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Acoustic Research AR18, - any good???

I have 2 pair of the Ar 18s and a pair of the AR 48s. Personally, I love the sound of both, but I'm from the school of "you can never have enough speakers!"
 
The AR9 is the pinnacle of AR speakers as I have a pair. The only problem is they are very very power hungry. I have a set of DH-500's powering them of course the 500's are in mono. At an estimated 800wpc in 4ohm it still isn't enough. The odd part is while there running they have a nasty habit of dropping down to 2ohms. I have the 9's a pair of AR-11's and AR-10pi's not to mention the 18b's. The 18's and the 18b's are very nice and a great value. Nice mids and highs not to mention great high bass. The 8 inch driver in the 18 is very simiiar to the 8 inch midrange in my AR-9's. Hope that helps.
 
I have a pair of 18's and 18b's and the sound great in a small room. These speakers I usually loan to friends and the last time an 18 came back it was missing a woofer, still haven't found one to replace it! The 18b's are still out, the guy loves them !
 
Back in 1980 I was employed n the Hi Fi industry and had a pair of AR 9's. I then picked up a pair of 18's for the bedroom and they sounded great. Then one day I took them out to the living room and put them on top of the AR 9's and......they sounded exactly the same! I listened and compared the two over a period of time and they were indistinguishable. I was shocked. That is how good the original AR 18 was.
 
I have the the Ar18s, and original Egg tweeter Large Advents. Sorry, but the Ar18s all the freaking way!!! They are exellent bookshelves! The advents are fun, but are nowhere near as coherent, or as "real" or natural as the midrange in the ar18s. I also prefer the highs over the Advents. Those AR Cone tweeters are extremely nice, suprisingly articulate, and have a very nice smooth extension. Very minimal crossover components in them, but they sound fantastic! The overall coherence just destroys Advents.
 
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