fedeleluigi Posted June 11, 2014 Report Share Posted June 11, 2014 Hello, It’s been a very long time since I visited and posted on this forum! I already wrote about this issue in 05 January 2003 and only now I've read some topic about AR 3a Limited an so on! In 2003, I wrote about this topic in this thread: " Real McCoy ! New AR eyeball midrange " I live in Italy and here from 1991 to 1994 there was a reissue of AR 10 Pi and AR 3a (they were named AR 10 PI Replica and AR 3a Replica. This reissue was made by ENTEL ITALIA (later Recoton Italia) to verify if people were still interested in these old famous speakers. The speakers were built in ITALY! I personally visited the factory where they were assembled! It was located near Bologna. Maybe something similar happened also in other place in the world as in some Italian review they told that there still was an AR 3a production in the East. Both AR 10 Pi and 3a remakings used the same AR replacement parts (all of them made by Tonegen. I personally saw all their boxes with "made in Japan" printed on them! ). Tweeters were labelled 1200011-1, 1200013-1 midranges 1210010-1A (they were still eyeball mids), woofers 1210003-2A. They looked almost identical to AR 10 Pi original drivers. The tweeters labelled 1200013-1 were identical to the 1200011-1 ones but they had a 2.2 uF capacitor (usually Culver) in series glued on the back of the plastic flange. In the AR 10 Pi Replica the crossover network was an exact copy of the original one, in the AR 3a it was different probably because of the use of a different tweeter compared with the original one and because of the use of L-Pads instead of the original Pots. As I mentioned before, the Tonegen tweeter 1200013-1 had a fabric dome and not a paper dome as in the original 3a and LST. Nevertheless, Rarely, in some 3a Replica you can find a paper dome tweeter (made by Tonegen). Basically, it was a 1200011-1 but it had a very light and fragile paper dome. Its suspension was the same as the 1200011-1's (cloth, fabric). See last 3 pictures. This tweeter was initially labelled 200084-0 (not to be confused with 1200084-0 or 1200084-AB used for a later and different production of fabric dome tweeters ) and later 1200043-0 and you can also find it in Mark Levinson's Cello Amati. The 1200043-0 part number was a little strange as the original AR 58 S tweeter was labelled almost identical (200043-0). Imho the remakings did not sound as the original AR 10 Pi and AR 3a. I could also test Tonegen drivers in my original AR 10 Pi and unfortunately I could verify that they did not exactly sound as the original drivers. I do not want to say that they were not good drivers but only that they sounded differently. In other words Tonegen drivers were excellent drivers but their timbre and their efficiency were different from the original AR units. Although I do prefer the original 10 Pi and 3a, the reissues were good speakers but the difficulty of driving theese speakers correctly and above all people prejudice (in nineties) against old speaker designs, caused the failure of ENTEL ITALIA plans and their production was stopped. They sold very few of these speakers and so today they are very rare speakers. In old threads there are a lot of information ! Luigi Fedele PS:AR and Tonegen Part Numbers. Although in this document in the Library " AR Parts List & Price Sheet (January 1, 1979) " are reported 12000xx-x part numbers, in Europe, I've never seen them on driver labels until 1985. In other words, I've always seen 2000xx-x part numbers until about all 1984 and the drivers were not Tonegen but original AR (i.e. made in USA). As far as I've seen in European AR loudspeakers, the 12000xx-x and 12100xx-xx driver part numbers were only used by Tonegen Drivers that appeared for the first time with the LSI series in 1985. AR 10 Pi Replica: front AR 10 Pi Replica: front AR 10 Pi Replica: Tonegen woofer 1210003-2A AR 10 Pi Replica: Tonegen tweeter (1200011-1) and midrange (1210010-1A) AR 10 Pi Replica: Back AR 10 Pi Replica: control switches Tonegen paper dome tweeter. It was occasionally used in some 3a Replica. Note the paper dome and the fabric suspension. They are glued each other by a whitish-transparent glue that also covers the voice coil wires. Tonegen paper dome tweeter. It was occasionally used in some 3a Replica. Note the paper dome and the fabric suspension. They are glued each other by a whitish-transparent glue that also covers the voice coil wires. Tonegen paper dome tweeter: details Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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