How Long Will My AR Speakers Last?

[AR surround]

My beloved AR-9's will be 29 years old this coming August and I am sure that they will make it to their 30th birthday. However, given their age, I had been auditioning replacements for the 9's and also a pair of 90's that I use as surrounds.

I have found my efforts to be very amusing. All of the salesmen in the audiophile stores look at me as if I'm nuts when I tell them that I use AR-9's. One was downright hostile about it, even claiming that "They're lousy! You should have gotten rid of them 20 years ago" and "AR never made a good speaker in their entire history." Then they let me audition a $4000+ pair of speakers that has marginally more detail in the upper end with absolutely no balls whatsoever in the bottom end. Of course, this deficiency can be easily mitigated by adding the matching $3000 subwoofer.

So given that I obviously have tin ears and am still enamoured with my "lousy" vintage AR speakers, can anyone estimate how much longer these speakers may last? Could they possibly see their 50th birthday? The only things that have deteriorated as far as I can tell (no nasty jokes about my 50+ year old ears, please!) are the surrounds. They have all been replaced.

What about voice coils, cones, domes, magnets, chokes, caps, etc.?

Thanks for your opinions.

John

[dynaco_dan]

Hi John;

Welcome to this site.

What negative things you were told were also told to us when they were being sold new many years ago.

That saleman is, a horses rectum, to be polite, and definitely does not know what he is talking about.

Of course the speakers in the store are all that they sell and receive commission on, not the AR-9's.

Out of respect for other members taste here, I have never mentioned my first lousy and poor quality stereo component system brand name.

I can and only want to pass on to members what I learned from that buying experience and how I learned to enjoy better sound equipment, later.

When a salesman starts talking like that, you know that they do not know what they are talking about and do not believe what they say any further.

From my readings only, the AR-9's are an outstanding speaker system.

[Guest matty g]

Hi John

If you are satisfied with the performance of your AR speakers, I wouldn't worry about their life expectancy. The drivers are very robust and will last for many more years with no problems. Some people like to replace the capacitors in them as a preventative measure, and of course the surrounds are a ten to fifteen year maintenance item (depending on how much sunlight hits them). However, aside from those items, they will last pretty much for as long as you want them in your system. They absolutely are NOT lousy speakers by any stretch of the imagination. People have a tendancy to become very emotional and irrational about audio equipment and brand names. Obviously you know better than to listen to an over zealous and under informed salesman trying to make his comission on a sale to you. Many of the AR speakers made in the early sixties are still in service today. I have several sets of AR4x's from '67 and '68, a set of 2a's from '63, a set of 3a's from '72 and a set of 5's from '69, all of which work beautifully. I wouldn't trade any of them for a new pair of anything I have heard in the stores I have looked in. But maybe I'm just being emotional and irrational.

Matt

[dingus]

i would be suprised if any salesperson actually knew what an AR9 is. their responses are most likely based entirely on the age of the speakers.

in answer to your question ... i really dont know. the surrounds wont make it to 50, but as long as the environment is suitable and they are not abused, the rest of the speaker may make it beyond that.

[ar_pro]

Your experience with the salesman is not uncommon, John - although it's poor salesmanship to badmouth a customer's current speakers, it happens all the time.

The high-end fashion pendulum swung away from truly full-range, non point-source loudspeakers a number of years ago, and the rage is now hideously-expensive, small-box, no-bass, stand-mounted designs, known for their "imaging" qualities.

Full-range loudspeakers are expensive to design & manufacture, as they tend to have complicated crossovers, multiple drivers, and heavy, large-ish cabinets. Bass costs money, both in the actual driver price, and in the increased charges for safely shipping a heavy box.

Critics & manufacturers have been successful in turning logic on its head, and convincing "audiophiles" that less is more - that anemic, thin-sounding "imaging" is the most important aspect of sound reproduction. My advice is to not argue with the brainwashed - there's nothing in it for you.

Other than the cabinet finish, foam surrounds and aging capacitors, the only other problem I've noticed with the AR-9 has been with the three level control switches. If you're re-foaming the drivers & replacing the caps, you can pull them out for a good cleaning.

[Guest Bret]

John -

It's interesting that we get "dismissed" for our AR-9s. I'd like to try something new, but I can't find anything new that I can afford which makes me want to take them home. When I listen to this little-bitty pair of semi-electrostatics that costs $4,000 and hear almost nothing down low, I have to ask myself if it's worth spending $10,000 to hear whatever it is that I may be missing with my AR-9s.

I was discussing, in email, with another forum member that the AR-9s aren't perfect and have an obvious "flaw" in their presentation: They simply don't sound completely "coherent" in some ways. I can't explain it better than that, but I suspect it may have something to do with the distance between the drivers.

If you have not already done so, you really have to replace the capacitors. This forum has been 'round-and-'round about capacitors and I don't even want to get back into that whole argument; but nobody here believes that you should leave a bad capacitor in your speakers.

In the AR-9s I have (built in 1978) the capacitors are by Callins and are all non-polar electrolytics. I am unaware of a single person who has tested their capacitors that found them all to be good. I am aware of a few of us that tested them and found almost all of them to be bad (outside their +/- 10% tolerances).

There is a problem with capacitor replacement in our speakers: They just don't build 'em like they used to. They build them better than they used to, but our speakers were built, tested, and listened-to with the old-style of capacitors. So, we can't put 'em back the way they was. Not possible. Leaving them alone is no solution 'cause they isn't the way they was even if we don't touch them. I would be the very first to argue for exact replacement if such a thing were possible.

So what do we do? We punt one way or the other. I have used both the non-polar electrolytics in a pair if AR-90s that made a huge, huge improvement even though the capacitors were extremely inexpensive, and I used some semi-boutique polypropylene capacitors in my AR-9s. I prefer the polys, but you may not. I do have to attenuate the upper midrange, but that could be my room and not the capacitors.

Whatever you decide you want to do about "type" of capacitor, you almost certainly need to change them. There is no virtue in "leaving them alone" as they are almost certainly out-of-spec and are changing (for the worse) the way your speakers sound. (and as you probably know, a badly out-of-spec capacitor may be endangering irreplaceable drivers by allowing too low frequencies to reach the tweeters and midranges).

I still have not replaced the big capacitors in the woofer section, but that's another story for another day.

[AR surround]

Thanks to all for your replies.

Bret,

It has probably been posted a hundred times on this site, but can you reveal the replacement caps for both the AR-9 and AR-90s as well as a source? It would be very helpful.

Regarding the AR-9's not sounding completely "coherent," I have used these speakers in four homes over the years and they can sound really different with varying placements. They did sound best the two times I was able to put them on the long wall at least 3 feet from the side walls as recommended. However, I have been using some form of Lexicon DSP processing with side and rear speakers for the past 18 years and have never wanted to go back to 2-channel stereo.

In the past year, I started using AR-90's for the surrounds with spectacular results. I assume it is in part due to matched upper range drivers, but also the particular placement of the 90's in the room seems to have worked wonders on smoothening the bass response of all four tower speakers. Dumb luck that they sound best in the only location my wife wanted them!

John

[ar_pro]

John -

Can you please describe the placement of the AR-90s, and the particulars of your Lexicon system?

I'm in the process of building enclosures for a pair of AR-9 dome midrange drivers that I'd like to use in a set-up similar to what's built into the MGC-1, with a digital delay and electronic crossover/EQ for the additional mids.

[Guest Bret]

>It has probably been posted a hundred times on this site, but can you reveal the replacement caps for both the AR-9 and AR-90s as well as a source?<

No.

Well. . . sorta.

The electrolytics came from two local places that you don't have wherever you are because they are just here-places and I know you don't live here because I'd have heard your stereo by now. I did have to "build" a few of the capacitors: a 40uf in parallel with a 5uf and a 1uf to get 46uf etc (no, I didn't actually stick-together a 46uf for an AR-90, it was a hypothetical example because it's late and I'm too tired to go get a schematic just to make my example an actual case). But the thing to take-away from the experience is that they were really bottom-of-the-line, cheapy, "experimental" capacitors. I think I paid about $70 for all the values I needed to completely re-cap an AR-90, but had to go to two stores to get them. Bought "Jasons" one place and something else unmemorable at another.

BTW - I did use a capacitance meter when I stuck these values together and did not take their labeling at its face value. This was a "good thing" and I would suggest you do the same.

I bought the "super-duper" capacitors from North Creek Music (online), the capacitors in question are called "Zen" and if I had it all to do over again I would use them to replace the ones connected in series with the drivers and the parallel caps I'd use something less expensive, like a Solen or something. I would also use a by-pass capacitor (parallel little cap) (foil) with the caps in series with the tweeter. Why? Because that sounds really good in a different pair of speakers. I'm completely guessing that it would sound good in a pair of 9s.

On the other hand, I was warned that changing from NPEs to Polys would change the way the speaker sounds. It did. I just can't identify the difference as making a negative difference *once I kill-off the upper-mid* about 3db.

You really ought to do a "forum search" on this whole capacitor issue. We've really exhausted it. Several of us have had the same "perceptual experience" quite independently, even working on different speaker models, comparing capacitors at entirely different times using very motley electronics in sometimes strange and unusual rooms. Funny, we can hear it under all those different circumstances, yet the difference doesn't exist! Are we good, or what?

Of course, if you use these same capacitors in a preamplifier and switch back and forth it really would make no difference, so when that test is re-asserted (and it is every; single; freakin'; time anyone says capacitors are different), just know that none of us who doubt that the study has anything at all to do with capacitors in a crossover application wouldn't argue with its conclusions in the test described. Nobody doubts the test. Several of us doubt the test has any more applicability to what we are doing than, say, doing a perfectly valid test of Indy car tires on a Ford F-150 in crosstown traffic. The conclusions drawn may be completely inarguable, but I'd hate to depend on those results at 200mph.

The 2500uf caps in the woofer-section are doggone expensive no matter where they come from. That's a lot of why I haven't replaced them, but the other part is that I am truly afraid of getting the ESR wrong and screwing-up the rather special function of those woofer caps. On the other hand, it's almost a given that the ESR is currently (no pun intended) wrong. I feel a punt coming-on.

I may just bite that several hundred dollar bullet in the not-too distant future and re-cap the woofers (I miss holding my soldering gun) just to satisfy myself that it really won't make enough of a difference to justify the expense.

The 90s certainly improved when their big caps (375uf?) were replaced.

Sounds like you have an audio rig I'd enjoy listening to. I *rarely* get to listen to my 9s. The room they are in makes it impossible to listen in silence when the family's at home and drowning the kids and the kitchen noises out makes my wife involuntarily point sharp objects at me and it gets her eyes to do that "Clint Eastwood squint." Hell hath no fury like a woman out-volumed.

Another John here has done some very good work and has described the failure mode of the old Callins capacitors, and several of us have reported way, way out-of-spec caps we've tested - particularly the Callins years, to a lesser degree the earlier Sprague "Compulytics," and everything else follows at a very distant third place.

Just to recap, you should, uh, recap.

[soundminded]

Here's a relatively inexpensive reliable source.

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=72

You will have to be a little creative though. If they don't have a 30 mfd NPC, you could use two 15s instead. If you wire two capacitors in parallel, they equal one capacitor whose value is the sum of the two. If you get within 5% of the desired value, I think that will be OK. It's also OK to use a capacitor whose breakdown voltage is higher so all of these 100 volt capacitors are ok.

for the AR9 according to the schematic,

Tweeter; 4, 6

Upper midrange 6, 24, 40

Lower midrange 30, 80

Woofer 470, 2500

With ordinary NPCs, I'd say this should cost under $100 for both AR9s. It's more a matter of work than money if you do the job yourself. The most expense part will be the 2500s. It will take 5 500s in parallel at around $6 each. I've always wondered why they couldn't have mounted the crossover networks externally. It would have made life a lot simpler.

You can also use polypropylenes but they are more expensive. I think Parts Express's own brand Dayton is the cheapest poly they sell.

Personally, I think I'm going to stick with the cheap NPCs. I never heard anything wrong with them.

My AR9s have stood up fine for 23 years. The woofers have square magnets. One LMR has a slight hole in the surround about maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch but it doesn't seem to affect the sound. I'll undoubtedly have mine refoamed at Miller Sound when it becomes necessary.

[Carlspeak]

>My beloved AR-9's will be 29 years old this coming August and

>I am sure that they will make it to their 30th birthday.

>However, given their age, I had been auditioning replacements

>for the 9's and also a pair of 90's that I use as surrounds.

>

>I have found my efforts to be very amusing. All of the

>salesmen in the audiophile stores look at me as if I'm nuts

>when I tell them that I use AR-9's. One was downright hostile

>about it, even claiming that "They're lousy! You should

>have gotten rid of them 20 years ago" and "AR never

>made a good speaker in their entire history." Then they

>let me audition a $4000+ pair of speakers that has marginally

>more detail in the upper end with absolutely no balls

>whatsoever in the bottom end. Of course, this deficiency can

>be easily mitigated by adding the matching $3000 subwoofer.

>

>So given that I obviously have tin ears and am still enamoured

>with my "lousy" vintage AR speakers, can anyone

>estimate how much longer these speakers may last? Could they

>possibly see their 50th birthday? The only things that have

>deteriorated as far as I can tell (no nasty jokes about my

>50+ year old ears, please!) are the surrounds. They have all

>been replaced.

>

>What about voice coils, cones, domes, magnets, chokes, caps,

>etc.?

>

>Thanks for your opinions.

>

>John

>

The short version answer to your question:

WITH THE SURROUNDS ALREADY RE-DONE, THEY WILL LAST A LONG TIME.

If they still sound sweet to your ears, then re-capping may not be necessary. If, on the other hand, they have lost their original brilliance, you should indeed re-cap them. For least cost and alteration to the original sound, NPE's are fine. You'll be good for another 10-20 years after re-foaming and re-capping.

MPP caps are fine also but will sound a bit brighter for 100 or so hrs of use then should smooth out to a sweet sound.

It's all about the music

Carl

Carl's Custom Loudspeakers

[AR surround]

>

>John -

>

>Can you please describe the placement of the AR-90s, and the

>particulars of your Lexicon system?

>

>I'm in the process of building enclosures for a pair of AR-9

>dome midrange drivers that I'd like to use in a set-up similar

>to what's built into the MGC-1, with a digital delay and

>electronic crossover/EQ for the additional mids.

AR Pro,

Here is the full, albiet wordy, download on my AR / Lexicon system:

Fronts: AR-9

Center: AR-2ax (modified)

Surrounds: AR-90

Rears: Boston A-70 ($25 on ebay, alread refoamed!)

Receiver: Lexicon RV-8 v2

Player (Universal): Marantz DV-9600

The room is 24 ft x 12 ft wide. It is definitely on the dead side acoustically, which is advantageous with a Lexicon 7.1 system. The listening area is a couch about 11 - 12 feet from the front wall.

The front speakers, AR-9's, are against the short wall, about about 12 feet from the listening area. Settings are: tweeter: -0 dB, upper midrange: -3 dB, lower midrange: -3 dB

The center speaker is an AR-2ax, built for me by Larry of Vintage AR. He replaced the original 2ax tweeter with one to match the AR-9. He also replaced the grill cloth to match the 9's. We had discussed replacing the mid-range also, but this is a much bigger job and I am not sure that it is worth the effort. (More on this later.) The AR-2ax is 10 feet from the listening area and somewhat higher than the top of the AR-9's.

The surround speakers, AR-90's, are against the long wall about 16-1/2 feet from the front wall. They sit somewhat behind the listening area and are toed-in to face the listening area such that the distance from a person seated in the center of the couch is 6 feet. Settings are: tweeter: -0 dB, upper midrange: -3 dB, lower midrange: -3 dB

The rear speakers, Boston A-70's, sit on the back wall, well above ear height for a seated person.

The Lexicon RV-8 settings are as follows:

Front: Full + Sub

Center: Full

Surround: Full + Sub

Rear: Roll-off at 40Hz

Subwoofer: Full

I need to explain the RV-8 speaker settings. I don't need a subwoofer. I take full advantage of the low range capabilities of the AR9 and 90's by sending a Full + Sub signal to each of these speakers. I also discovered that this worked wonders by equalizing the bass response in the room when using Lexicon Logic 7 processing or listening to 5.1 SACD/DVD-A. Even though I don't have a subwoofer, it was necessary to tell the RV-8 that there was a subwoofer present and to also set the subwoofer response to "full." By doing this, it seems that the RV-8 attenuates the LFE level in the fronts and surrounds to avoid over emphasized bass. These Lexicon people think of everything!

I had tried moving the AR-90 surround to sit directly on the long walls 90 degrees to the listening area as is typical for a 7.1 system. Although there was a slight improvement with films, I did not like the overall results. First of all, that wonderful equalized bass response was gone. Second, the big 90's were too close to a person not sitting dead centered on the couch. These big AR's are meant for far field listening. So I moved them back to the original location, which as I said in an earlier post, had a better WAF anyway.

Regarding the center AR-2ax, at first I thought that the conversion was a failure as there seemed to be a timbre mismatch with the 9's. What I had originally done was set a roll off point in the RV-8 to 60 Hz. Then I started playing with the roll off point and the mid/tweeter controls. I found that the speakers' responses became more closely matched when I set the center speaker crossover in the RV-8 to "full." It was a surprise to me that this made such a big improvement and I have dispensed with the idea of replacing the midrange in the 2ax.

Finally, I found that rolling off the bass in the rear A-70's at 40Hz was necessary as setting these speakers to "full" was a detriment to that nice, overall bass response in the room.

In a nutshell, you really have to tweek things a bit to get optimum response, but the effort is well worth it.

John

[Guest Bret]

>Personally, I think I'm going to stick with the cheap NPCs. I never heard anything wrong with them.<

And you won't as long as you, as you say, "stick with them." Maybe you wouldn't hear a difference if you did stray.

I really, really wish that Tom had, in all that great stuff he has, data sheets on the original Callins caps in our 9s. I'd really like to know what the original ESR was on the original caps; so I could add it back to some high-quality poly caps.

Now I'm going to say something that's going to hack a bunch of people off, but it's just an observation and only those with "religion" need be offended:

Several of us have tried multiple types and brands of capacitor. Some sound very much like others, some sound different than everything else used in a crossover filter circuit. At least three of us agree on the effect of at least two caps with no dissent among those who have tried it.

Exposition that proves nothing, asserts nothing, but is anecdotally true:

Once upon a time I bought a used car. The sellers, the original owners, asserted that the vehicle had never had any body damage. I looked the car over, carefully, and bought it. Subsequently I damaged the car and took it to a very talented painter to have it fixed. When I asked him about the repair I was asking him to make he very quickly pointed-out where the car had been repainted before. I didn't see it. I got down on my knees and looked across the paint for this area he saw that had been "blended" into the existing paint. I still didn't see it. He was frustrated with me. He opened the trunk and removed a cardboard panel and had me run my hand down deep in the fender. Yep. The car had, had body work and had been repainted. Even after *knowing* and having it *proven* to me that the car had been repaired I still could not see where it had been painted.

So, let me ask you a question: Does the fact that he can see it make him crazy, or under the influence of hype, or in need of double-blinded tests? Does the fact that I cannot see the difference mean that he couldn't see the difference? Does the fact that I could not see it prove that there is no difference? Does my inability to see it prove the standard threshold of perceptible difference is somewhere below the difference that existed?

None of us has any trouble believing that some people see hue and tint better than others; but for some reason we want to get all insulted if someone says we (all people) don't hear uniformly. Test it 20-20kHz and "bingo" we've got good ears or not. I've passed every colorblindness test I've ever taken and yet it is obvious to me that I cannot see color as well as other people. The *test* isn't exhaustive.

Am I accusing some people of having lesser hearing skills? No, I'm not. But with the two camps as firmly entrenched as they are, it seems highly likely that both "camps" are telling the truth. Maybe my inner-ear fluid is thicker or thinner than theirs. Maybe my nerve fiber endings are spaced just an infinitesimally small distance closer to or further from each other. Maybe I just got unlucky and have an ear for "hue and tint" in sounds like my painter's eye for color.

John O. is not the sort of fellow to be entertained by argument, so he doesn't. He has provided, on these pages, every physical explanation necessary to account reasonably for possible differences in the way any two capacitors "sound." These explanations have largely been ignored and *that* is a shame.

Ken K has said that changing the capacitor *type* would change the sound of the speaker. I agree with him. It does. He cites ESR differences. There's that, and there is the inductance, too.

I wish we could still get BlackGate NPE capacitors. I wish we could still get Panasonic NPE capacitors. I really wish we could get these Callins or Spragues; all debate would be unnecessary.

But if I'm going to switch types, I want to use high-quality polys just like I'd want to use a high quality NPEs. Am I nuts?? Maybe. On the other hand, so were the guys at AR who used expensive "Compulytic" capacitors when cheaper stuff was available, and so was Ken who used a mylar cap on the tweeter in the 303, and Ken used all sorts of by-passing and poly caps in the MGC-1s. Those of us crazy enough to think we hear a difference are in good crazy company.

[soundminded]

I have never seen hobbyists get so emotional over any other hobby than audio. It still puzzles me.

I said "I" will stick with the low cost NPCs, I never said that anyone else should and I never said there wouldn't be any audible difference. BUT-----PeteB did. I don't agree with him about much and we've had our run ins on this board more than once but he said much to his surprise that when A/B tests were conducted between polys and NPCs there were no audible differences. I'll take his word for it on that. Frankly, even if there were differences, I'd prefer to stick to the original design as closely as possible. Given the changes I've made, I want MY AR9s to sound exactly as they were or as closely as possible to when I first made those changes when the speakers were relatively new and the caps presumably within spec. Besides, given the fact that it's a pain to replace these capacitors, I only want to do it once. Or perhaps it's just my penchant for rejecting everything audiophiles say just because they say it. They have a very bad track record when it comes to being right.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi there;

Re-capping would not be an issue if the OEM original caps were still being manufactured today, that is for certain.

There was a link to http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/cap.html posted somewhere here on CSP.

I went there and printed out the personnal evaluation of various brand caps usd in crossover networks, a month or so ago.

I've read the complete 21 page report several times.

My head wanted to rotate just like in the Exorcist movie, each time I finished reading that information.

I wanted to leave an email the last time I read it, but I didn't see an avenue to do it.

Initially I was more confused than ever, as to which brand or brands and model, or combination, to even contemplate buying.

Of couse the mention of a few highend tweeters was not very helpful, at least not to me, who is more interested in replacing a classic tweeter, not changing to what tweeter is newer.

Maybe down the road there will be no replacement tweeters on ebay or anywhere else, then new ones, matched, will be our only choice then.

If I was to buy another brand or just a new tweeter, I would be wanting to change the sound, not in keeping with the original sound quality.

Solen was my first choice of caps, tears ago here in Vancouver, because it is the only brand I've seen in a few smaller electronic stores.

This was a few years ago.

I didn't buy any at that time.

I was confusd because the evaluation was obviously leaning towards new or newer tweeters, not older classic tweeters.

I may have missed whether the systems evaluated were 2 or 3 way crossovers, but my impression was 3 ways at least.

I was just as confused as with older speaker test reports in Stereophile magazine where they specified the associated equipment for that review.

What if you didn't own any of that equipment.

Those of you may remember how, changing a single piece of test equipment or cable, may have made the world of difference from one extreme to another, in the end results.

If this homemade test used a classic tweeter in a classic speaker, a 2 way system, then maybe we might have a little better advice and comparison, for a classic speaker, at least.

After all we are owning classics, not new speaker systems.

Those that want to update their tweeter may do so and the comments are much more relevent.

I am referring to either , one model only, an EPI 100, Dynaco A-25, A-35, A-50, KLH Six, AR-4X, AR-6, Larger Advent, Smaller Advent to cite a few classic brands and models that were and are popular classics, not perfect, but popular.

I personnaly haven't even heard of most of the brand names listed of those caps but I am thinking of doing a test of sorts with a single pair of one of the above speaker models.

I will run a pair of bypass leads out through the woofers frame edge and use a capacitor and switch between cap A - B and the stock capacitor.

I have a capacitor tester to confirm the caps value.

My test would at least include Solen, different voltage ratings, same capacitance, poly's of whatever brands I can find.

I would try a 2 week burn-in period, per cap, with and without a polystyrene bypass.

Possibly with a 0.1 - 0.5 ohm 5 watt w-w resistor in series, later.

I will only do an audio comparison first, at least this is my first thought.

I do have analog and digital dB meters, which I may get into the test if I feel up to it, just for fun.

All of the above is just a wishful dream at present, only.

For some reason the link does not work, type it in and you will be successful going there.

I am not complaining about the overall review, just wishing it was more classicly, inclined rather than leaning towards newer higher end components.

[soundminded]

Advocates for esoteric high end audiophile products of practically every type usually contend that the improvements they hear cannot be verified by measurement and they never seem to have any other concrete evidence to back up their claims such as even a well conducted single blind test to verify that they actually can hear what they claim to. All they usually have is testimonial evidence and sometimes that is badly flawed such as when there are many varibles between differences they claim to have heard besides the one they credit the improvement to. Sorry if I find these claims not credible, but there are enough people who do believe them to keep the manufacturers not only in business but able to develop and endless stream of these world beating ideas. In the rare instance when someone tries to make a technical case for one as for example Cheevers tried to make for the superiority of tube amplifiers, their reasoning is often so badly flawed as to reduce their papers to mere entertainment. Then they complain when no technical journal will publish them that they are being discriminated against because they don't conform to mainstream thinking. Strange hobby this audio business.

[Guest Bret]

>but he said much to his surprise that when A/B tests were conducted between polys and NPCs there were no audible differences. I'll take his word for it on that.<

I understand. While I believe your conclusions may remain exactly the same, I would encourage you to actually read the report he cites before citing its results yourself. There isn't bias in the test (as with conclusions about healthcare done by the WHO), but the test results may not have applicability to our discussions. I'll leave that observation for the consideration of the reader.

I have also come to believe that all of us become conditioned to our systems giving us keen ability to hear changes in *our* environments that we would never pick-up with even a multi-hour-long well designed test in new circumstances. I don't have data to back that up. Call it my brand of "religion."

It really is funny, isn't it, that audio enthusiasts get so doggone emotional over the things we do. I think its the "pronouncement" that beeswax capacitors are "superior" that makes some people a little testy. And the pendulum swings the other way, as well: a $159.95 Pioneer 35w receiver's amplifier sounds like a $3,000, 300w McIntosh amplifier. . . uh huh.

As long as there are these stubborn assertions of "fact" there will always be emotion. As long as a guy can go from 22 gauge wire to 12 gauge and hear a difference, there will always be room for $8,000 speaker wires that keep the electrons flowing in the proper order and pointing their non-existent noggins in the right direction.

I have an as-yet unrestored pair of AR-14s in the garage. It'll be my second set. In the first set I replaced perfectly good (tested) NPEs with Zens. Sounds pretty good BUT. . . they are not the same as I remember them (not that my memory is perfect). The second set is going to get some high-quality NPEs (Jensens maybe) and I'm going to listen to both sets for a prolonged period of time. The expectation I have is that I'm going to prefer the NPE recapped pair, leaving me back where I started: I really wish I knew how to duplicate the ESR and inductance of the original capacitors exactly using polys for the "C."

As my last observation of this go-'round, although we could all get up-in-arms over the minutia, fact is, our speakers are dinosaurs. As wonderful as they are, they are has-beens, not only from the perception of popularity, but also from the restorability perspective. We argue, truly, about little of nothing. Talk about a tempest in a teacup!

[soundminded]

>>but he said much to his surprise that when A/B tests were

>conducted between polys and NPCs there were no audible

>differences. I'll take his word for it on that.<

>

>I understand. While I believe your conclusions may remain

>exactly the same, I would encourage you to actually read the

>report he cites before citing its results yourself. There

>isn't bias in the test (as with conclusions about healthcare

>done by the WHO), but the test results may not have

>applicability to our discussions. I'll leave that observation

>for the consideration of the reader.

>

>I have also come to believe that all of us become conditioned

>to our systems giving us keen ability to hear changes in *our*

>environments that we would never pick-up with even a

>multi-hour-long well designed test in new circumstances. I

>don't have data to back that up. Call it my brand of

>"religion."

My reference is....live music from acoustic instruments. I am most fortunate to have these available to me. At one end of my listening room is my pair of AR9s and at the other end, a 5'-7" Steinway grand piano built in 1927 and restored about 20 years ago. In the next room, a Baldwin Acrosonic spinnet piano (still the best spinnet piano I ever heard and the only one which sounds like a grand piano.) There are lots of string instruments too, violins mostly and violas. Sadly, we no longer have a cello but that's another story. I recently spent several hours during several sessions helping evaluate a fair number of violins from which a student was considering purchasing one and several more hours at a violin maker's shop comparing bows and fiddles. (It's amazing what a really good violin bow costs today, the good ones start in the many thousands.)

One challenge for me is to get my speakers in any of my systems to sound as close as possible to those instruments with commercial recordings. And sometimes they can come remarkably close. But it takes a lot of patience and each recording must be individually equalized. Of course no two pianos sound exactly alike, no two violins sound exactly alike but there are remarkable similarities often and I'd say most so called high fidelity sound systems I've heard don't ever sound like any of them.

>It really is funny, isn't it, that audio enthusiasts get so

>doggone emotional over the things we do. I think its the

>"pronouncement" that beeswax capacitors are

>"superior" that makes some people a little testy.

>And the pendulum swings the other way, as well: a $159.95

>Pioneer 35w receiver's amplifier sounds like a $3,000, 300w

>McIntosh amplifier. . . uh huh.

Don't get me started on amplifiers. I've come very close to Ken Kantor's view that all properly functioning solid state amplifiers sound pretty much alike. I'm not quite there yet but the similarities far outweigh the differences. As for tube amplifiers, I never see myself buying one again except on a whim as a lark for the novelty of it. It's nice looking at the tubes glow in a dark room in a rig with lots of glowing lights and edge lit tuner glass slide rules as vinyl records spin round and round and the tonearm magically spirals inward.

>

>As long as there are these stubborn assertions of

>"fact" there will always be emotion. As long as a

>guy can go from 22 gauge wire to 12 gauge and hear a

>difference, there will always be room for $8,000 speaker wires

>that keep the electrons flowing in the proper order and

>pointing their non-existent noggins in the right direction.

That's the problem with selling audiophile wires to an electrical engineer, once they've solved the "telegrapher's equation" it's next to impossible to convince them to buy expensive ones.

>

>I have an as-yet unrestored pair of AR-14s in the garage.

>It'll be my second set. In the first set I replaced perfectly

>good (tested) NPEs with Zens. Sounds pretty good BUT. . .

>they are not the same as I remember them (not that my memory

>is perfect). The second set is going to get some high-quality

>NPEs (Jensens maybe) and I'm going to listen to both sets for

>a prolonged period of time. The expectation I have is that

>I'm going to prefer the NPE recapped pair, leaving me back

>where I started: I really wish I knew how to duplicate the

>ESR and inductance of the original capacitors exactly using

>polys for the "C."

I'm always puzzled as to why audiophiles will experiment endlessly with wires, capacitors, and other gizmos whose only net effect if they have any is to alter frequency response when for so little money they can use an equalizer which does the job so much more controllably and predictably. It must have taken the industry a lot to convince audiophiles not to use them but that seems to be the general consensus. Good news for me, there are tons of them avialable used for very little money.

>As my last observation of this go-'round, although we could

>all get up-in-arms over the minutia, fact is, our speakers are

>dinosaurs. As wonderful as they are, they are has-beens, not

>only from the perception of popularity, but also from the

>restorability perspective. We argue, truly, about little of

>nothing. Talk about a tempest in a teacup!

I don't know what you mean by dinosaurs except that they were designed and manufactured a long time ago. However, like many things of great value, their shortcomings were far outweighed by their positive attributes and they were the product of a great deal of careful thought, experimentation, and effort by people who were far from deaf or stupid. What's more, many if not all of those shortcomings can be overcome today usually with more effort than money. That newer products may upon first exposure seem more attractive to many is not surprising but it should also be kept in mind that the accurate reproduction of the sound of musical instruments from recordings in not a moving target and what was fairly close to hitting the mark 30 or 40 years ago when restored is still fairly close to it today.