Question about AR90 wire colours

[Rlowe]

I found the WIRE COLOURS to the top 3 speakers in MY AR90s are wired the reverse of what is shown on the AR90 schematic.jpg on the Vertical Series page.

The AR90 schematic shows the Yellow/Orange/White/Black being connected to the negative terminal while MY AR90s the Blue/Brown/Green/Black wires are connected to the negative terminal. I have tried to attach a photo of the coloured wire connections where the Blue/Brown & Green wires can be seen joining at the connection of the 8uF and the 40uF capacitor to make it clear.

Why would the designers change their wiring colours during production?

With this reverse wiring I was connecting the “+” to the wrong side of the speakers using the colours in the manual.

I have reversed the colours now and the Blue/Brown/Green are connected to the “+”. I find the sound clearer.

I was thinking that i this was the case in other AR90s it may not be picked up unless the owner used the schematic diagram as reference. I would be interested to know if anyone else has the reverse wiring I refer to above.

[r_laski]

>> I found the WIRE COLORS to the top 3 speakers in MY AR90s are wired the reverse of what is shown on the AR90 schematic.jpg on the Vertical Series page.

The AR90 schematic shows the Yellow/Orange/White/Black being connected to the negative terminal while MY AR90s the Blue/Brown/Green/Black wires are connected to the negative terminal. I have tried to attach a photo of the colored wire connections where the Blue/Brown & Green wires can be seen joining at the connection of the 8uF and the 40uF capacitor to make it clear.

Why would the designers change their wiring colors during production?

With this reverse wiring I was connecting the “+” to the wrong side of the speakers using the colors in the manual.

I have reversed the colors now and the Blue/Brown/Green are connected to the “+”. I find the sound clearer.

I was thinking that if this was the case in other AR90s it may not be picked up unless the owner used the schematic diagram as reference. I would be interested to know if anyone else has the reverse wiring I refer to above.<<

Your picture doesn’t come up. Is it less than 750Kb – limitation for attachments?

Something is very wrong here with your explanation. Are you the original owner and is the attenuation / equalization board still installed? Has anyone done any work on the crossover before?

Standing at the back of the speaker - the Red (+) binding post terminal is on the right. Looking through the woofer holes at the upper crossover board – the (+) binding post terminal is on the left.

In addition to the schematic, I downloaded the AR-90 crossover blueprints. I cropped and super-sized each of the crossover boards to use along with the schematic as references. The AR-90s I worked on were wired exactly as shown on the blueprints and schematic.

If you are only looking at the schematic, DO NOT confuse which terminal a wire is connected to at the driver and where it is connected on the crossover. AR followed the “standard wiring convention” where the lighter color wire at each and every driver is connected to the positive (+) terminal of that driver irregardless of where the other end was connected on the crossover.

WHITE: There are THREE white wires is the AR-90 crossover. One white wire is connected to the (+) binding post terminal on the upper board and connects to the 3.83mH woofer coil on the bottom board. A second white wire connects to the common (-) terminal on the bottom board and goes to the (+) terminal on the lower midrange driver. You should (may) see a very short third white wire. It connects between the (+) binding post terminal of the upper board and the center (Input) of the equalization/attenuation PC board. If my memory serves me correctly, on one AR-90 one of these short wires was not white, but was connected per the blueprint.

GREEN: There are TWO green wires in the AR-90 crossover.

Green (Light): connected between the (-) binding post terminal of the upper board and the common (-) terminal of the lower board.

Green (Dark) connected between one terminal of the 80uF capacitor on the lower board (same terminal the 30uF cap is connected to) and the (-) terminal of the lower midrange.

BLACK: Connected from the common (-) terminal of the lower board to the (-) terminal of each woofer.

VIOLET: Connects between the PC board (lower mid range output) and 2.63mH coil of lower midrange crossover.

ORANGE: Connects between (-) binding post terminal on upper board and (+) terminal of upper midrange.

BROWN: Connects between common terminal for 1.37mH coil, .800mH coil, and 8uF cap and the (-) terminal of the upper midrange.

YELLOW: Connects between (-) binding post terminal on upper board and (+) terminal of tweeter.

BLUE: Connects between 6uF cap and (-) terminal on tweeter.

In other words, on the upper crossover board, connected to the (+) and (-) binding post terminals you should see:

(+) POSITIVE BINDING POST TERMINAL (Left):

Short wire (white) connected to PC board

White wire connected to 3.83mH coil on lower board

(-) NEGATIVE BINDING POST TERMINAL (Right):

40uF cap

8uF cap

1.37mH coil

.105mH coil (runs under the PC board)

Yellow wire

Orange wire

Green (Light) wire

The blue and brown (and black) wires ARE NOT connected to binding post terminals

Rich

[Rlowe]

Rich,

Thanks for the reply.

I sent you an email to see if I could send you the picture.

I knew the problem would be hard to explain without it, but I couldn't guarantee the picture would upload until after the post. I did get a confirmation message saying the picture was ....user_files160.jpg before I posted. I will triple check the wiring.

I've tried again to upload it here.

The response was

>>>>

The file you chose was sucessfully uploaded to the server.

The URL of this file is http://www.arsenal.net/dc/user_files/163.jpg

>>>>

Oh my goodness it has come up!!

I didn't expect that

[r_laski]

Timbertop,

I see what you mean. Something is very wrong with the color of the wires on the negative binding post terminal. The orange and yellow wires are supposed to be where the blue and brown are. I can't see it very well, but it looks like the orange (looks red in picture) wire is soldered to the terminal where the brown should be. I also see there is no printed circuit (PC) board!!! The resistors, wires, and capacitors are soldered directly to terminals on the switches.

It also looks like there is only one color of green wire in your picture. The one connected to the (-) binding post terminal should be connected to the common ground (-) terminal on the bottom board.

(Confirmed in e-mail that yellow wire was connected where blue should be).

I see one white wire on the positive (+) binding post terminal. I also see what appears to be a bare silver wire that connects all the center terminals of the switches together. Is there another wire that connects from the (+) binding post terminal to this bare silver wire across the switches? I can't tell if there is a black wire there under everything or if that's a shadow, but there should be another wire on the (+) binding post terminal.

I've never seen a speaker wired "backward" like this. From your post, it sounds like you have taken care of it by reversing the connections at the drivers -- upper midrange and high range (tweeter). The only other solution would be to de-solder and reconnect the wires according to the blueprint.

Rich