Flush Mount AR3a drivers

[Guest John Faulkner]

I am going to start rebuilding 2 pairs of AR3/AR3a speakers. Since the grills are long trashed I was thinking of cutting a piece of MDF, or maybe even a piece of exotic wood, routering (sp?) new driver recesses and attaching (sealed, of course) the new baffle boards to the front of the existing baffles so that the drivers are close to flush mounted to avoid some diffraction effects. I know these speakers are never going to be time-aligned like my Thiels, but I figure it can't hurt. I would have to come up with some sort of grill cloth support but would not have to deal with the original PITA design.. Maybe even slope the edges around the driver cutouts like the Thiels. Another idea would be just a new mounting baffle for the midrange and tweeter, leaving the woofer in it's original position. Anybody ever tried anything like this? I had long ago thought of just cutting off the trim wood in front that just seems to be there to hold those original grills - that would produce a similar effect. But the thought of using some exotic wood is also appealing - using minimalist grills over the mid and tweet, leaving the woofer recessed under a separate grill cloth. so the exotic wood is exposed. Heck, I even thought of adding longer planks of exotic wood to the sides extending a foot or so beyond the bottoms of the existing cabinets to act as an integral stand to raise the speakers closer to ear level. As long as the new wood is glued and screwed down tight it should even add to the already very non-resonant boxes. Any other ideas out there?

[genek]

I am going to start rebuilding 2 pairs of AR3/AR3a speakers. Since the grills are long trashed I was thinking of cutting a piece of MDF, or maybe even a piece of exotic wood, routering (sp?) new driver recesses and attaching (sealed, of course) the new baffle boards to the front of the existing baffles so that the drivers are close to flush mounted to avoid some diffraction effects. I know these speakers are never going to be time-aligned like my Thiels, but I figure it can't hurt. I would have to come up with some sort of grill cloth support but would not have to deal with the original PITA design.. Maybe even slope the edges around the driver cutouts like the Thiels. Another idea would be just a new mounting baffle for the midrange and tweeter, leaving the woofer in it's original position. Anybody ever tried anything like this?

I've never seen it done on 3a's, but of course AR themselves flushmounted the drivers when they designed the updated 303/303a version of the ar-3a. Maybe someone who has heard a pair can relate whether it made any real difference in the sound.