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AR9 are in the house

hhibrownsbac

hhibrownsbac

Super Member
Finally found one of my wish list speakers and I managed to pick these up yesterday. They will need some work as the woofers need refoamed and Im sure a recapping is in order. Sounds like a decent project for the summer. So does anyone have any experience with a set of these back breaking monsters?:scratch2:
 

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Those speakers are next on my list, your pair looks very nice - much nicer than the few pairs I've seen for sale. Great find!

You're gonna need an amp that's up to the tall task of driving those tall beauties!
 
Nice find! They look to be in really nice shape. I've re-foamed my AR-10 pi speakers. They have the same woofers. Overall they were easy to do.

I've never encounterd a pair of the AR-9s but some day I'd love to have a pair. What are you going to drive them with?
 
Wow.

:jawdrop:

Much like the AR90's they are designed to be against the wall with space for the side woofers to breath.

High current SS amplication will bring out the beast in them :yes:.
 
Very nice. Whatever you do, don't run them on the tube amp pictured. If you have an amp of 200 watts or so, capable of driving widely-varied impedance loads, you should be fine.
 
Congrats on finding your pair of bucket list speakers:thmbsp:, they look to be in very nice cosmetic condition.
 
sealy said:
Very nice. Whatever you do, don't run them on the tube amp pictured. If you have an amp of 200 watts or so, capable of driving widely-varied impedance loads, you should be fine.
Click to expand...

Those tube amps are projects waiting for time and energy and will never be hooked up to the AR9s.
 
hhibrownsbac said:
Those tube amps are projects waiting for time and energy and will never be hooked up to the AR9s.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I'd say a Yamaha M-80 or 85 would git'er done! At least you have the proper speaker wires hanging on the back wall! :yes:

Enjoy your find and the next step on the quest! Looks like it's going to be a fun summer! :thmbsp:
 
Great score!:tresbon:

I've had my AR 9's since they came on the market years ago.

I refoamed them and rebuilt the xovers about three years ago.

I'm now driving them with a pair of Carver TFM-45's (bi-amp) that were restored by Rita at Bob Carvers' repair center. Bob actually signed both of them too!

They can put out ~ 1000 watts per speaker.

They are powerful speakers and put out some serious sound.

Your going to love them!:thmbsp:

John
 
Yes they look like they are are great condition by the photos, on my bucket list as well. It won't be long before all the AR9's out there all have new foam on the bass drivers as I see a lot of AK members posting there AR9 finds and the need to refoam the bass drivers.
 
I just did a once-over on mine yesterday when I was replacing the speaker cables, taking stock of their current condition (I try not to have to move them very often for obvious reasons). I had the woofers refoamed when I bought them about a year ago, and when I was looking at them yesterday I noticed a small gap between the cone and the foam on one of the woofers where apparently the glue had come loose... :tears:

So sometime soon I think I am going to do a bit of an overhaul, the standard stuff and some other ideas I have come across while reading about them: fixing the glue on the woofer, putting new gaskets in for the woofers, checking the condition of the chamber for the 8" midrange (how well attached it is internally), recapping the crossovers, possibly replacing the binding posts with heavier-duty ones, etc.

The most daunting part is the re-capping. I understand it is quite an undertaking with these, and I am always so confused on which caps to use... :saywhat:
 
Incredible speakers there. Probably much-too-big for my living room, but one can dream, can't they? Man, those are nice. I'd love to see a shootout between a pair of AR9's, Bozak Symphonies, and maybe a pair of Wharfedale W90's (The W90's might get eaten up by the other two, but I'd still love to see it). The AR9's are definitely bucket-list speakers...
 
Gang-Twanger said:
Incredible speakers there. Probably much-too-big for my living room, but one can dream, can't they? Man, those are nice. I'd love to see a shootout between a pair of AR9's, Bozak Symphonies, and maybe a pair of Wharfedale W90's (The W90's might get eaten up by the other two, but I'd still love to see it). The AR9's are definitely bucket-list speakers...
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I hope they sound better than the Symphonies as I had a set of them 2 years or so ago and wasnt to impressed. I had high hopes for the Bozaks but after months of hunting down a few replacement drivers, doing the crossover mods and cleaning them up I was not blown away:tears:. They sounded good, actually real good, BUT not spectacular. Needless to say they moved on:yes:.
 
Hate to jump on the band wagon. But.... I've got AR9's on the very top of my list to.

I'm working on a very rare pair of AR12's as we speak, I've gotten 1 of them together already and been beaking it in and Boy do I love it. I can imagine how the AR9's sound with some clean high wattage pumped into them. IIMC don't they weight something like 75lbs each?
 
Great find. They look like they are in amazing shape. Someone took good care of them.
 
I mentioned earlier I recapped my AR9's a few years ago.

I forgot I made a list of all the caps that are needed to do the recapping.

Attached is the excel sheet in a zip file that lists them. I hope it's still accurate, don't think I made any changes after making the list.

Think I got most if not all the caps from madisound.com.

Hope this helps.....if I can answer any question just ask.

Good luck with restoring yours, you'll be very very happy with them.:thmbsp:

John
 

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Awesome classics there. Had the opportunity to spend a couple of days with a pair and a LOT of amplification. They did Rock like nothing else, and handled more delicate things as well. You do need some breathing room but the range as well as the performance is just off the charts!

Have fun!

cnh
 
ive ran my 9's with a few different amps.you need high current ,hi dampening factor amps to get the best out of them due to the 4 ohm load..Best set up i had was my 2-hk citation 16a's bridged mono,one hk driving the 4-12 in woofers and the other hk driving the top end.I just aquired a pair of big soundcraftsman ma5002 amps{280 wpc@8,400 wpc @4 ohm},they will be going in for recap and then i will turn them lose on the 9's.Ive used big recievers{pioneer sx 1250,rotel rx1603,}and tho the sound was great they just didnt have enough omff for the 9's,high powered seperates will get you results.
 
I have owned & rebuilt a pair of these "tall boys", a really nice vintage speaker well worth ones effort to restore. There are two xover boards- on upper & one lower. The lower one is set up for the woofer section. I measure the caps in mine and they were in spec and had no leakage (esr). The upper sect I replaced the aged, out of spec caps with some Dayton 1% and they made an improvement. Got to be careful- if that tweeter cap drifts to far off it will allow to much signal and blow a very hard to find tweeter!!

Check the woofer spiders for flatness, mine had been stored on their sides for many years and caused them to sag- they had to be rebuilt after that.

All in all these are great speakers- but get yourself a high current amp to power them. I used two amps and bi-amped mine for best results. I used a DH 500 on the low end and a small 75 wpc Pioneer on the upper end. I used a dual output preamp to push both amps. WOW did they ever sound glorious after that!!

Good luck- you now have some very nice speakers!!
DC
 
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