Acoustic Research AR-1 Find Today
- Thread starter VintagePlus
- Start date
GD70
Lunatic Member
Yup, same way. My AR3's had the earlier style pots, all were badly corroded and had to be replaced with the newer commonly used pots.
VintagePlus
Super Member
Gotta be getting rarer all the time. These are keepers for me and will remain intact. Crazy what the drivers fetch so it's no wonder they are parted out and shipped to Asia.
Not to disagree but... I will
. Many more sets of LS3/5a's available for sale than AR 1's You are correct the Rogers are easier to ship.
VintagePlus
Super Member
I have heard a few sets of LS3/5A and have really enjoyed them as well as owning Harbeth P3's and currently SHL5's. Will be interesting to see how the 1's stack up. Just have to get sound out of the one speaker...
HyKlas
Super Member
Congrats!
They do midrange extremely well. I ran the ones I had around here with a pair of Heil Elites for a little while and that was the best I had ever heard Stevie's guitar sound. The attack of that Altec driver is just amazing.
Looking forward to your impressions once the pot is repaired...
They do midrange extremely well. I ran the ones I had around here with a pair of Heil Elites for a little while and that was the best I had ever heard Stevie's guitar sound. The attack of that Altec driver is just amazing.
Looking forward to your impressions once the pot is repaired...
VintagePlus
Super Member
They are going into a well trusted speaker guru for repair and then a talented cabinet shop to make the cabinets perfect. As well as new grills using the original material. I will post updates as they come along!
g..v
Lunatic Member
Based on this quote, why should they be considered?
Typical of sealed-box speakers of similar size, the 3/5A has little or no low bass, but the design reinforced its lower register by a boost at around 160 Hz, giving the subjective impression that the speaker is more bass-rich.[7][10][15] It has a gently rising frequency response above 5kHz,[14] leading reviewers to notice the sound being a little bright at the treble registers, or that the speakers "reproduce the high- etc...
WTF???
Isn't bass of substantial quality and quantity among the desired attributes? (One more reason little speakers don't impress me.)
Typical of sealed-box speakers of similar size, the 3/5A has little or no low bass, but the design reinforced its lower register by a boost at around 160 Hz, giving the subjective impression that the speaker is more bass-rich.[7][10][15] It has a gently rising frequency response above 5kHz,[14] leading reviewers to notice the sound being a little bright at the treble registers, or that the speakers "reproduce the high- etc...
WTF???
Isn't bass of substantial quality and quantity among the desired attributes? (One more reason little speakers don't impress me.)
VintagePlus
Super Member
Absolutely agree with you. Not sure why his opinion on the not rare at all 3/5A speaker. Bass plays a major role in sound reproduction. If you are in a very small room within 5 feet of your speakers the LS3/5A shines but absolutely no bass you are correct. Although if placed on proper stands and anchored properly they will blow your mind....
A pair of Altec 755s is pretty deep into "holy grail" range.
Only comparisons I was trying to make between Rogers and ar1 is that they are both holy grail regarding the silly money they bring. From a serial# quantity made vs. how many still remain intact I get it. From a sonic standpoint it's sorta a joke. I could whip out some Stephens, Lorenz, norelco that would make ones jaws drop to the floor for much less $$. Good on u vintage for keeping them and doing them up right. To me there like Bose 601 series III and ls3/5, Prime for flipping to the Asian market.
Much depends on what you value in listening, how much room you have, how much volume you need to listen to, and how loud do you ultimately need a speaker to be given the first 3 issues, plus the type of music and vocals the LS3/5a was DESIGNED to do. The LS3/5a is designed as a small volume or area control or studio monitor primarily for vocals. It is optimized for the best sound quality of its day for a very small cabinet for relatively small spaces. It is designed to convey accurate and natural voice reproduction, and point out flaws in then tape and vinyl based recordings and broadcasts for the BBC. The bottom end is very much a compromise in giving the sense of bass reproduction without the physics-ly impossible ability to reproduce true bass and low bass with a small diameter and excursion 5 inch bextrene driver. The system designers (Dudley Harwood (of early Harbeth fame and designer of the polypropylene cone), Maurice Whatton, and R. Mills) plus a number of BBC techs, studio and sound people, added, primped, and adjusted the overall balance of the speaker repeatedly over about a year's R&D time to include the famous BBC dip and mid bass bump to give the speaker a slight bass boost to imply bass, and recess the balance ever so slightly to make the male vocals a bit less prominent. Female vocals are actually pretty sublime with the LS3/5a. The high end is actually a little hot (not tizzy) due to the protective tweeter grille and the need to be able to hear any problems over FM radio broadcasts and taped broadcasts done on Reel to Reel. Remember, this speaker was designed as an analytical tool and monitor for broadcast and studio use so was not meant to sound "hi-fi" or "pleasing" but rather sound accurate and natural, even though the frequency response is not ruler flat. Many many LS3/5a tweeters and crossover were burned out when someone inadvertently fast rewound or fast wound a RTR while the speaker was playing.
To the reasonably learned ears of the BBC personnel and professional sound, producers, and musicians of the day, it was a pretty darn good SMALL speaker - with known limits on how low, how loud, and how BIG it could sound. Within those limits, it works quite well. When people then, later, and today expand its use in the home environment, they will find a speaker with very good imaging ability, very good voice and music reproduction within its output and frequency limits, and an uncanny ability to essentially melt away and disappear from the setup, and involving the listener into a well recorded piece. However, if the recording or production is poor, the speaker is pretty ruthless about revealing that.
Yes, there are complaints about lack of power handling, limited frequency range, "slow" bextrene drivers (some of which was addressed with the 11 ohm revision from 1987 on), and aging effects on original LS3/5a woofers. But somehow the LS3/5a just does a lot of things well, just not everything. Even the BBC addressed that because the LS3 series is not what they base critical programme changes on, rather that belongs to the generally larger LS5 series, specifically the LS5/8, LS5/9, and the medium sized LS5/12, the last of the in house LS loudspeakers designed by the BBC. The last was built in conjunction with Harbeth and Dynaudio, and features tremendous power handling, output, and imaging in a relatively modest sized cabinet.
The LS5/8:
The LS5/9:
The LS5/12 next to a pair of LS3/5a's. The Dynaudio woofer is hugely vented to the rear and the Dynaudio Tweeter is grille protected.
The important thing to remember is English homes tend to be smaller and they don't necessarily listen at high volumes or high bass volumes, at least back then. Same for many Asian homes. Also the listening tastes of Non-Americans tends in many cases to be less bass dependent (we sorta invented rock and roll AND bass heavy speakers). The British were late to catch up with multiwoofer speakers with heavier bass output, and much of the Hi-Fi press there pretty much hated American speakers unless they were AR or ADS types.
So smaller speakers still tend to work best in small to medium sized intimate acoustic environments, sometimes augmented with well integrated subs - the LS3/5a though wasn't easy to integrate due to its crossover. Still, the LS3/5a started and continues to motivate the sub/satellite designs, and the LS3/5a is probably one of the most imitated speaker designs in the world. The demand for the speakers is still pretty high, partly for the sound, partly because they truly are easy to ship and move around the world, and partly because of the mystical / mythical / and magical thinking that goes on with every human about something they like, heard they should like, or want to believe the speaker can do. The fact that demand continues to up the prices on a relatively fixed amount of supply over the past 15 years is somewhat astounding, and that's why some people look at the LS3/5a, a JBL Hartsfield or Paragon, a Tannoy whatever, or a UREI / Altec monitor not as a great speaker, but more of a financial commodity to be acquired, bartered, or sold at profit. Same goes for old Porsches, Ferraris, Vettes, Muscle cars, and the various race cars that one may acquire over one's lifetime.
So smaller speakers still tend to work best in small to medium sized intimate acoustic environments, sometimes augmented with well integrated subs - the LS3/5a though wasn't easy to integrate due to its crossover. Still, the LS3/5a started and continues to motivate the sub/satellite designs, and the LS3/5a is probably one of the most imitated speaker designs in the world. The demand for the speakers is still pretty high, partly for the sound, partly because they truly are easy to ship and move around the world, and partly because of the mystical / mythical / and magical thinking that goes on with every human about something they like, heard they should like, or want to believe the speaker can do. The fact that demand continues to up the prices on a relatively fixed amount of supply over the past 15 years is somewhat astounding, and that's why some people look at the LS3/5a, a JBL Hartsfield or Paragon, a Tannoy whatever, or a UREI / Altec monitor not as a great speaker, but more of a financial commodity to be acquired, bartered, or sold at profit. Same goes for old Porsches, Ferraris, Vettes, Muscle cars, and the various race cars that one may acquire over one's lifetime.
Till now I had no idea the AR1's had 755a's. But I know what a 755a is. Holy cow.
VintagePlus
Super Member
The one speaker I have heard, the 755A is quite magical. Next tuesday they should be off to start the restoration process. I will post the progress of course.
g..v
Lunatic Member
25,523 posts says you've been here quite a while. What on earth could you have been doing?
VintagePlus
Super Member
Actually was picking up some AR 11's and he asked me if I was interested in some AR 1's.... Of course i just about had a heart attack... haha.
Also picked up a Luxman M02, Marantz 2215, Harman Kardon Citation 11 and some Thorens parts.
