Removing AR Speakers Grill Covers?

Chip - HP

Super Member
This weekend, I picked up two pair of Acoustic Research AR-2ax speakers (from the late '60s or early '70s) ... in nice walnut cabinets ... I would like to examine the insides ... there are no screws in the back ... so I am assuming that the grill covers come off ... but there is very little clearance around the edges ... anybody got any good tips? ...
 
The grills are glued on from the factory. If you are lucky the glue has dried up and you can use a putty knife along the edges of the speaker grill to pry it loose. BE VERY CAREFUL that you do not break the masonite that the grill colths are attached to.
Once you have the grills off you might want to take out the woofers and remove the pots and clean them they come apart. They are most likely corroded. I have a pair of these speakers. They sound really good. You might also make sure the cardboard that the cloth surrounds are attached to on the woofers is still glued to the speaker baskets. If they are coming loose, use some permetex to reglue them. (that is if they have cloth surrounds. That all depends on the age of the speakers. I think a date is stamped on the magnet cover of the woofer.

Hope this helped

Harry
 
I recently picked up a pair of AR-4X's w/ the same issue. Once I removed the grills (carefully w/ a paint scraper), I removed all the glue globs and put in strips of Velcro instead.

Additionally, a bit of DeOxit & ProGold cleaned up the Pot in no-time!
 
Hey! Thanks for bringing this subject up. I was just using my AR-4x and I noticed that the pots felts like they had a bucket of sand in them. How hard is it to clean them up?

Don't be surprised when you take off the grilles and the drivers look like they were painted over. That's how they looked when they were new (and also why they glued the grilles on).
 
gonzothegreat said:
Hey! Thanks for bringing this subject up. I was just using my AR-4x and I noticed that the pots felts like they had a bucket of sand in them. How hard is it to clean them up?

It took me 5 minutes tops! Just unscrew the pot on the back, go inside the cabinet through the woofer and reach the pot. I sprayed w/ DeOxit, twisted it about 20 times, then ProGold'ed the mother a few minutes later. That's all it took for me!
 
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