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my slow AR58 restore


michiganpat

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So it's been almost a year since I bought these, and I've slowly been making progress (well, slowly since christmas, until then they sat untouched for 8 months)  woofers refoamed, cabinets cleaned up, lightly sanded and hit with restore a finish and a couple coats of feed-and-wax, and minwax paste wax.  the speaker on the right I've recapped, the left will be dismantled to recap still tonight (I think)  I recovered the grille frames with some linen I got from joann's instead of the ugly brown stock cloth....I like the look a lot.  I also replaced the spring terminals on the recapped xover with a very similar looking binding post setup from parts express.  I still need to cut out the decorative foam gaskets for the woofers....the recap makes a noticable improvement in the clarity of the midrange, the non-capped one the mids sound (for lack of a better term) boxed in.  I've heard people complain the 58s's are a bit bright/harsh...I don't hear it at all.

BTW, those are my AR 312HO's and CS25HO center channel in the background....

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I've always liked this first-iteration 58. I think it's a heckuva speaker, and I agree, I never found it harsh or bright. Essentially a "bookshelf" 91. The 91 wasn't bright or harsh either.

This 58 variant was very short-lived, as AR devolved quite rapidly into abject mediocrity shortly thereafter, with the various 58B, Bx, Bxi, Bxxxxxxiiiiiiii versions and their cheap crossovers, cone midranges and awful plastic cosmetic frames around the mid/tweet. Not terrible speakers, but clearly "price-point/fill a slot" speakers.

I like the look of your white linen. Now if you could get some custom-made brass logos with de-bossed red "AR-58" lettering in the Classic font.......

Steve F.

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Those look really great, and I think I remember when we discussed the AR-58s last year, which for some reason, does not show up on this list of chronological AR products. That speaker has a terrific set of drivers, same as AR-91, and I've always been curious about the engineering rationale for aligning all of the drivers in each model from this series (AR-18s, 28s, 38s, 48s, 58s), when quite obviously, the earlier AR's were very consciously formatted with tweets and mids off-center from the centerline of the baffle board.

 

56c8f96218557_ARhistory2.2.thumb.jpg.1b4

 

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NP for the 100uf, poly for the rest (using combinations of the 10uf poly surplus caps from madisound for the 40 and 24uf).....

not sure about the thread count, it's finer thread than cross stitch linen, but pretty open....

the grille frames are an MDF type of substance....

 

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Those look great pat! They really capture the classic AR look. You'll have to let us know how they sound when you finish the second recap.

I finished recapping my 12's today as well as redoing the tweeter cosmetics replacing the felt with the black foam. They look so much better now. Thanks for the push on that!

 

glenn

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10 hours ago, ra.ra said:

"Those look really great, and I think I remember when we discussed the AR-58s last year, which for some reason, does not show up on this list of chronological AR products. That speaker has a terrific set of drivers, same as AR-91, and I've always been curious about the engineering rationale for aligning all of the drivers in each model from this series (AR-18s, 28s, 38s, 48s, 58s), when quite obviously, the earlier AR's were very consciously formatted with tweets and mids off-center from the centerline of the baffle board."

The earlier AR models were often described as bookshelve speakers because they could be placed horizontally on a book shelve and preferably flush with books. I used to own a couple pairs of AR3a. I normally placed them on a sturdy shelve with tweeter above the mid in each channel. With vertical alignment of AR58 I suspect they would not sound good if placed on a book shelve because the severe interference will happen on the horizontal axis. Thus a slight movement of your head will make the stereo image different to hold.

My five cents. 

 

 

 

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Yeah, ligs, I suppose you are right about this, and it appears that with this 'S' series, all of the speakers were intended for vertical orientation, as suggested by this brochure. Even the popular AR-18 morphed into an AR-18s with a slight tweeter upgrade and re-positioning on the front baffle.

AR 's' series.jpg

AR-18 and 18s.jpg

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