ironlake Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 I'm curious as to where you 3a owners place your mid and tweeter controls. I put mine both at max but was able to just start listening to cool bar room piano and bass now, havent tried any other style music. I am amazed that so far they have been playing at a llive volume level for 4 hours and no listiner fatique yet,. I would have had my large advents off 2 hours ago with listner fatique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 We've discussed this topic many times before, and it's always interesting!I think there was some general agreement (and I certainly fall into this group) the most of us put the tweeter at or very near MAX and the midrange about halfway between NORM and MAX.In recent years as the speakers age and real OEM replacements have become virtually impossible to get (or get in original operating condition), I find I've backed off the tweeter to about 3/4 full up or I simply don't play the speakers that loud or both.Steve F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlspeak Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 I fully concur with SteveF. In fact, I took an informal poll on this very subject some years back asking where 3a owners had their mids and tweets set. The majority were like Steve's, tweeter maxed and mid at mid point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 My 3a's are the LF and RF speakers in a 5.0 HT arrangement, and regularly play both digital sound from cable and DVD and analog sound from LPs. Each source has different tonal balance requirements. After a great deal of tinkering, I have my High pot a slight bit (maybe 10 degrees) above the white dot and the Mid pot jabout 5 degrees above that. My preamp treble control is at +4db for video sound, and for LPs I bypass the tone controls with the tone flat setting.I also have a pair of Micro Acoustic Microstatic tweeters sitting on top of the 3a's. They don't make a lot of difference in the direct-line sound, but they help compensate for whatever dispersion loss the 3a tweeters may be suffering due to age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyC Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 I fully concur with SteveF. In fact, I took an informal poll on this very subject some years back asking where 3a owners had their mids and tweets set. The majority were like Steve's, tweeter maxed and mid at mid point.I believe the poll indicated most people are using the mid at the white "dot"/"normal" setting, which is not the midpoint. The dot setting is about 25% off fully "increased".Using the 15 ohm pot, AR designed the tweeter white dot setting to be just off maximum (according to the schematic this was 1.75 ohms in series and 13.25 ohms in parallel), and the midrange dot setting to be a little further off maximum (3.25ohms in series and 11.75 ohms in parallel.)It is not uncommon for the pots to be improperly re-installed in restorations by not inserting the pot tabs into the notches provided on the crossover board. If this is not done, the dots will not correspond with the originally intended settings.Roy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlspeak Posted February 3, 2012 Report Share Posted February 3, 2012 I think a review of this threadhttp://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Board/index.php?showtopic=2058&hl=survey&st=0will make for some interesting and enlightening reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 It is not uncommon for the pots to be improperly re-installed in restorations by not inserting the pot tabs into the notches provided on the crossover board. If this is not done, the dots will not correspond with the originally intended settings.Another thing to be mindful of if you end up replacing the pots is that their +/- tolerance tended to be a bit on the loose side. Those notches on the crossover are probably not calibrated, but the result of the original pot being tightened in place. When I got my 3a's their original pots had been replaced with L-pads (mounted on the OUTSIDE of the cabinets with wires running through unsealed holes!!!). I set the rotation of my replacement pots (which came from an older AR-2a) by using a VOM to set them to the appropriate ohms and then positioned them at the white dots. The tabs of the replacement pots and the notches in the cabinets were pretty close, but not an exact match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyC Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 Another thing to be mindful of if you end up replacing the pots is that their +/- tolerance tended to be a bit on the loose side. Those notches on the crossover are probably not calibrated, but the result of the original pot being tightened in place. When I got my 3a's their original pots had been replaced with L-pads (mounted on the OUTSIDE of the cabinets with wires running through unsealed holes!!!). I set the rotation of my replacement pots (which came from an older AR-2a) by using a VOM to set them to the appropriate ohms and then positioned them at the white dots. The tabs of the replacement pots and the notches in the cabinets were pretty close, but not an exact match.There is variation in the pots themselves. I have measured a ton of pots, and they range anywhere from 14.75 to 16.5 ohms.Roy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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