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Vintage speakers (AR3a) good enough for new amps?

J

Jorgul

New Member
Maybe correct way of asking this question should be reversely - New amps good enough for vintage speakers? but nevertheless the difficulty is the same.

With incredible help of RoyC very soon I will resurrect my pair of AR3a's, so I will need an amp for them.
Is it a good idea to go for a brand new amp for them or, they will ask for something more contemporary - made in their era to execute their mightiness?

I have my eye on this beautiful looking Yamaha A-S1000 that for now is out of my budget, but I hope that soon I will be able to afford it.

The question is, will they mate good?

i44v4o.jpg
 
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Any quality amp has the possibility to be a good match. Now you have to find the amp you like, what I mean by that is, amp + AR-3A = sound that you like.
 
Jorgul said:
Maybe correct way of asking this question should be reversely - New amps good enough for vintage speakers? but nevertheless the difficulty is the same.

With incredible help of RoyC very soon I will resurrect my pair of AR3a's, so I will need an amp for them.
Is it a good idea to go for a brand new amp for them or, they will ask for something more contemporary - made in their era to execute their mightiness?

I have my eye on this beautiful looking Yamaha A-S1000 that for now is out of my budget, but I hope that soon I will be able to afford it.

The question is, will they mate good?

i44v4o.jpg
Click to expand...
Personally I think it's ridiculous to assume (not you) that matching equipment from different eras is a no-no. Honestly, if you can, hook up and test for yourself. Amps, receivers, etc. have their own personalities and don't always work well together, even when both carry respectable reputations. My RS speakers sound best with my Denon receiver or my RS receivers. Not so much so with my Fisher receiver. My AR3a sound great with my STA-2000, though now that I write this, my STA might be at fault for the excentuated bass with some recordings, something I don't recall happening with my Fisher. Although the receivers are in different parts of the room.

Anyway, nice Yamaha. I like the simple clean look. I would think that as long as it can handle the low impedance dips of the AR speakers, might be a good match.
 
I agree completely with Copa! I have used my Adcom GFA555 and my TAD60 with my 3a's and they sound great with both tubes AND solid state.

The only concern should be making sure that anything vintage is in good working condition, especially with solid state amps that could fail and cause damage to those beautifully restored AR3a's. :scratch2:
 
The only thing that I would add to the wise comments of prior posters is to seek an amp with enough power to avoid, or more realistically, to minimize clipping at the highest volumes at which you will be listening on a regular basis.

I would estimate the sensitivity of the AR-3a to be around 85dB with 1 watt at 1 meter...Roy would know better, but I'm sure I'm close.

Assuming that you want to be able to play them at fairly loud levels at least some of the time, and assuming that your "listening spot" is 6-10 feet from the speakers, I would recommend an amp with a beefy power supply and at least 100-125 watts per channel of continuous output capability with a nominal 4 ohm load (and of course, more is better!!).

And before anybody takes my head off....yes, of course you can drive them with much lower power; in fact, the brochure for the 3a's calls for a minimum of only 25 watts. But unless you keep the volume fairly suppressed, a 25 watt amp is going to be into clipping pretty heavily as soon as you try to turn them up...and leaving aside the negative impacts on the amp, a clipped signal is not going to allow the 3a's to sound nearly as good as they can.
 
You are correct, the sensitivity is around 85db, it's advertised at 86db.

Excellent recommendation,:thmbsp:
 
moinau said:
You are correct, the sensitivity is around 85db, it's advertised at 86db.

Excellent recommendation,:thmbsp:
Click to expand...

On the contrary, the 3a was designed in an era when amps were much smaller than now. Pairing a 3a with anything much over 50W, or 100W if you are careful, can be disasterous. Clipping doesn't hurt speakers, power does.

Oh, and the 3a doesn't have any particularly noticeable dips in its impedance.

-k
 
ken kantor said:
On the contrary, the 3a was designed in an era when amps were much smaller than now. Pairing a 3a with anything much over 50W, or 100W if you are careful, can be disasterous. Clipping doesn't hurt speakers, power does.

Oh, and the 3a doesn't have any particularly noticeable dips in its impedance.

-k
Click to expand...

and what would numerous self-claimed AR3a experts say to this? :D


To the OP: I've usually mated my mine with a number of modern amps. Currently they're being driven by a Redgum RGi60 - the best match I've ever had.
 
Well, this is the first time I hear that, clipping does not hurt speakers.
I agree that being too generous on the power band, will fry your tweeters and possibly glue the woofer and mid, but clipping is also a death sentence for speakers.
Sorry, but we differ in opinions.

Also, the lowest impedance on the 3 is, 3.4ohm, and 4,2ohm on the 3A
All and every speakers will vary their impedance at different freq.
 
moinau said:
Well, this is the first time I hear that, clipping does not hurt speakers.
I agree that being too generous on the power band, will fry your tweeters and possibly glue the woofer and mid, but clipping is also a death sentence for speakers.
Sorry, but we differ in opinions.

Also, the lowest impedance on the 3 is, 3.4ohm, and 4,2ohm on the 3A
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http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=549410

why isn't the above a sticky yet?
 
Good question, and excellent article, but I still maintain, clipping is not good for speakers. Trying to go over the capability of an amp, is not recommended.
 
On the contrary, the 3a was designed in an era when amps were much smaller than now. Pairing a 3a with anything much over 50W, or 100W if you are careful, can be disasterous. Clipping doesn't hurt speakers, power does.

Oh, and the 3a doesn't have any particularly noticeable dips in its impedance.
Click to expand...



As regards impedance of the 3a...I guess it depends upon what you mean by noticeable. I believe that it can drop to nearly 3 ohms. However, other than noting that the amplifier the OP chooses must be capable of handling a 4 ohm load, I made no other comment regarding impedance.

As regards appropriate amplifier power...we will agree to disagree. While the tweeters are certainly not very robust, and can be damaged by overpowering (especially when turned to full output via the crossover pot, and then exacerbated by boosting treble at the amp - as was done by many listeners tryng to get more out of that reticent tweeter), there are many very knowledgeable AR enthusiasts who would suggest that 100-150 watts is quite appropriate...and some who use quite a bit more than that with good results. They are not efficient speakers. And yes, one certainly must be judicious with the gain, but as you most certainly know, music without clipping sounds MUCH better than music with clipping...which was the basis of my recommendation.

Not sure why you threw in the line about clipping not damaging speakers - I certainly did not assert that it does. What it does hurt is sound quality.
 
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Your Redgum RGi60 (60w/ch) is stable at 4ohm and has a peak power of over 135watts, consequently, an excellent match for your 3A
 
OK, I've taken the bait regarding clipping and speaker damage.

Before I start stripping off line, can we agree that because of the compression of the signal that defines clipping, the average power over time being output to the speakers is significantly higher than it would be in a non-clipping scenario? And that this excess power is what damages the speaker?

If so, then I spit out the bait. I will, however, express my distaste for it. Yes, to be technically correct, it is not the clipping that is causing the damage (that is, it's not the clipping distortion)...rather, the damage is caused by too much power over extended transient periods. But, in this scenario it is the clipping that caused the problem of too much average power. I value precision in language quite highly, but distinguishing between: a) damage caused by clipping and b) damage caused by too much average power caused by clipping is a bit pedantic even for my tastes.
 
Jorgul said:
Maybe correct way of asking this question should be reversely - New amps good enough for vintage speakers? but nevertheless the difficulty is the same.

With incredible help of RoyC very soon I will resurrect my pair of AR3a's, so I will need an amp for them.
Is it a good idea to go for a brand new amp for them or, they will ask for something more contemporary - made in their era to execute their mightiness?

I have my eye on this beautiful looking Yamaha A-S1000 that for now is out of my budget, but I hope that soon I will be able to afford it.

The question is, will they mate good?

i44v4o.jpg
Click to expand...

You could drop down to the A-S700 which is no less power
 
ken kantor said:
On the contrary, the 3a was designed in an era when amps were much smaller than now. Pairing a 3a with anything much over 50W, or 100W if you are careful, can be disasterous. Clipping doesn't hurt speakers, power does.

Oh, and the 3a doesn't have any particularly noticeable dips in its impedance.

-k
Click to expand...

I know you designed speakers for AR, and I've just read so much the opposite from folks, on CSP especially, so those are pretty astounding statements to me.

I guess I can stop worrying I'm missing something (on 2 pair of AR3as) with only 150 wpc :-) Truth is I can only stand anything above about 10 watts for a few minutes.
 
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