AR9 owners, what are your preferences?

[Guest jbangelfish]

How do you have your 9's positioned? Do you toe them in or square them with the walls? What settings do you use on your upper controls? Have you modified them in any way or use an EQ? I suspect that as I get used to them, I will adjust from one source to another.

What amp or amps do you drive them with? Biamp? Bridge? I like the thought of the biamp option but may have to get one of my amps checked first.

I prefer vinyl in most cases and use a very low output MC (.14)cartridge from Fidelity Research that I got as NOS. This cartridge has amazed me as long as I've owned it and the AR9's just add to my amazement with detail and clarity like I've never had before. I did detect a couple of "pops" listening to vinyl at a fairly high level. I couldn't be sure if I had a scratch or if the amp was clipping but I thought the LP was in perfect condition. The AR book mentions this popping. I had never heard the Parasound amp clip before but maybe it was. Any thoughts on this? AR recommends high powered amps but I thought I had that covered.

Sorry for so many questions but I am very curious as to how the rest of you use your AR9's and any problems that you have encountered. This is still the best speaker system that I have ever owned, alittle fidgety maybe but I think worth the effort.

[Guest Bret]

>How do you have your 9's positioned?. . .<

Bill, everything you asked about position and settings is either subjective or all about the room. I've had mine for many years in many different rooms and I don't think they've ever been set the same or toed or not the same in any two different rooms. I have used them with an EQ and without.

Some recordings seem to want the speakers set one way and some another - I usually don't bother; preferring to curse the darkness (or brightnes) than to get up and light a candle.

The amplifiers I've used (for any time) have ranged from two big 70's receivers during the "receiver wars" to a few 200w/channel to 250w/channel [8 ohm rating] jobs from different manufacturers. I've used others that weren't mine for short amounts of time. The only immediate "standout" of the bunch was an Adcom for how it controlled the woofers, almost to the point of being unnatural. I much prefer the "robust" stand-alone amplifiers.

I have never heard my speakers "pop" due to amplifier clipping. I used to do a lot of playing at clipping but no pops.

I have not biamped although it is on my list of things I want to do before I die.

Bret

[ar_pro]

Good topic, and I'll bet there's more than one way to skin this cat!

Our rebuilt 9's (re-foamed original woofers, NOS 8" mids & tweeters, original dome mids, 14 gauge internal wiring with soldered connections, spiked feet) are on a wooden floor about 2' from the front wall, 6' and 8' from the side walls, and 8' apart, facing straight into the room...my favorite listening spot is 18' out, and a bit to the right. The speakers are run full-range through a McIntosh MA6900 amplifier fed by a Sony SACD player. All settings are at the 0 dB position. There have been zero problems with this speaker - absolutely trouble-free, and completely reliable!

[Guest jbangelfish]

I have heard of it and read of it but never experienced it personally. I'm not 100% convinced that it was not a surface noise from the LP. Will have to have some more time in listening to them before I can say for sure what I heard. I was pretty sure that one of these amps would be enough but I do plan to try biamping when I get the necessary hardware.

One of the guys over on Audio Review has an old pair of AR9's which he modified by adding a couple more tweeters and I think he adjusted the crossover frequencies. He uses a 65wpc amp and says that the bass is phenomenal along with all other aspects of the performance. Says he's never heard better, is an electronics engineer and attends audio shows. He listens to classical and opera almost exclusively but it amazes me that he gets by happily with 65wpc. He does use an equalizer which he says he spent two years fine tuning to perfection.

Another thing about his speakers is that he has butyl surrounds on his woofers. He bought them as store demos and the original woofers had damage from people touching them. He negotiated new woofers in the deal and got butyl surrounds. Anyone else have butyl surrounds? They were supposed to be original factory replacements. What do you make of this?

[ToastedAlmond]

Flat up against the wall with no toe-in. Bi-amped with a mondo 200wpc Onkyo M-5090 driving the woofs, and Onkyo M-504 at 165wpc driving the mids and tweets. It works.

George

[r_laski]

>>I did detect a couple of "pops" listening to vinyl at a fairly high level. I couldn't be sure if I had a scratch or if the amp was clipping but I thought the LP was in perfect condition… Any thoughts on this?<<

Bill,

Without any more information than what you provided, the record may be in “perfect” condition. Usually a scratch across several grooves will be heard as a “pop” every time the stylus passes that location on the record. However, the “pops” may be a small pieces of “dirt” in a groove or even a tiny piece of dust or hair that find their way on almost every record. Remember the record is vinyl and has a static charge. It attracts dust and dirt out of the air. It could even be a static discharge between the vinyl and the stylus. Do you clean your records, or have an antistatic record brush to swipe across your record before each playing? Check your stylus with a magnifying glass for grunge around the tip. A sure sign of a dirty record.

Were the “pops” during extremely dynamic passages, or more random in nature?

Rich Laski

[Guest jbangelfish]

A friend of mine uses his AR9's similarly. Wide apart in a large area and prefers to listen about 15 feet away. Maybe I'm too close as I am within 8 feet or so of each speaker. What is the power rating of the McIntosh? I too am looking into SACD hoping to improve sound quality of CD's in general. Music Direct is blowing out some Phillips SACD/DVD players at $119 and I may pick one up just to get my feet wet. I would only use it for audio as I already have DVD players scattered around the house and have no HT systems anywhere. Not saying that I'll never have HT but if I ever do, it will be a completely separate entity from my sacred, simple stereo.

[Guest jbangelfish]

I understand about the typical scratch being heard through several tracks or even an entire album. There are no visible scratches on the album at all, it has only been played 3 or 4 times even though it is nearly 30 years old. I bought a few albums that were NOS, still sealed on Ebay, cheap and seems to be a good way to buy them. Even some used in great shape for a buck or two each that were graded as excellent and I have no complaints.

I clean with a brush before every play and have done this for about the last 30 years. I know that minute dust particles can be heard and do my best to keep them very clean. This is also important to preserve my stylus as I don't want to cause any undue wear to them. I have two of the same cartridges that I bought as NOS, they don't make them anymore and I don't even care to think about what new cartridges of their caliber would cost.

The pops may have been static related and I should look into something for static protection. My tt has a very thick and heavy mat made of some type of foam rubber (sorbothane? maybe) and as most if not all tt's some static electricity is generated. I just don't remember ever hearing this sound in particular before. It is certainly possible that the speakers are playing back dust particle pops or static pops in a way that I never heard them before.

I thought that the sound appeared during particularly dynamic portions of the album but only more listening could confirm this. If this is the case, what causes it? I never heard the Parasound amps run out of power before with other speaker systems but I almost always had them bridged mono and in that situation, they had huge power.

[Guest Brian_D]

In my living room, aproximately 25 x 14 x 8' 6" I use spiked feet on a carpeted floor. The speakers are about 6" from the back wall, and about 8 feet apart, listening position is about 12 feet from the cabinets, which are square to the room, no toe-in or out. All the crossover adjustments are at 0db, and I turn the "highs" knob on my receiver up about 10 degrees from 0 and the "lows" knob about 5 degrees up from 0. (I know that's subjective, I just wanted to put it in there for completeness) I find the bass response to be a little more "boomy" than I like because of their close proximity to a corner (about 6"), that's why I moved them to the basement. The tone control on my receiver is a wide band notch filter centered at 120, so this doesn't really affect the "boom" too much.

In the basement, aproximately 25 x 15 x 7' I use spiked feet on a concrete floor. The speakers are about 1" from the back wall (concrete) and 10 feet apart, this allows for about 24" from each side wall, both concrete. Because of all the concrete, I tend to cut the lower mid, mid and tweeter all by 3db, then increase my overall volume to compensate. I find myself putting the lower mid back in 0db for some music, usualy those with male vocals or orchestra. The speakers are square to the room, offset about 3" to the left to avoid standing waves in this very reverberant space.

The 9's look great flanking my screen; now if I can only find a lonely single 9 for a center/LFE!

-Brian

[Guest Nigel]

Mine are currently against the wall, about 10 foot seperation, 3 feet from the right wall, more from the left.

Each speaker is driven in vertical bi-amp mode with an Onkyo TX-8500 reciever's amplifier section. The pre-amp is a Marantz HT reciever.

The side channels are AR91.5 driven by an Adcom 545 II. The center channel uses the TV's speakers.

My wife is happy with it.

My second pair needs woofers and lower mids re-foamed, but first there is much work to do on the new house.

Nigel

[Guest dogmeninreno]

>How do you have your 9's positioned? Do you toe them in or

>square them with the walls? What settings do you use on your

>upper controls? Have you modified them in any way or use an

>EQ? I suspect that as I get used to them, I will adjust from

>one source to another.

> What amp or amps do you drive them with? Biamp? Bridge? I

>like the thought of the biamp option but may have to get one

>of my amps checked first.

> I prefer vinyl in most cases and use a very low output MC

>(.14)cartridge from Fidelity Research that I got as NOS. This

>cartridge has amazed me as long as I've owned it and the AR9's

>just add to my amazement with detail and clarity like I've

>never had before. I did detect a couple of "pops" listening to

>vinyl at a fairly high level. I couldn't be sure if I had a

>scratch or if the amp was clipping but I thought the LP was in

>perfect condition. The AR book mentions this popping. I had

>never heard the Parasound amp clip before but maybe it was.

>Any thoughts on this? AR recommends high powered amps but I

>thought I had that covered.

> Sorry for so many questions but I am very curious as to how

>the rest of you use your AR9's and any problems that you have

>encountered. This is still the best speaker system that I have

>ever owned, alittle fidgety maybe but I think worth the

>effort.

I for one have heard the "pop" on the 9's. I was using one Adcom GFA-555II Power amp rated at 325watts per channel into a 4 ohm load. It was real apparent that clipping was involved when palying track one of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" CD. I have since vertical bi-amped using 2 GFA-555II amps and the problem is gone. I listen at low to moderate levels depending on the material. Dale in Reno.....

[Guest jbangelfish]

Good to hear what you guys are doing with yours. I'm still fiddling with placement but probably won't be able to resolve things completely until my stereo room is done. I'd have a lot more flexibility in my family room if my 22 year old son would move out of it. The room is cluttered with much stereo equipment, large console TV, guitar amps and guitars, a love seat and a king size bed. Anyone interested in a strong, hard-working, financially irresponsible 22 year old male, please contact me.

I see alot of spiking and I plan to do the same, might tighten the bass alittle. With some recordings, I feel the floor shake and if I get near the speaker, I hear it the way I am accustomed to. I have moved them around some more but I'm afraid that the side firing woofer concept is being wasted in my current situation. Too much crap in the way and I don't have enough room to get the distance between me and the speakers. It's getting better but not there yet.

Thanks again for all of your comments. I do enjoy these speakers very much even though I know they have the ability to sound better with better placement.

[Guest jbangelfish]

Strange but the AR9 owners manual speaks of it. My room may be too soft or dead, I know placement is poor so cranking it up seems to be the way to reach what we are looking for. I don't want to go deaf but I do like the music fairly loud. I can say that the AR9 gives me alot more of what I wanted without getting excessively loud. I listened to Bose 901's from 1975 until I got the AR's 3 or 4 weeks ago. Now, pick yourselves up off the floor from laughing, please.

I have owned every series of 901 except for III and V and still have 4 pair. The series I and II seem much better to me than the newer ones. Being 28 to 35 years old and still working says something for them anyway. Would I compare them in sound quality to the AR9's? Hell no but they are able to play VERY loud, handle great power and do most rock music fairly well. The highs and extreme lows in the AR's are clearly superior. The old 901's just do much more than people would think possible, due to their small size and lack of woofers or tweeters. The only way to make them perform is to give them plenty of power and properly place them in corners, which most people never did. I don't think a receiver was ever made that could adequately drive them. They will reach 22hz which is amazingly low for a group of 4 1/2 inch drivers. So much for the old 901's, I don't love them so much anymore but I can't hate them either.

I do plan to biamp the AR9's and will see what that does for me. The amps will be identical and I'll start with the Parasounds that I have. A cheap experiment for me would be to find another Crown DC300A and biamp with a pair of them for comparison. They don't have quite as much power but I always considered the old Crown to be a great sounding amp. When you talk to the high enders, most have nothing good to say about that old amp but I have no idea why, I doubt they ever owned one. They'd rather go out and spend several K on Krell, Pass Labs or some other expensive equipment. While I'm sure these are all great amps, I don't think it's really necessary to spend so much for great sound. The old Crown was expensive in it's day, I think I spent about $1600 for the amp and preamp back in 75 which most people thought was a ludicrous price to pay. Without a tuner? I must have been mad. It still works and still sounds good, probably better than most equipment made today.

[Guest Brian_D]

One mistake many 9 owners make is putting something between the speakers. (TV cabinet or stereo cabinet)

This serves the same effect as placing them too close to a wall and creaing a very "fuzzy" low-end. (Early/Late reflections)

-Brian

[ar_pro]

The MA6900 is rated at 200 watts/channel into 4 or 8 ohms through its autoformer outputs - the result is tube-like midrange performance with very well-controlled bass. SACD makes up a small number of our total discs, but the Sony player uses a variable coefficient digital filter that's useful for fine-tuning regular CD playback.

[administrator]

Hey Brian,

Would I be correct in saying that one possible solution is to eliminate whatever may be in between the AR-9's with the following Sony Plasma?

70" XBR® Grand WEGA™ KDF-70XBR950

Now, if you hooked me up with an employee discount, and someone gave me a pair of AR-9's, I would still need to sell my motorcycle to arrange this setup.

Granted, my 303a's provide *plenty* of bass, but with a pair of AR-9's I could provide bass to the rest of my street!

Mark

[Guest jbangelfish]

I don't want the TV in the room but since my son has taken over the room, I can't do much short of throwing him, the guitars, and the TV out. I'll get things situated yet. The speakers have great all around presence and I'm still very happy. Thanks guys

[Guest Sean]

My 9's are highly modified and are used in my HT system. They are appr 14' apart. These are anchored via spikes to the carpeted floor beneath them. They are mounted up flush to the wall, as they were designed to be used. If you don't mount them near the front wall, you'll loose low frequency output, altering the tonal balance more towards the leaner side. The speakers are mounted with the left model appr 3' to one side wall and the right speaker has appr 4' to the other side wall. Locating the speakers in a non-symetrical manner helps to minimize room nodes, improving in-room response by reducing common mode peaks.

If you are wondering why my speakers are so far apart, I have a large custom built center channel using OEM AR 8's and the same upper mid dome and dome tweeter as used in the 9's / 90's in-between the 9's, hence the wide span. Having said that, the 9's are quite capable of good performance even at this distance by themselves. Due to a slight amount of toe-in, they present a very solid center image. However, they are not toe'd in enough to limit the width of the soundstage, which would also limit the spaciousness of special effects on movies. The larger Dunlavy's also work quite well when spread this far apart.

Surround speakers in this system are a pair of 90's that have been modified identically to the 9's. These are placed similarly to the 9's but in the back of the room. These too are spiked with a very small amount of toe in. If i was running either 9's / 90's by themselves in two channel mode, i would have the speakers spread as far apart as i could with no toe in while still being able to obtain a solid center image. Not only will this vary with room acoustics, your seated listening position is also quite important when setting things up.

When performing the modifications to these speakers that i did, all of the attenuators were bypassed for very specific reasons. Not only was this much easier to wire up internally, it shortened the signal path and got rid of several "junky" connections through the switches. This is not to mention that the 9's and 90's tend to suffer from being slightly warm in tonal balance, so attenuationg the mids, upper mids and / or treble would only further compound that effect. Since i would never make use of these switches, i pulled them from the circuit along with all of the resistors that acted as padded attenuators.

All of the internal wiring is Kimber 4TC from the mid-woofer up with the woofers each getting 8TC. These are wired back to the amps using the same cabling. All of the caps were replaced with hand selected Solen's. All of the Solen's were then bypassed by Audiocaps. Had i known then what i know now, i would have probably used REL RT's or RTX bypass caps instead of the Audiocaps. The non-polarized electrolytics used in the low frequency section were also replaced with newer caps. These caps came from Speaker City and i also hand selected them in order to keep matching from speaker to speaker as close as possible.

Prior to installation, all of the caps were brought up to 90% of their max rated voltage and allowed to sit. This was done in order to help the dielectric form in a more rapid and thorough manner. This step was repeated several times. While some of you may find this "funny", suffice it to say that caps ( especially electrolytics ) take a long time to break in. This is especially true when used in a speaker as the signal voltage levels are both relatively low and quite erratic due to the dynamic nature of music.

I must warn anyone that attempts to "volt up" caps to be VERY careful with them. While the electrolytics will "discharge themselves" over time due to dielectric absorption, the other caps ( Solen's, Audiocap's or whatever brand you use ) can / will retain high levels of voltage for a very extended period of time. Even after a week's time of just sitting, the Solen's / Audiocap's were still at about 80% - 90% of the voltage that i had charged them up to. Given that they were rated at 400 volts, i had charged them up to appr 350 - 380 volts. After sitting for several days, i found out the hard way that even a "little" cap that is just a very few uF's can knock you on your ass when it still has 325 volts on it. Needless to say, use caution and DO NOT leave these laying out where someone can pick them up when fully charged !!!

The resistors in the circuit were replaced with non-inductive Mills models. Three braces were added to the inside of the cabinets, making for a total of four if you include the factory brace down by the woofers. All of the cabinet walls received damping sheets prior to having the braces installed, so as to mimize cabinet resonance even further. Binding posts used were Axon's.

After trying several different amps, i settled on a 2 channel Sunfire Signature that i modified for the mains ( 1200 wpc @ 4 ohms ) and a Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature for the center, surrounds and subs. This amp is also modified, but not to the same extent as the 2 channel model powering the mains. This amp is rated for 800 wpc @ 4 ohms. After doing all of this, i had sent my 2 channel Signature feeding the 9's into thermal shutdown on two occassions. I then sent the amp back into Sunfire and they performed further upgrades. These upgrades consisted in raising the point of thermal shut-off, removing the current limiters, installing heavier gauge output inductors and then going through the unit top to bottom. After getting the amp back, bottom end performance was MUCH sturdier, now matching the previous amp that i was using to power the woofers before ( Perreaux PMF-3150 ). Prior to this, the Sunfire was slightly lean in the bass whereas the Perreaux had tremendous authority. Believe me, compared to most other amps, a big Perreaux will make them sound anemic on bottom end impact and slam. The modified Sunfire Sig was now delivering very close to the same type of performance from what i could tell.

After getting the amp back and running it for a while, i started to hear a noise coming out of one of the woofers in my 9's. I pulled them all out and took a look. Due to the increased current flow and improved conductivity due to all of the upgrades / modifications to the internals of the speakers, the driver was now throwing much harder and further. As such, the voice coil former had started to pull away from the spider on 3 of the 4 drivers. While i know that this was from fatigue and thermal stress, some of it was also probably due to age and the glue getting brittle. I had John at Chicago Speaker Works re-glue the spiders to the formers on all of the woofers and both 8's using some glue that he's found to work the best. I don't know what brand it is, but it costs him $250 for a few tubes of it. I did all of these as i didn't want to have to go through this again.

After doing all of this, i've not had any problems and the system literally roars now. Then again, you might expect this with 6500 watts rms and over a dozen woofers : ) All of the upgrades to the speakers were well worth it, albeit a lot of work. Then again, it is always harder to try to do "touch up" and come behind someone else's work than it is is to design something from scratch and do it "right" the first time.

As a side note, i was able to consolidate all of the parts that AR had on two crossover boards down to just one board. Bare in mind that i did this VERY carefully so as to minimize crosstalk between circuits and even within the same circuits. Due to the EM fields that coils generate, you have to be careful as to how close you put them to each other and in what ways they are oriented.

When doing all of this, we found that there were quite a few variations in parts values between what was shown in the schematics and what was actually in the speakers themselves. For sake of clarity, nobody had ever modified the internals of these, so they were all stock. What was REALLY "confusing" was the fact that the factory schematic as included in the owners manual and what Mark has posted here on this site was missing a coil. In other words, if the schematic called for 7 inductors, we had 8 inductors. While i can't remember the specific numbers, you get the idea. I've made notes on this and can provide details if someone needs specifics. I discussed this with Mark quite a while ago, but i don't know if he remembers.

Either way, i hope that this was at least entertaining for all of you, as this took me at least a few minutes to type out : ) Sean

>

[soundminded]

My AR9s were very late production models purchased as show room demos in 1984. AR immediately replaced all of the drivers (a story by itself) because of damage other shoppers had caused by poking their fingers in them. After nearly 20 years they show no signs of deterioration in any respect including the butyl surrounds on the 12 inch woofers and the 8 inch lower midranges.

I was initially not particularly satisfied with their sound. A few years after I got them, I'd seen that some other manufacturers like Snell and Vanderstein had added indirect firing tweeters to their best models and so I began experimenting with mine. I added three 3/4 inch Audax polys in parallel to each of mine each crossed over at 6k with a 3.3 mfd npc. They are in a small enclosure which sits on top of each one and they fire straight up at the ceiling. I have had to re-equalize the system several times for various reasons (amplifier replacement, moving, and equalizer replacement.) It takes 2 to 3 years to get it just right each time and it is done by ear as I have found trying to adjust them by measurement doesn't work for me. Fortunately, I have heard a lot of live music in my life and so I have a pretty good idea what real musical instruments should sound like in different venues.

They are installed at the short end of a room that's approximately 14 x 30 x 9 1/2 and about 30 to 40 percent glass walls. The rest of the walls are standard 1/2 inch sheetrock and the floor has a low pile burber carpet. Acoustics are on the live side and I intend to keep it that way. The speakers are about 2 feet from the side walls and right up aginst the front wall with only the space of the window sill molding preventing them from being closer. They are around 8 feet apart.

The rest of the system consists of a Harman Kardon Citation 11 preamp (main preamp), Marantz 3800 (slave preamp), Mosfet 120 power amp built from a kit, BSR 10 band graphic equalizer and an enhancement surround system of my own design consisting of a Yamaha DSP 1 processor, 2 Dyanco SCA80Q integrated amplifiers, 2 more BSR equalizers, and 16 RS Minimus 7 speakers. (That's another story.)

Signal sources are Denon 1520 cd player, Empire 698 turntable with a Shure V15 Type V MR cartridge, Teac RX435 cassette player and a Panasonic VCR. The TV set is a Sony KV36XBR250 between the speakers and there is no optical distortion due to the speaker magnets as there was with a previous Sony TV set. All speaker wire is 16 gage zip cord from Home Depot and the audio and video cables are whatever was lying around, all low cost generic.

All I can say about the sound is that as far as I am concerned, it is all anyone could ask for being the clearest, most accurate, most dynamic, widest range sound I have ever heard from a sound system. I see no reason to look any further for improvement and I don't see where there is much room for any. Needless to say, I stopped shopping for audio equipment a long time ago except when failure such as my old Dyanco Stereo 120 blew up causing me to look for a replacement.

BTW Bill, when properly positioned and equalized, the bass can be quite literally wall shaking right down to the lowest frequencies I can hear and probably even lower. I don't think you can or would need to try to beat these speakers in bass response.

[Guest Brian_D]

He he he... the employee discount is very nice, and TV's/stereo equipment are where we get our best rebates, but I don't think I could even afford shipping on that monster.

The white glove delivery service includes delivery to a residential address, unpacking and placement on a stand (or pre-mounted bracket in the case of a plasma screen). You have to hook it up yourself, however. It's only $700 for west coast delivery!

I can't help you with the 9's, I'm keeping mine!

[Guest jbangelfish]

So, I find you here, old dawg. I haven't been here in awhile as these guys answered all my questions in short order. It's nice to find a group of so many with the same speakers and learning how they use them.

As I posted over on AR, I have biamped my AR9's with my two Parasound HCA2200 II's and the result was very impressive. No more pops or clipping and I can now go happily deaf if I so choose. The added bass was something that was lacking in the original set up. They actually will shake the entire room floor and you can feel it sitting on the couch. Sometimes it startles me. The room is fairly large and has a shakey floor which is annoying.

Due to improper room placement, I don't get the full benefit yet as my stereo cabinet is behind the right speaker and both are nearly 4 feet from the front wall. The console TV is still between them and I am only able to sit 9 or 10 feet away, all no no's. Even with all the problems, I am very pleased with what I hear. I may check back with you as to how you did your tweeter add on but in most music, I'm getting a very complete package. I have noticed a very slight tinny sound in some of the highest highs but it is rare.

Anyway, I just wanted to pass on my experience with biamping and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who has these great old speakers. It definately puts a smile on my face, often.

Bill

[Guest Bret]

>I have biamped my AR9's with my two Parasound HCA2200 II's <

Bill, did you find something wrong with one of the Parasounds? If you told the story I missed it.

Bret

[tysontom]

Soundminded,

If you get a chance, please take some digital images of the woofers on your AR-9s and e-mail them to me or put them as an image in a message in this forum. I am still fascinated with the butyl surrounds you described. I did find a picture of the square-magnet 12W woofer, which I will send to you, this one being made in 1984. It is definitely the standard-issue AR woofer, but with a square rather than round magnet.

--Tom Tyson

[Guest jbangelfish]

Individually, they sound identical to me. One has a slight hum and the other does not. Their removable power cords are slightly different with one being alittle larger than the other. I asked the seller about it (as he had both of them) and he said that possibly neither is the original cord. I haven't even tried swapping cords from one amp to the other which should tell me something. The hum is nearly inaudible and certainly not heard when listening to music.

Anyway, now biamped and the sound is very very nice. Any bass complaints I had are now forgotten and I could still position them better and get myself alittle farther away from them. For now, they are very pleasing to my ears.

Bill