Edgar Villchur didn’t set out to start a speaker company; he just wanted to license his acoustic suspension designs to other speaker companies. In the early’50s, he shopped the concept to the biggest names in the business, but not a single one was interested. So Villchur started Acoustic Research in 1952, and his very first speaker, the AR-1, was an immediate hit. Villchur’s design strategy used the elasticity of air within a sealed cabinet to provide the restoring force for the driver, which allowed his relatively small speakers to produce deep, low-distortion bass. Villchur’s AR-3 was an even greater departure. The look was pure and clean, just a plain, wood-veneered box, but lurking behind the knit-cloth grille was the world’s first production dome tweeter and dome midrange drivers, and a 12-inch cone woofer. By today’s standards, the AR-3 wasn’t all that small-it came in at 25 inches tall, 14 inches wide, and 11.5 inches deep, and weighed 47 pounds. What made the AR-3 a sensation was the sound. In the early’60s, Villchur conducted a series of live-versus-recorded demonstrations in which the sound of a live string quartet was compared with the recorded quartet played through a pair of AR-3s. Most listeners couldn’t tell the difference between the speakers and the musicians, a testament to the AR-3’s quality. With original drivers and new AR sealant paste and new batting, as well as new pots and caps. This speaker sounds wonderful. The cabinet is in good shape with some scratches. The grill is a bit loose but in good shape. This item is in the category “Consumer Electronics\Vintage Electronics\Vintage Audio & Video\Vintage Speakers”. The seller is “proart” and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped to United States.
- Model: AR3
- MPN: ACOUSTIC RESEARCH