AR3 vs AR3a?

[davidro]

G'day

I have a question.

I understand AR used to 'upgrade' AR3 speakers to AR3a speakers for a fee when AR3a first came out and 3a were lauded as their best speakers at the time.

It appears some Asian AR fans regard AR3 speakers to be not just more valuable than 3a for being 'rarer' but also to be of better quality sonic-wise.

What's the prevalent view here?

[Steve F]

G'day

I have a question.

I understand AR used to 'upgrade' AR3 speakers to AR3a speakers for a fee when AR3a first came out and 3a were lauded as their best speakers at the time.

It appears some Asian AR fans regard AR3 speakers to be not just more valuable than 3a for being 'rarer' but also to be of better quality sonic-wise.

What's the prevalent view here?

Here is something I wrote a few months ago to some friends, after my wife and I visited a Classic Speakers Forum member in Italy, while we were on vacation.

It sums up the 3 and 3a and their history pretty well:

"Adriano is the nicest guy imaginable, a few years younger than me, lives with his wife and two teen-aged daughters in a nice apartment in Rome ("Roma"). One room is his, completely. A little small perhaps, but it contains AR-3's, 3a's, big floorstanding Altec Valencia's, and all manner of JBL, Altec, and University horn and ring radiator drivers. He buys them off of e-bay, just to have them.

He's got a great selection of electronics too—an Altec professional power amp, a fully-restored AR integrated amp, a 1980's-era HK Citation pre-amp, etc.

After he treated Raff and I to a wonderful lunch at some small out-of-the-way corner joint that had the best food you could possibly even dream of, we went back to his place to listen.

His main speakers are the 3's. That's what we listened to. I had no real interest in hearing the Altecs (which served as stands for the 3's!), and I own 3a's.

I wanted to hear his 3's.

Now for those of you who need a little refresher: The 3 was a 12" 3-way with dome mid and high, the direct predecessor to the 3a. It was produced from 1958-1970-ish. The 3a was intro'd in Dec 1967, so AR continued to offer the 3 for a while even after the 3a was available, "…. for those listeners who prefer its sound over the 3a," as they said in their 1969 brochure. The 3a and 3 had the same size cabinets; early 3's had different grille cloth than the 3a, but later 3's and 3a's had the same grille material. Adriano's s/n's indicate his 3's were made around 1966, very close to the switchover date.

The 3's mid was a 2" dome, covered by that metal-mesh screen like the 3a's 1 ½" dome mid was. Outwardly, they looked similar.

The 3's tweeter was a 1 3/8" orange-colored dome, which looked quite different from the 3a's ¾" black hard-paper dome.

Late 3 and early 3a woofers were identical.

The crossovers were different, however: 1000 and 7500 Hz mid and tweet for the 3, 575 and 5000 Hz for the 3a.

The 3 introduced the very first dome drivers in the history of speakerdom, and was acclaimed as the 'best' speaker around by pretty much everyone. It enjoyed a margin of ascendancy over its competition that very few—if any—products in any field have ever equaled.

The 3a received even better reviews, but by then, the speaker/stereo market had gotten considerably more competitive, so the 3a did not enjoy the same unfettered critical and retail acclaim as did the 3.

Compounding AR's problems in the 3a-2ax-4x era were their disastrous dealer policies that pretty much ignored dealer profitability, leading to many retailers intentionally sabotaging AR speakers on retail display by drilling small holes in the backs of the cabinets to break the acoustic seal and thus ruin the bass response, or turning down the mid-tweeter level controls to make the already smooth-sounding ARs sound downright dull in a showroom A-B comparison with a more profitable speaker.

Then the nadir of AR publicity in the 3a timeframe: A 'bad' review of the 3a in Consumer Reports magazine, where they ended up saying that the 2ax—at half the price—was actually a better speaker and that the 3 sounded better than the 3a.

Still with me? This is fascinating stuff. I'm trying to give you the proper context to appreciate all this.

Now, I haven't heard 3's in probably 40 years. My cousins both had 3a's. A good friend had 3a's. As far as I was concerned, listening to Adriano's 3's—beautifully restored, all original drivers, pots cleaned, x-o caps replaced where needed, woofer cloth surrounds perfectly re-doped—was like hearing a brand new speaker for the first time.

I had brought Adriano the Kurt Elling disc "Dedicated to You" as a housewarming gift. It's a wonderful recording, live, with great depth, air, detail and bass. I know it inside and out, and I know exactly how it sounds on my 9's and 3a's.

The 3's were quite possibly the 'best' bookshelf-sized speaker I've ever heard. Pick your list of superlatives and they all apply: smooth, sweet, natural, uncolored, detailed, transparent, non-fatiguing, 'all there,' you name it.

Now, I know that a lot of things can influence one's reaction to a given set of speakers: we weren't A-B'ing them to anything, acoustic memory is notoriously short and unreliable (my claim of ''knowing exactly how it sounds on my 9's'' is a hairbreadth's distance from total nonsense), an agreeable emotional setting can and does often lead one to having a favorable reaction to what you're hearing, etc, etc, etc.

But on the other hand……I am a very experienced listener. My hearing is still quite good (tested cleanly to past 15kHz only a few years ago). I know what good speakers sound like.

The take-away—the 3's are real gems, completely devoid of that slight upper-bass/lower mid thickness that seemed to plague the 3a. By the "specs"—lower crossover frequencies, better dispersion, etc, the 3a "should" sound crisper and lighter on its feet than the 3. But it doesn't. The 3 is as close to a perfectly-balanced compact speaker as one could imagine. Like most truly great speakers, it's more noteworthy for what it doesn't do than for what it does—it seems to introduce no coloration, no nasality, no obvious distortion, no harshness, no detrimental beaming, no loss of detail.

Just to restore a little of my credibility, there are passages on the Elling disc that I know my 9's go deeper and with greater gut-impact and there are passages--and especially the audience applause--where the 9's have much greater spacial depth. But those 3's were something special, that's for sure."

Steve F.

[dynaco_dan]

Here is something I wrote a few months ago to some friends, after my wife and I visited a Classic Speakers Forum member in Italy, while we were on vacation.

It sums up the 3 and 3a and their history pretty well:

The take-away—the 3's are real gems, completely devoid of that slight upper-bass/lower mid thickness that seemed to plague the 3a. By the "specs"—lower crossover frequencies, better dispersion, etc, the 3a "should" sound crisper and lighter on its feet than the 3. But it doesn't. The 3 is as close to a perfectly-balanced compact speaker as one could imagine. Like most truly great speakers, it's more noteworthy for what it doesn't do than for what it does—it seems to introduce no coloration, no nasality, no obvious distortion, no harshness, no detrimental beaming, no loss of detail.

Steve F.

Hi Steve

Nice writeup.

I enjoyed reading it.

Your friend has great WAF, that is for certain.

[Sonnar]

Hi Steve, and Hello to everyone, I'm Adriano. Well, I agree totally with Steve's opinion about Ar 3 and 3a, but I believe it's imposssible to say Ar 3 is better than 3a or vice versa. I'm listening both almost every day, and I can say they're two different things. AR 3 was designed by Edgar Villchur, while AR 3a is a design by Roy Allison. When my father bought me a pair of Allison One for my 18th birthday (1978), I noticed immediately the AR 3a look-alike sound. A little bump in the midbass region, a sweet but strong midrange, shy, delicate highs are the profile of the AR 3a. More controlled bass in the Allison One, but the mid-highs region was very similar, as the exceptional dispersion. In fact, AR 3a and Allison One offers a wider and better stereo image than AR 3, an excellent stage similar to AR LST, that I know very well because my father bought a pair in 1976. AR 3 is probably more linear and transparent, You know, Steve, I told You it seems an electrostatic with a lot of bass. I prefer AR3, but......My best wishes to You all, Adriano

[Carlspeak]

Here is something I wrote a few months ago to some friends, after my wife and I visited a Classic Speakers Forum member in Italy, while we were on vacation.

It sums up the 3 and 3a and their history pretty well:

"Adriano is the nicest guy imaginable, a few years younger than me, lives with his wife and two teen-aged daughters in a nice apartment in Rome ("Roma"). One room is his, completely. A little small perhaps, but it contains AR-3's, 3a's, big floorstanding Altec Valencia's, and all manner of JBL, Altec, and University horn and ring radiator drivers. He buys them off of e-bay, just to have them.

He's got a great selection of electronics too—an Altec professional power amp, a fully-restored AR integrated amp, a 1980's-era HK Citation pre-amp, etc.

After he treated Raff and I to a wonderful lunch at some small out-of-the-way corner joint that had the best food you could possibly even dream of, we went back to his place to listen.

His main speakers are the 3's. That's what we listened to. I had no real interest in hearing the Altecs (which served as stands for the 3's!), and I own 3a's.

I wanted to hear his 3's.

Now for those of you who need a little refresher: The 3 was a 12" 3-way with dome mid and high, the direct predecessor to the 3a. It was produced from 1958-1970-ish. The 3a was intro'd in Dec 1967, so AR continued to offer the 3 for a while even after the 3a was available, "…. for those listeners who prefer its sound over the 3a," as they said in their 1969 brochure. The 3a and 3 had the same size cabinets; early 3's had different grille cloth than the 3a, but later 3's and 3a's had the same grille material. Adriano's s/n's indicate his 3's were made around 1966, very close to the switchover date.

The 3's mid was a 2" dome, covered by that metal-mesh screen like the 3a's 1 ½" dome mid was. Outwardly, they looked similar.

The 3's tweeter was a 1 3/8" orange-colored dome, which looked quite different from the 3a's ¾" black hard-paper dome.

Late 3 and early 3a woofers were identical.

The crossovers were different, however: 1000 and 7500 Hz mid and tweet for the 3, 575 and 5000 Hz for the 3a.

The 3 introduced the very first dome drivers in the history of speakerdom, and was acclaimed as the 'best' speaker around by pretty much everyone. It enjoyed a margin of ascendancy over its competition that very few—if any—products in any field have ever equaled.

The 3a received even better reviews, but by then, the speaker/stereo market had gotten considerably more competitive, so the 3a did not enjoy the same unfettered critical and retail acclaim as did the 3.

Compounding AR's problems in the 3a-2ax-4x era were their disastrous dealer policies that pretty much ignored dealer profitability, leading to many retailers intentionally sabotaging AR speakers on retail display by drilling small holes in the backs of the cabinets to break the acoustic seal and thus ruin the bass response, or turning down the mid-tweeter level controls to make the already smooth-sounding ARs sound downright dull in a showroom A-B comparison with a more profitable speaker.

Then the nadir of AR publicity in the 3a timeframe: A 'bad' review of the 3a in Consumer Reports magazine, where they ended up saying that the 2ax—at half the price—was actually a better speaker and that the 3 sounded better than the 3a.

Still with me? This is fascinating stuff. I'm trying to give you the proper context to appreciate all this.

Now, I haven't heard 3's in probably 40 years. My cousins both had 3a's. A good friend had 3a's. As far as I was concerned, listening to Adriano's 3's—beautifully restored, all original drivers, pots cleaned, x-o caps replaced where needed, woofer cloth surrounds perfectly re-doped—was like hearing a brand new speaker for the first time.

I had brought Adriano the Kurt Elling disc "Dedicated to You" as a housewarming gift. It's a wonderful recording, live, with great depth, air, detail and bass. I know it inside and out, and I know exactly how it sounds on my 9's and 3a's.

The 3's were quite possibly the 'best' bookshelf-sized speaker I've ever heard. Pick your list of superlatives and they all apply: smooth, sweet, natural, uncolored, detailed, transparent, non-fatiguing, 'all there,' you name it.

Now, I know that a lot of things can influence one's reaction to a given set of speakers: we weren't A-B'ing them to anything, acoustic memory is notoriously short and unreliable (my claim of ''knowing exactly how it sounds on my 9's'' is a hairbreadth's distance from total nonsense), an agreeable emotional setting can and does often lead one to having a favorable reaction to what you're hearing, etc, etc, etc.

But on the other hand……I am a very experienced listener. My hearing is still quite good (tested cleanly to past 15kHz only a few years ago). I know what good speakers sound like.

The take-away—the 3's are real gems, completely devoid of that slight upper-bass/lower mid thickness that seemed to plague the 3a. By the "specs"—lower crossover frequencies, better dispersion, etc, the 3a "should" sound crisper and lighter on its feet than the 3. But it doesn't. The 3 is as close to a perfectly-balanced compact speaker as one could imagine. Like most truly great speakers, it's more noteworthy for what it doesn't do than for what it does—it seems to introduce no coloration, no nasality, no obvious distortion, no harshness, no detrimental beaming, no loss of detail.

Just to restore a little of my credibility, there are passages on the Elling disc that I know my 9's go deeper and with greater gut-impact and there are passages--and especially the audience applause--where the 9's have much greater spacial depth. But those 3's were something special, that's for sure."

Steve F.

Do you have Elling's "Night Moves"? This album was nominated for a Grammy. 'In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning' is outstanding. Listen for the exhale at the very end. If you don't hear it, your system isn't resolving enough detail. :-)

[davidro]

Interesting stories thanks. Sounds like AR fans are alike regardless of their location.

[Sonnar]

AR sound is an important part of my life, at the time of my birth, september 1st, 1960, my father had a pair of AR 2, the first AR product in my home. At 51, I can say that every day of my life it has been musically filled by an AR speakers, and it will be for the future. The AR brand had became very popular in Italy in the late sixties until late eighties, during the seventies almost 50% of the speakers sold in Italy were AR. It' s very easy to found a classic AR speaker in good condition, owners take a good care of their AR speakers; prices are often very high, in these days I've found a pair of LST in excellent condition at 1500,00 euros, three pairs of AR 3a ( american made, with large front molding ) at 900,00 euros each, a pair of british-made AR 3a improved for 800,00 euros, a pair of beautiful AR 3 for 600,00 euros, an AR Xa for 200,00 , an AR amplifier for 800,00. A bit expensive, yes, but everything in excellent working and cosmetic conditions. Today still are a lot of AR fans in Italy! Best wishes to You all

[Sonnar]

Hi Steve

Nice writeup.

I enjoyed reading it.

Your friend has great WAF, that is for certain.

Yes, my wife and my daughters doesn't understand WHY we have a lot of speakers, amplifiers, turntables etc. while other people live usually with british mini-speakers as ProAc Tablette or Rogers....but probably my wife knows that our agreement (25 years) is based on the acceptance of a lot of vintage hi-fi equipment.....last one a delightful Dynaco SCA 35, its 15 watt on 8 ohms are unable to drive AR 3 or 3a, but it's able to drive Altec Valencias in a very delightful way, and it's also well-matched with my tiny '72 KLH 31! Cheers, Adriano