic amp otherwise there is a number of expensive powerful amps, Crown for example, on todays market.

You do need oodles of clean power, perhaps 100 - 1.5K watts per channel RMS 20 - 20 KHZ.

Depends a lot on your listening habits.

Would wiring 2 - AR-3A's, a pair per channel, in a series arrangement give you the same sound as a pair of AR-LST's, I doubt it, but maybe a member has such a fine setup in their system and would be willing to comment, please.

Four channel with AR-3A's may be the cats meow.

There is a few, expensive, amps that can go down to 1 - 2 ohms load and then a pair of AR-3A's in parallel would work in that case only.

There was a pair of modified LST's being sold in BC Canada a few months ago.

Zero bids.

Pristine, original LST's are becoming few and far between, good luck in your hunt.

PS. Dings, scratches and icky grille clothes do not affect the sound and can be repaired if you are handy, the drivers are the really big concern.

[Guest hilltroll67]

>I'm not looking for loud...might scare the chickens...just

>good.

>

>I've got some Polk Audio speakers for our home theater...then

>got a little Klipsch (sp?) boombox for my iPod from my kids

>and couldn't believe the difference in quality of sound.

>Clean is the only way I can describe it.

>

>I'd love to have that on the home stereo.

>

Klipsch, eh? That opens the possibility that you need to hear upper-mid frequencies clearly, forward, with 'air' around them. If that is the case, the AR3 isn't your best match. Maybe you ought to find out if horn-loaded mid/treble is your preference. Try to hear Klipsch RF3 or RF7 towers, or their current equivalents. There's no point in laying out cash for classic AR sound (AR3a, 5, 11) in that case. I own a pair of Klipsch RF3II towers, and can certify that they sound *nothing* like my AR5 pair (which have, I think, glorious midrange drivers). The Klipsch tend to give me a headache in fact; but they're 'clean'.

Bob

[dynaco_dan]

Hi again Rick;

Those AR-LST's I was mentioning in BC were at Prince Rupert.

As I remember, all of the tweeters had been replaced.

[soundminded]

Rickysa; AR LST and AR3a may not be the best choice for you. Before you make the decision to hunt down something which is often hard to find, sometimes expensive, and sometimes requires considerable time and effort to restore to anything like its designed performance capabilities, you should know something about it to help you make that decision. These speakers were designed with one specific goal in mind, to reproduce serious music in a home as accurately as the technology of their era would allow. That was the commonly understood goal of high fidelity sound reproducing equipment of that era. Today it's different. It isn't clear what the goal is but it often seems that it is to cater to people's personal likes and whims no matter where this takes a product. Because of the market's capriciousness, today there is really nothing like an objective standard by which most people judge audio equipment anymore. This opens up a whole new avenue to an endless stream of products and profits as the market's preferences change. AR's philosophy was exemplified by live versus recorded demonstrations with string quartets, pipe organs, classical guitars, nickelodeons, and a jazz drummer. While the demonstrations wre admittedly highly contrived and carefully arranged, they demonstrated the potential of the speakers to do what the manufacturer said they did and the evaluation as to whether or not they met those criteria was left up to the customer fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend them. I was one such person on two occasions and it was very impressive.

Manufacturers don't design speakers that way today, not because they can't but because they don't want to. It would not necessarily lead to the highest profits. As a result, this industry has in my opinion and I think in the opinion of many here, gone backwards to an earlier era when the goal was simply to please. This may in part be due to a lack of music education in most schools, who knows. AR speakers can play very loudly when they have to with very low distortion but they are not intended to recreate the sound levels at live rock concerts. Attempts to use them that way often result in severe damage to them. They are also not intended to provide background music, they are targeted at serious listeners. This is why many professional musicians and avid concert goers selected them for their own personal use. AR3a was an evolutionary step in a design concept which improved on the already excellent performing AR3, the speaker I heard in the live versus recorded demos. It uses the same woofer and same enclosure but improved midrange and tweeter drivers and a suitable crossover network. Tom Tyson said that new designs come along to solve a problem and I think he was right. LST solved a technical problem within the context of the philosophy of AR3a by drastically improving lateral mid and high frequency dispersion but at a considerable cost increase. LST stands for "Laboratory Standard Transducer" and that is exactly what it was intened as. By adding another midrange and three more tweeters on angled panels, AR LST has among the widest lateral dispersions of any direct radiating loudspeaker system ever offered on the market. This increases the area in a room where optimal listening is likely and results in flatter total power response as well as increased power handling capacity. It is also heavier and somewhat more difficult to place optimally in a room than AR3a but the potential results are worth the extra trouble and expense IF the goal of the designers is your goal. If it is not, you might do well to consider modern alternatives which are lighter, cheaper, but less accurate in the terms many who prize AR speakers have come to make judgements by.

[Guest Rickysa]

You have a great forum here...I'm very glad to have found it, and thank you all for the input you have provided.

Soundminded,

You have touched on exactly my concern/frustration....it seems that there are an overwhelming number of new "high-end" options out there...so who do you trust to decide?

Your description of the products was spot-on for an uneducated music appreciater like me, that wouldn't know a "frequency response" if it bit him on the arse...trying to weed through a mountain of techno jargon that true followers of contemporary/vintage electronic equipment would understand, is an impossiblity for someone like me.

"I don't know why I like "it", it just sounds good" :-)

I happen to like vintage stuff...restoring is a hobby of mine (old boats, cars, etc), so finding a pair of LSTs and fixing them up appeals to me as much as the quality of music they would provide...I can't make an educated decision about the stuff out there today, but everyone says that the LSTs are the cat's meow, so LST it seems to be where I'm heading (unless talked out of it by you good folks .;-)...the suggestion about the Klipsch stuff has me thinking)

Rick

[soundminded]

Accolades for the current technology notwithstanding, high fidelity sound reproduction is still a fairly primitive art. Most sound reproduction systems do not have the capability to produce the sound of live music ever. Even the best equipment only occasionally comes close and then only at reproducing the sound of musical instruments as they would be heard if they were in your own room, not as they would be heard at a live concert in a concert hall. That is still well beyond the current state of the art.

AR speakers often will not come off well in rapid fire AB comparisons with other loudspeakers especially for inexperienced listeners and in store contrived demos. While AR had outstanding engineers, they were relatively poor at marketing. As a result, dealers did not push their products and often deliberately arranged their sound rooms and installation so that AR speakers would come off second best to more profitable products or those of companies which had better commercial relations with them. Less accurate speakers which upon long term listening will exhibit shrill treble, boomy bass, or are louder because they are more efficient often are preferred in this setting but when the customer gets them home and starts to listen, their flaws become more than obvious, they become annoying to the point of constant trading or trying to find solutions of all different types from exotic wires to magic chips. It's astonishing what people will pay money for and try that is so obviously hopeless. Don't be surprised if upon initially hearing AR speakers you are underwhelmed especially if you are not familiar with the sound of live acoustical instruments. Their real value only starts to become evident to some people when they are in long term use...and then they never give them up. I've had my AR9s for 23 years and they will never be sold while I am still alive.

[Guest Rickysa]

I grew up on 8-tracks....and on lousy equipment to boot.

All through school...cheap speakers/equipment simply because I had no money for anything else. Then, my roommate bought a CD player and I heard the opening drum solo on "Money for Nothing" and was blown away that anything could sound that good.

My current set up was put together by a neighbor that worked at a "big box" electronics store...and it just sounds dead.

That's why I was so impressed with the little Klipsch unit, almost to the same extent and hearing "Money for Nothing" for the first time on CD...and I thought how cool it would be to have that sound in the house (or my shop .;-) ).

I could never trust a salesman in a store again after getting taken on buying a high-end VCR and receiver when they were actually using a DVD (early on) and surround sound for the demo....live and learn

[frankmarsi]

5-10-07

Bravo…… Bravo……. I’ll have what he’s drinking!

Soundminded as always, is just that, sound-minded. I agree with him entirely. In fact I’ll go one further and suggest that if you’re not an experienced listener and appreciator of vintage AR speakers- stay away for your own good. And tonite when the moon is in full bloom…… wait that’s another story.

I say this because you’ll probably be disappointed and let-down with your purchase. It’ll be kind’a like a new driver jumping into a high powered sports car and stepping hard on the gas, a bad move for the unaware. Except in this case you may feel that AR’s sound too muffled or reticent in their sound quality.

Not to project myself as an elitist with an attitude here, but AR speakers are like a fine wine and or a special food dish, you’ll have to build up to them and certainly have experience enjoying them before you can actually decide there’s no need for any other brand of speaker. I must presume that most people on this site are, dare I say with-in the 45 to 75 plus age range and this is not a stretch to assume, I hope. Let’s face it the classic years of AR production range from 1954 to 1990 or so. That being said I’m sure you can do the math. You must understand, it took us this long to rally and attach ourselves to this site, and thank you to the site’s administrator that we have it.

I educated myself about the AR sound starting in 1967 and finally was able to afford a set of AR-3a’s in 1972- I have never though about purchasing any other speaker brand since.

Lastly why are we here, including my self indulging this topic to this degree?

FM

[Guest Rickysa]

Well Frank,

I'd guess it's to help someone like myself who is clearly not as far along the musical aficionado scale as yourself. My sincere apologies for taking up bandwidth and the time of kind people here to indulge my ignorance.

I guess, at age 45, I don't have enough time to learn to appreciate the fine-wine AR speaker lineup...I'll just hop down to Circuit City.

Rick

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Rick;

If you want classic AR speakers such as the AR-LST's or AR-3A's, just to choose two highly regarded AR models, go for it.

When I first went into a stereo store in 1965, even with a Consumer Reports magazine claiming that the AR-4 speaker was the widest range loudspeaker they had ever tested.

That saleman, mumbling his name under my breath still, I still remember his name, A - B'd with another brand he manipulated the loudness control and bass and treble.

He made the other speaker sound brighter and bassier.

The AR-4X sounded muted, dull by comparison, so Consumer Reports must have been wrong, right?

Wrong!

That saleman knew what he was doing, the dirty rotten $^%@#$ scoundrel, he also said that the other brand was, he looked around so he could tell me and my big bros a big secret.

It is labeled, McIntosh, south of the border.

Less than a year later I had a pair of AR-4X's and they were grrrreeeeaaaat, by comparison to the brand I bought.

I will not name the other brand because someone here might have some and I am not here to condem a brand, at least not today.

My former wife and I used to stay up late at night listening to FM music with the lights off and we kept saying, "doesn't that sound real".

Do remember that today the stores can only demonstrate what they stock, and not all brands, and perhaps make good commission on.

The classics are pretty well bought sight un-seen, with exceptions of photos, unless there is a local seller who will demonstrate prior to buying.

As always, stay clear when a seller tells you they blast with lots of volume, they may have been abused.

Perhaps if they are advertised, that only a grannie or grampa played church hyms on Sundays, might be a better buy. lol lol

You can certainly trust the advice you read here.

Do not limit your goal to the AR-3A or AR-LST either, the AR-3 is another cherished speaker, ask Joe for his opinion.

The AR-5 is a slightly lesser speaker, primarily in the lowest bass region, compared to the AR-3A.

It has a slightly different balance which may please you.

Just because I own all the above speaker does not mean that I will only recommend AR classic speakers.

The original Larger Advent, Dynaco A-25, KLH Five, KLH Twelve, EPI 100, etc are a few other hifi speakers that cover a wide range of price and sound qualities, but are available still today at a fair price used.

[frankmarsi]

I'm merely saving you some grief. You should not take offense, if anything I'm being helpful as you will come to see once you've A-B a number of speakers.

Generally speaking as mentioned above many people either love or hate vintage AR speakers, there really isn't any middle ground regarding their sound quality.

I learned to crawl before I actually ran with AR speakers and compared to today's hi-fi products they're worlds apart. Again in general, unless you've had some time in and or lived through their history span and can appreciate what we 'die-hards' went thru, at least speaking for myself, it's hard to adjust to their sound quality, especially with the general consensus of overly bright highs and false sounding bass that pervades the music industry today, come to think of it false sounding speakers were always for sale.

I apologize if I seemed above your line of questioning, but it's apparent you're received an abundant amount of answers, I felt I was very helpful intially if anything. Let's see what you end up buying, then we'll all know for sure. Do you and me a favor, spend more than 7 to 10 hours with a friends system and then if possible try them at home, I'm not really here to discourage you, but you'll no doubt make sense of all this in any event, I wish you the best.

Respectfully, Frank Marsi

P.S. Maybe I was being a little 'heady' here, that must come from all of the battles I had with JBL owners through-out the years,- I beg your pardon if that was conveyed to you.