AR-3a's up and running

[genek]

Here they are, woofers refoamed, all drivers reconnected, bad tweeter replaced.

The old caps measured ok (at least within the error of my ancient, POS capacitance meter) as did the drivers, but output from the remaining original tweeter seemed off. Plenty of output from a white noise source, but decidedly less than the other from CDs. Then I switched to LPs and shazaam, HFs from both chennels. Guess it's time to shop for a new CD player. Again. It's amazing to me that vintage gear that's 40 years or more older keeps chugging on while I have never owned a CD player that lasted for more than five years before something went wrong with it.

[Steve F]

They look great, congratulations. Whenever I see nicely-done 3a's, I feel good.

BTW, at the risk of angering the Karma gods, my Technics SL-P500, purchased new in 1984 and in constant use since, has never skipped a beat. Not once, ever.

[genek]

They look great, congratulations. Whenever I see nicely-done 3a's, I feel good.

BTW, at the risk of angering the Karma gods, my Technics SL-P500, purchased new in 1984 and in constant use since, has never skipped a beat. Not once, ever.

Thanks. It turns out there is a bit of a HF mismatch between the speakers. I set the "white dot" positions of the pots by using a VOM to line up the default factory resistances with the dots on the panel, and it turns out that one of the HF pots has about 5 degrees more travel in the "increase" direction than the other from there. I expect this is the result of variations in the pot windings. As long as I visually adjust the pots to the same rotational settings everything matches, but if I just turn them up until they reach their limits (for example, if I reach around the back and just turn them all the way up) one speaker ends up with more HF than the other.

The first CD player I ever bought was a Sony Discman. It actually still works ok. but will only play commercially recorded CDs, no capability to play CD-R, MP3, etc. Every other player I've bought has either gone dead or developed some sort of nervous breakdown in five years or less (strangely enough, the most long-lived player I've had in years is the one that came in my car, which I would have expected to go way before one that lives in the easier environment of my home). So for the past 7-8 years I just drop $100 or less every couple of years for a cheap one and don't invest a lot in them. I can't hear any difference between the top and bottom of CD player lines anyway, not the way I used to be able to with turntables.

[Guillaume78150]

... So for the past 7-8 years I just drop $100 or less every couple of years for a cheap one and don't invest a lot in them. I can't hear any difference between the top and bottom of CD player lines anyway, not the way I used to be able to with turntables.

Digital/Analog converters make all the difference. Between a cheap low range player purchased off the shelf at the nearest department store and a dedicated CD player from a reputable manufacturer, there is tangible difference. And good gears are reliable.

I still use the same Arcam player since 1997.

[genek]

Digital/Analog converters make all the difference. Between a cheap low range player purchased off the shelf at the nearest department store and a dedicated CD player from a reputable manufacturer, there is tangible difference. And good gears are reliable.

I still use the same Arcam player since 1997.

I've never been able to hear any difference between CD players. A $29 portable sounds the same to me as a $1000 high end model. Of course, I've not been able to listen to the high end models in my home on my system. But since I have something like 1000 LPs and about 100 CDs, it's not exactly a big deal for me.

[soundminded]

I've never been able to hear any difference between CD players. A $29 portable sounds the same to me as a $1000 high end model. Of course, I've not been able to listen to the high end models in my home on my system. But since I have something like 1000 LPs and about 100 CDs, it's not exactly a big deal for me.

I needed to replace a 5 disc cd player and took a chance on a 40 dollar Toshiba DVD player with a 24 bit 192khz chip a year ago. In comparison to my 1 bit 8 times oversampling JVC player of 1991 it was a dead ringer on a range of duplicate factory made cds. I could not tell the difference if mylife depended on it. I concluded that both operate flawlessly and that anything different from them is either defective or has had a deliberately altered FR to color its sound. I bought a 5 disc version soon after and just bought 4 more of them a few weeks ago, one with a DVD recorder and VCR built in for $138. The others were $30 each. I have noticed a remarkable difference in the tonal balance from one disc to another. Each disc has to be equalized for the way it was mastered separately just the way vinyl recordings must be. That is because there is no standard way to make a recording, no standard system to monitor it on.

[genek]

I needed to replace a 5 disc cd player and took a chance on a 40 dollar Toshiba DVD player with a 24 bit 192khz chip a year ago.

Funny you should say that. Right after I hit send on my last post I realized that I have a $59 Panasonic DVD player sitting idle since we replaced it with a new upsampling model to go with our new TV, and I swapped it in. Sounds better than the old Sony model I was using over the weekend, but I think the utter lack of any front panel display and the lack of a TV in this room to connect it to for OSD is eventually going to become too annoying to make it a practical audio-only unit.