ninohernes Posted November 24, 2002 Report Share Posted November 24, 2002 I have just finished building 2 new crossovers from scratch for my AR-3's with parts and schematics form Layne Audio. I have a question, what is the max power handling of the AR-3? I am in the process of building two 100 watt tube monoblocks, can the AR-3s handle 100 watts? I would assume so, but then again, you know what happens when we assume! Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tysontom Posted November 25, 2002 Report Share Posted November 25, 2002 >I have just finished building 2 new crossovers from scratch >for my AR-3's with parts and schematics form Layne Audio. I >have a question, what is the max power handling of the AR-3? >I am in the process of building two 100 watt tube >monoblocks, can the AR-3s handle 100 watts? I would assume >so, but then again, you know what happens when we assume! > JoeHandle 100 watts? There is probably a problem of too little, rather than too much power for the AR-3. But then again, there is the age issue. Many AR-3's are beginning their 44th year, and things change over the years. Consider, too that the AR-3 has embarrassingly low impedance -- probably somewhere around 2.5-3.0 ohms at certain frequencies, so it demands a lot from an amplifier. Many amplifiers have great difficulty properly driving an AR-3. A better question might be: how much power does this 100-watt tube amplifier put into 2-3 ohms? Tube amps typically don't do quite as well at low impedances as solid-state amplifiers. In addition, a 100-watt amplifier (tube or solid-state) will "clip," or overload, long before overdriving an AR-3 on short-term peaks of music or speech. By the same token, that doesn't imply that you can use the full 100-watt steady-state power of this amplifier on the AR-3, or that it can sustain high-power sine-wave testing with such an amplifier; it simply means that under normal circurmstances and on music, a 100-watt amplifier should provide adequate power for the AR-3's without any problem.Brand-new AR-3's were capable of handling amplifier peaks of over 200 watts without difficulty and without distorting. During the 1960s, the recommended fuse for the AR-1, AR-3, AR-3t was the Bussman Fusetron FNM 8/10-amp, slow-blow, dual-element fuse. This fuse will "open" with peaks of 200-250 watts. "That was then, and this is now," as they say, and one probably should not now attempt to test the limits of the AR-3 power-handling capability. So, the long-winded answer to your question is: "100 watts is just about enough power."--Tom Tyson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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