AR-7 specs xover slopes etc?

[Guest Timbo in Oz]

so any help welcome,

Just gave him some stands but I think the should be even higher up.

was Baffle step compensation built in as mf'd?

Bass bins could be added to do that, raise them so the th tweeter's at ear height, and could also give a bit more extension!?

[tysontom]

so any help welcome,

Just gave him some stands but I think the should be even higher up.

was Baffle step compensation built in as mf'd?

Bass bins could be added to do that, raise them so the th tweeter's at ear height, and could also give a bit more extension!?

Dear Timbo in Oz:

I was trying to understand your question here, and I read it many times and could not figure out what you are trying to accomplish. Am I missing something here? What does "bass bins" mean?

To answer your question above, there was no baffle-step compensation designed into the AR-7 or any other (AR) speaker built at that time. I seriously doubt it would have been a technical consideration at that time anyway (bsc may or may not be important to some engineers, but it might also be considered "a solution for which there is no problem"), as the AR-7 was designed, as with nearly all AR speakers, to produce linear, smooth overall sound reproduction out in the far field, not up close in the near field. The idea with a speaker system such as the AR-7, was to mount them on a table, stand or bookshelf (preferably enclosed on both sides by books or such), back against a wall, so that the response would replicate AR's measurements made in a semi-reverberant test chamber designed to measure the integrated-power response, the total output of the high-frequency section as propogated out into a listening environment. Bookshelf-mounting would approximate the response curve derived in the test chamber. I've attached a calibrated reverberant-chamber response curve of the AR-6 tweeter, which was almost identical to the AR-7. In any event, you can see that the response is very smooth, but with gradual (and predictable) roll-off in the very highest frequencies. There are not too many speakers that could appreciably improve on this response. I've also attached the Hirsch-Houck Labs report on the AR-7, which pretty much speaks for itself for this tiny, inexpensive speaker.

If you do anything to your AR-7s, be sure that they have good surrounds on the woofers (and hopefully the original woofers which differed from the other 8-inch AR speakers a bit) and have a good crossover capacitor in the network. Any questions regarding the crossover might be directed to Roy or John on this site, both of whom are very expertise in AR network systems.

--Tom Tyson