no caps in this post.

[Guest phillydog]

sorry about the caps, just having recunstuctive surgery on my knee, ive been pearched in my lazyboy with my wireless keyboard, helps to see, will move closer..

thanks for the great info. just a few questions, about the rehostats why do so many people bypass them? from what ive read there is a flat spot in the crossover of the 3'sfrom the woofer to the mid. do the pots help in an eliminating this? i had no trouble dissasembeling and cleaning them, can you get replacement ceramic ones or is all they sell is sealed disosable ones? one of mine still doesent work too well after cleaning w/ contact cleaner and sanding the contacts.

too late on the advice of not removing the grill cloth from the frames, as i already did, and the plastic weave is about an 1/4 inch too short to restaple to the frame, also the hard plastic frame is warped from being shrunk. i really like the plastic look, is that easier to find, all i hear is the linen, are mine first generation ar3's, since i dont have a 3 badge on them? crossover date is 1964 wernt they indroduced in 59?

[Guest dogmeninreno]

>sorry about the caps, just having recunstuctive surgery on my

>knee, ive been pearched in my lazyboy with my wireless

>keyboard, helps to see, will move closer..

> thanks for the great info. just a few questions, about the

>rehostats why do so many people bypass them? from what ive

>read there is a flat spot in the crossover of the 3'sfrom the

>woofer to the mid. do the pots help in an eliminating this? i

>had no trouble dissasembeling and cleaning them, can you get

>replacement ceramic ones or is all they sell is sealed

>disosable ones? one of mine still doesent work too well after

>cleaning w/ contact cleaner and sanding the contacts.

> too late on the advice of not removing the grill cloth from

>the frames, as i already did, and the plastic weave is about

>an 1/4 inch too short to restaple to the frame, also the hard

>plastic frame is warped from being shrunk. i really like the

>plastic look, is that easier to find, all i hear is the linen,

>are mine first generation ar3's, since i dont have a 3 badge

>on them? crossover date is 1964 wernt they indroduced in 59?

Bypassing the L-pads is the "easy way out" in my opinion.

It corrects the symptoms without addressing the root cause.

Or the reason that AR put them there.

You need these to correct the driver output to the room acoustics and variables.

Trust me on this OK?

The L-Pads are usually worth cleaning but require you to unsolder them and use a Dremmel tool with a wire copper brush to remove the corrosion. (see the threads on this forum for many helpful hints on this topic)

This is a very time consuming thing but well worth the results!

After cleaning the wiping surface, and carefully!!!!! using the Dremmel on the wire wound resistor, spray all of the surfaces with a good contact cleaner to remove any residue and then with your finger, when dry, apply a coat of dielectric grease

(available at most automotive stores for $1.00 a package used for ignition systems) to all surfaces before re-assembling the pot.

Resist bending the copper wiper if you can since it beryllium and should be fine.

Dale in Reno.....

I will let someone else address the grill issue since I have had no luck with replacing these plastic critters with good results. They are best left alone in my opinion.

Dale in Reno.....

[Guest Sean]

Even if you run the pots wide open, the mid and tweeter response is still below that of the woofer. As such, adding the pots and wiring to hook all of this up simply adds up to more clutter in the signal path / increased signal degradation. My suggestion is to simply bypass the pots, but do so in a manner that removes all of the clutter that is associated with them in the circuit.

As a side note, i recently went through and modified a $3K pair of Legacy speakers for a member of my family. Without altering the actual circuit path or parts used in the crossover itself, i was able to eliminate 76 ( seventy six ) connections and multiple feet of wiring out of that pair of speakers. All of this "junk" was completely unnecessary and could have been avoided by the factory. That is, if the circuit was simply laid out more efficiently, which is all that we did.

Having done that along with changing the internal wiring of the speaker and adding damping material to the cabinet, the speakers are PHENOMENALLY better. The difference in transparency and liquidity are beyong comparison. Having heard the difference between before and after modifications, an owner of $5K Legacy's has asked if we can modify / upgrade his speakers. That should tell you how impressive the changes were in performance i.e. someone is willing to let a "nobody" modify their $5K "professionally designed and engineered" speakers.

Get that crap out of there, find some suitable low dielectric absorption caps, use some good low inductance wiring and hit the speakers with a LOT of music. It will take them a bit to break in, but the more music that you play and the higher the amplitude that you can play it, the more thoroughly and the faster they will settle in. If you do that, i think that you'll be amazed with how good your "antiques" can sound. Sean

>

[Guest russwollman]

So I'm going to offer a suggestion about your grille cloth even though none of these other pikers (except for Stan K) has replied to my earlier post asking about wiring new level controls when the old ones were bypassed...I get no respect here ;-).

What you do is you wash the linen by hand in warm water with mild detergent, rinse well, and while it's still wet you stretch it in both directions. Linen is quite strong, and you'll see, it will fit the frame once again.

Remember, it's only a hobby...

[Guest phillydog]

i tried that even though its the old plastic weave, which no one talks about doesnt stretch in hot h2o, and the hard plastic frames have cracked one the top just in the middle were the stress of the shinkage accured, guess ill look for some black replacment, should look good with the beautiful walnut finish. dont know about the frames though, might have to build some out of wood or something.