AR1 Speakers...any good?

[Guest Jethro]

I'm new to this forum but am an audiophile...tubes is my thing,

I've read many of the posts and find them very inciteful.

Sooo, a buddy of mine is selling these AR1s (from what I've read they might be 315HOs renamed). They are only 7 years old and not sure if they are classic enough for this forum, but AR sure is (or was) a classic company.

Anyhow, these are 5' towers with 15" powered subs. He says they'd be perfect for me to use with my tube setup and just use my amps to drive the upper end and let the Sub drive itself. Sensitivity is great (95db) and sounds ggod for use with low wattage amps.

Are these speakers any good? I know they were built in the later days of AR and not sure if they were just money makers or have the engineering expertise that AR is known for. I've tried to search this forum but AR1 is too short for the search engine on this site.

These speakers appear to look good on paper with frequency response that goes down to 18 Hz (is that right?).

What might be a good price for these?

Thanks much!

[Mexicomike]

The AR1 production timeframe is well beyond the era of AR's history making speaker systems and is not really related to the original company in MA. Likewise, the sound was nothing like the original "AR sound." Whether that's good or bad is a personal issue.

Here's a review that might be helpful - Stereophile seemed to like the AR1s though it's best to take stereophile with a bit of salt! I subscribed to them for many years but after the mid 80's they seemed to become more interested in being hip and slick and less interested in helpful audio information.

http://stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/699ar/

[Guest Jethro]

The AR1 production timeframe is well beyond the era of AR's history making speaker systems and is not really related to the original company in MA. Likewise, the sound was nothing like the original "AR sound." Whether that's good or bad is a personal issue.

http://stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/699ar/

Thanks for the info and link. I thought they might be a too new for this site, but I like and respectg many of the folks on here. Yep, Stereophile likes 'em...but advertising dollars may be a factor. Any other "newer" blogs you might recommend?

I'm sure there is a reason my neighbor wants to sell them...he says he doesn't like the size and wants to go for a multimedia set up. Origianl list was like $2500 and now he wants $500.

The sensitivity is impressive at 96dB and might be good for my golden tube set up. On his set up the midrange is a little weak, but my tubes compensate for that... I may bring them over and see how they sound. I'm also looking at the new Sunfire Ribon speakers...but again probably too new for the veterens on this site.