I need some ammunition

[Guest viscommbozak]

I am an active member of the Bozak Yahoo Group and a long-time Bozak lover. However, AR comes in a close number 2. My brother is running an AR-3A/AR-2AX 5.1 DVD-Audio system so I have first-hand knowledge of how wonderful those speakers can be. My brother and I recently rebuilt his AR-3A's with refoamed woofers and new balance controls. But ... enough about me.

I have recently been going back and forth with fellow Bozak fans about the fact that the founder of AR went to Rudy Bozak for help and support and Rudy declined. That set off a firestorm and I will probably be crucified on an old set of Concert Grands! Their contention is that AR accomplished their "Smithsonian" feat with smoke, mirrors, and mystery on an unsuspecting audiophile audience. My contention is that the AR's (especially the 3A's) are technically as good as any other great system of the period ... albeit a whole lot smaller. I am looking for some lab reports or reviews from prominent reviewers to refute their claims.

Can anyone help?

Best regards,

Viscommbozak

[tysontom]

>

>I have recently been going back and forth with fellow Bozak

>fans about the fact that the founder of AR went to Rudy Bozak

>for help and support and Rudy declined. That set off a

>firestorm and I will probably be crucified on an old set of

>Concert Grands! Their contention is that AR accomplished their

>"Smithsonian" feat with smoke, mirrors, and mystery

>on an unsuspecting audiophile audience....

>

>Can anyone help?

>

>Best regards,

>

>Viscommbozak

Dear Viscommbozak,

I feel we are reinventing the wheel, but there are some partial-truths conjured-up from wild, vivid imaginations of the old-time Bozak fans that should be clarified.

In the early 1950s, Bozak’s infinite-baffle loudspeakers, particularly the B-310 Concert Grand, were held in high esteem among many audiophiles and some recording studios. These speakers, particularly the refrigerator-sized Concert Grand, had relatively low distortion and coloration for the period, especially when compared with the run-of-the-mill Electro-Voice (E-V), University, Jensen and even some up-scale JBL and Altec Lansing systems.

Along came Edgar Villchur in early 1954 with a “revolutionary” design known as the acoustic-suspension woofer; and with his patent in hand, he decided to try to sell the it (for a relatively small sum) to established companies in the high-fidelity industry. As it happened, Villchur had no interest in establishing a business of his own, so he approached Bozak and Altec Lansing to try to sell his concept to them. When he described the performance of his revolutionary acoustic-suspension speaker, he was immediately rebuffed by the companies with comments like, “if something like that were possible, our engineers would have already discovered it,” and “what you describe is impossible,” and so forth. Bozak and Altec refused the acoustic-suspension design, which many consider to be one of the largest mistakes ever made in the audio industry. On the other hand, Henry Kloss, a student in Villchur’s NYU class on the reproduction of sound, did clearly understand the importance of the acoustic-suspension design (after hearing it), and along with two friends (Tony Hofmann and Malcolm Low), co-founded Acoustic Research, which was incorporated on August 10, 1954. Villchur had 50% and the patent, and Kloss and his friends had the other 50%. The rest, they say, is history.

Also prominent during the 1950s was famed electrostatic-tweeter designer Arthur Janszen. He wanted a good woofer to accompany his new tweeter design and he initially used the 4-woofer B310 cabinet for low frequencies, but when he tried the first AR-1 he abandoned the Bozak system in favor of the low-distortion AR-1. He determined that the AR-1 was actually superior to the four-times larger Bozak B310. The die was cast.

Another debate concerns the live-versus-recorded concerts held by AR during the fifties, sixties and even into the 1970s (these had nothing to do with the Smithsonian Institution, which placed an AR-3 on permanent display in 1993 because that speaker represented the pinnacle of high-fidelity design during the period). AR conducted over 75 live-vs.-recorded concerts with the AR-3 and the Fine Arts Quartet over a series of years, and all the press reports supported the fact that few, if any, listeners in attendance could reliably detect the switchovers between the live instruments and the recorded music played through AR-3s. Because of the acclaim of these live-vs.-recorded demonstrations, many competitors became envious of AR’s success and critical praise. This professional jealousy continued for many years after the famous AR demonstrations, and manufacturers and their reps “bad-mouthed” AR for many years to come, the criticism reaching a zenith during the mid-1960s when AR held 32% of the speaker market in the domestic hi-fi industry. This is probably the origin of the defensive statement you mentioned above: “their ‘Smithsonian’ feat with smoke, mirrors, and mystery on an unsuspecting audiophile audience.”

The biggest blow to competitors came with High Fidelity Magazine’s Hirsch-Houck Equipment Review of the AR-3, in which Julian Hirsch said: “Critical listening to top-quality program material will soon reveal the almost total absence of coloration introduced by the AR-3. The sounds produced by this speaker are probably more true to the original than those of any other commercially manufactured speaker system we have heard.” As for the bass response, Hirsch went on to say, “The low-frequency driver of the AR-3 needs no detailed introduction. In its diminutive enclosure, it goes lower in frequency and has lower distortion than any other speaker system less than ten times its size (we have never found its equal at the very low frequencies below 40 cps [Hz]).”

--Tom Tyson

[JKent]

Thanks Tom for the thorough and informative post.

When I read "AR comes in a close number 2" I knew the gauntlet had been thrown down. An exceptional rebuttal!

Score:

AR 1

Forces of Evil 0 ;-)

[soundminded]

"The biggest blow to competitors came with High Fidelity Magazine’s Hirsch-Houck Equipment Review of the AR-3"

Minor point, Hirsch Houck Labs reviewed for Stereo Review Magazine, High Fidelity Magazine used what was then known as CBS Laboratories (later known as CBS Technology Center.) Both Labs as well as Audio Magazine's own lab gave AR3/AR3a top reviews.

AR3 not only had the most extended bass response and lowest harmonic distortion but sadly over 50 years later, few of the current crop of speakers can equal it. It doesn't say much for them.

The New York Audio League, predecessor to the Audio Engineering Society chose AR1W for a live versus recorded demo of the Aolean Skinner pipe organ, not Bozak Concert Grands. No other commercially available speaker of any type could produce a 30 hz tone with anywhere nearly as little as 5% harmonic distortion. And AR3 and later AR3a was the favorite choice of many professional musicians, concert goers, and serious record collectors, not Bozak or any other brands. The invention of the dome tweeter in a configuration which produces the widest possible dispersion at the highest frequencies is still unsurpassed or even equaled to this day, a mere 5db down at 15khz 60 degrees off axis. This not only provides a larger usable listening area in the listening room, it creates a closer match between on axis frequency response and total power output response, something manufacturers today don't even understand the importance of let alone try to achieve. AR3 is also one reason why stereophonic sound reproduction in the home could be taken seriously by music lovers who wanted the most accurate sound reproduction, it provided the capability to place two of them separated by several fee in a typical American living room without compromising sound quality. The reason AR3 is in the Smithsonian Institute is because it was an example of innovative design, outstanding performance second to none, excellent manufacturing quality, and all at an affordable price. By comparison, all of its competitors of its day were a compromise in at least one and usually more of those factors. Small wonder they were jealous, they'd been beaten hands down.

[tysontom]

>

>Minor point, Hirsch Houck Labs reviewed for Stereo Review

>Magazine, High Fidelity Magazine used what was then known as

>CBS Laboratories (later known as CBS Technology Center.) Both

>Labs as well as Audio Magazine's own lab gave AR3/AR3a top

>reviews.

Soundminded,

I think you are exactly right that Hirsch-Houck Labs reported for Stereo Review Magazine; but prior to that Stereo Review period, High Fidelity Magazine published “High Fidelity Equipment Reports” by Hirsch-Houck Labs for High Fidelity Magazine, and this was true at the time of the AR-3 report. Somewhere along the line -- and for some reason -- the testing organization left that magazine and went to Hi-Fi Stereo Review, later Stereo Review, where the bulk of their testing was done over the years. SteveF might be able to comment further on this transition.

Your additional comments about the live-vs.recorded sessions and the AR-3/AR-3a were great!

--Tom Tyson

[Steve F]

Julian Hirsch founded the Audio League with Gladden Houck and two other individuals in the mid-fifties, writing about the nascent consumer audio business and doing test reports of early products.

As reported in Sound& Vision magazine:

"In 1957 they disbanded the Audio League and formed Hirsch-Houck Laboratories to do testing only, leaving publication of the results to others. For a while their reports appeared in several magazines, but in 1960 Ziff-Davis Publishing contracted for Hirsch’s exclusive services, buying out his partner but keeping the name Hirsch-Houck Labs."

So, in fact, Julian Hirsch’s pre-1960 review of the AR-3 DID appear in High Fidelity magazine, as Hirsch-Houck Labs was not yet exclusively associated with Stereo Review magazine.

Further, from Sound & Vision Magazine:

"Initially, Hirsch tested gear for Ziff-Davis’s Popular Electronics, and in October 1961 his first test report appeared in Stereo Review (then called Hi-Fi/Stereo Review). In 1961, he also began writing a monthly column in Stereo Review called ‘Technical Talk’."

That column ran continuously from September 1961 until April 1998, an astonishing accomplishment in the publishing world.

Steve F.