I bought these speakers used in 1974 and have owned them ever since, and played them through my Fisher 500C tube receiver. 6 months ago I decided to rebuild them due to the pots being scratchy and intermittent. Like most undertakings like this, once you get started, you are committed and it blossoms into a full restoration. New pots from Vintage AR were installed, along with all new polypropylene capacitors in the crossovers to replace the aging wax paper caps. The original caps were left in place in the cabinets for originality. The woofers were sent to Orange County Speaker and were refurbed with new surrounds. The expert techs at Orange County Speaker recommended the new surrounds saying that the originals were fatigued and to sound correct and like new, new surrounds were needed. The midrange and tweeters were fine. The cabinets are in decent shape for their age. If you want new cabinets, you will have to go back to the 1960’s. There is some missing veneer on the corners, and some lifting of the veneer in some places- I have tried to show this in the pictures. The veneer missing on the corners is just the veneer only- pictures make it appear worse than it is. Overall, though, they are very presentable in appearance and you could touch up the small spots of missing veneer with some stain to make them less visible. The bottoms of the speakers, of course, have more wear/ scratches, lifting. These are classic vintage speakers, and are close to 50 years old, so please don’t expect new looking cabinets. These speakers have had all the acoustic upgrades done for you. These are ready to play and enjoy!! They are super well packed, wrapped in foam board, surrounded by densely packed packing paper. I have left the grill cloth boards loose- if you want to keep them installed you will just need to use some new velcro tape- left them loose as some people like to leave them off- they are original cloth and emblems in great shape. Below is some history of the AR3’s… No loudspeaker by Acoustic Research has been more influential than the original Acoustic Research AR-3 acoustic suspension speaker. The AR-1 had set a new benchmark for loudspeaker technology, but the AR-3 was so outstandingly accurate that experts had trouble identifying whether a recording or a live concert was playing in front of them. Let´s note here, that this is not the AR-3a speaker from 1967. But its prior version from 1958. The AR-3 speaker had been designed by Edgar Villchur, whereas the newer AR-3a speaker was designed by Roy Allison. Even though both speakers are fairly similar, the AR-3 has been a landmark for the loudspeaker industry and had been recognized by the public significantly more than the later AR-3a. History of the AR-3. The AR-3 entered the market in 1958, 4 years after the first ever acoustic suspension loudspeaker, the AR-1 was introduced. Acoustic Research had by then tested a new tweeter design, developed by Villchur, called the hemispherical dome direct radiator tweeter, which was used in the new AR-3 models. Besides the newly invented dome tweeter, Villchur´s loudspeaker also received the AR-1s woofer from 1954, which had been another speaker technology landmark, as it was the first ever commercial acoustic suspension speaker. The result was a speaker that produced music more accurately than any other speaker at its time and is until today one of the highest performing speakers available when measuring accuracy. This outstanding accuracy made the AR-3 speaker famous, and its reputation for being the “most accurate loudspeaker at any cost” led to its usage in many professional settings, such as concert halls or record studios. The reputation for unmet accuracy was underlined by a series of concerts during the 1960ies in which Acoustic Research directly compared a live string quartet with a recorded version of the same music played by the AR-3. Listeners were unable to detect the switch overs between recorded and live music, which supported the already established reputation of this loudspeaker and leaves a great impression as to how accurate this speaker has been. Even after the “improved” version of the AR-3, the newer AR-3a model was introduced to the market in the mid 60ies, Acoustic Research continued to manufacture the original AR-3, by then over 10 years old, until the 1970ies. The item “Vintage AR-3 Stereo Speakers- Rebuilt/upgraded- Acoustic Research AR3″ is in sale since Sunday, December 27, 2015. This item is in the category “Consumer Electronics\Vintage Electronics\Vintage Audio & Video\Vintage Speakers”. The seller is “coedwig” and is located in Coronado, California. This item can be shipped to United States.
- Brand: Acoustic Research
- Model: AR3