AR speakers "Pecking Order"

[Mexicomike]

I have to admit that my hands-on historical knowledge of AR speakers pretty much ended in the mid 70's when I sold my set of AR3a's to buy a pair of Heil ESS AMT-1s. I recognized my error within a couple of weeks when I realized that the AMTs bass wasnt very accurate and the treble (which, in the store I thought "impressive") would send me screaming from the room. I sold them within a month but never went back to ARs until last year!

My personal familiarity with AR was with the 4, 2AX, and 3a. The last AR speaker that I paid any attention to from the production point of view was the LST - and that only from ads, I never saw or heard one. Everything after that is "new" to me - some of the model numbers I have never heard of until seeing them on this site. I did listen to a 10 pi in the mid 80's but the store pissed me off so bad that I walked out without doing any serious listening.

SO, from the "experts" point of view, how do you feel the AR's rank as far as overall capability in a nice system? I realize this is totally subjective and that there are folks who have stated that they believed that the 2AX (for example) had a "smoother" output than a 3A. But what would be interesting to me would be a "ranking" of at least the speakers that would have been considered full range. I can only rank them based on the ones I owned which would be no surprise - the 3As over the 2Axs and the 2Axs way over the 4s (and the 4's wouldn't be considered full range anyway). BUt where, for example would 3As, LSTs, 9s, 10pi and other (are there others?) models place if one had to "rank" them to select for a main system. I'm working on acquiring a set of LSTs to compliment my 3As but there might be room for some more ARs somewhere in the house...

[Guest winters860]

I've not heard enough ARs to say myself, but I bet most people's toplists will be drawn from the following:

Original years:

AR-3

AR-2ax

AR-3a/AR-3a Improved

AR-5/AR-5 Improved

AR-LST

AR-LSTII

Teledyne Years:

AR-10pi

AR-11

AR-9

AR-9LS/AR-9LSi

AR-90

AR-91

AR-58s

[Mexicomike]

Interesting in that from your lists, until coming to this site a while back I had never heard of (or at least I don't recall hearing about or seeing):

the 3a improved

the 5 Improved

AR-11

AR-9

AR-9LS/AR-9LSi

AR-90

AR-91

AR-58s

[ar_pro]

Well, you could go by AR's advertising, which went something like "the (blank) is the finest loudspeaker that we know how to build".

I believe this type of claim was applied to the AR-3, the 3a, the LST, 10pi, and the 9 - all having been at the top of their respective lines (the semi-pro LST having existed on its own branch of the AR tree).

In a small to medium-sized room, I'd take the 3 or 3a for looks, and the 10pi for performance, reserving the AR-9 for a large listening space, and the LST for when I want wide-dispersion in the same room.

So:

AR-9 & LST (best-performance, with substantially different sonic results)

AR-10pi (best bookshelf)

AR-3 and 3a (overall best-looking, with sound right below the 10pi)

[Mexicomike]

Hmm, I must be mis-remembering when I thought I looked at a 10pi. If it's a bookshelf, that isn't what I was looking at. The AR speaker I briefly auditioned at the time was not a bookshelf model - it seemed eye level to me while standing and had black foam grills on either side at the bottom which, again, as I recall were twin woofers. It was a pretty big speaker. I looked through the archive pics and it appears that I was looking at an AR9. I haven't seen any pics of a 10pi so I don't know where I even picked up on that model designator.

My "recollection" just confirms the old saying, "The mind is a terrible thing..."

[Guest pbda]

Yes, that would have been the AR-9 I suspect. I've heard Larry Lagace's pair, and they sound pretty impressive. The WAF on those babies is sub-zero, unfortunately, which is one reason for which I like my LSTs...different sound from the 9s, more like (surprise, surprise) the 3a but with a much more "open" sound to my ears than the 3a produces...not that I have any plans to get rid of my 3as!

BTW Mike, have you received your LSTs from Larry yet?

[Mexicomike]

Larry will be shipping them to TX for me to pick up when I'm there at the end of this month. We are driving a car back to Mexico City so we can carry them back with us. Pics he's sent me look great!