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AR 38s Not convinced

J

JCTroncoso

New Member
Hi there!

Greetings from Warsaw, Poland.

I recently bought a Marantz 2250B and wanted to look for a nice, good quality, not too big, pair of speakers for this receiver. I saw an occasion and bought the AR 38s. I'm not an expert and forgive me if I say something wrong but I was not convinced by the sound of these AR's. I wanted to have a nice harmonic, smooth, defined and very crystal clear sound where all the instruments/sounds are clearly identified. My perception is that didn't achieve this with the 38s. IMHO there is a lack of mids and some weak highs. Maybe I should go to 3 drivers?. I mostly listen to jazz, classic, electronic and rock&pop from 70s.

Any help, comments will be appreciated,

Regards,

JC
 
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Acoustic Research never been the most refined rendering speakers as I recall correctly.
I have a pair of AR2ax... even recapped....Nah.

Go with Monitor Audio, Rogers even Rega. You will have to pay more but you'll get more for your money.

Placement of the speakers is critical too.

Good luck !
 
AR did have a 3-way AR-38 model for a while. It had a 0.75" dome tweeter (basically the same as the AR-9), a 4.5" cone midrange, and an 8.0" woofer. A good little speaker.

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As to more refined AR's, any of the dome mid 3-ways are considered very respectable. AR-3, AR-3a, AR-303, AR-10, AR-11, AR-5, AR-91, AR-92, AR-58S, and mainly in Europe, the AR-915 and AR-925. Any of these would be worth owning. These are all considered (more or less) bookshelf speakers. If you can go bigger, consider the AR-9, AR-90, and AR-9LS(i) models. State of the art, in their day.
 
Is this the model you have - - 10" woofer and 1-1/4" tweeter? I have no personal experience with this model, but the smaller AR-18s (same tweeter and 8" woofer) is considered almost a cult classic as a near field studio monitor. This tweeter works very well with the smaller woofer but I've not heard the 38s with the larger woofer. Generally, I think this is a great series of speakers, but your tastes may be different. Before you make up your final decision, be certain that you have all original drivers, inspect the woofer foams, and you should consider replacing the capacitors, too.

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ra.ra said:
Is this the model you have - - 10" woofer and 1-1/4" tweeter? I have no personal experience with this model, but the smaller AR-18s (same tweeter and 8" woofer) is considered almost a cult classic as a near field studio monitor. This tweeter works very well with the smaller woofer but I've not heard the 38s with the larger woofer. Generally, I think this is a great series of speakers, but your tastes may be different. Before you make up your final decision, be certain that you have all original drivers, inspect the woofer foams, and you should consider replacing the capacitors, too.

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Yes, this is exactly the model. Thank you very much. I will take them to the tech to check the capacitors. I will see which is the result after that.
 
JCTroncoso said:
Yes, this is exactly the model. Thank you very much. I will take them to the tech to check the capacitors. I will see which is the result after that.
Click to expand...

It looks like 2 capacitors in each speaker. So, there's room for improvement, with a recap.


AR38S 2 Drawing472.jpg
 

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The AR 38 will almost surely need new foam on the woofers. If it hasn't been done already, then that is at least part of the problem.
 
IMG_3930.jpg IMG_3932.jpg IMG_3934.jpg

Thank you all for your comments. Well, as I said before, I will take them to the tech but I have a feeling the something is not working properly and maybe the guilty ones are the capacitors. Here I post some pics of the woofer and tweeter
 
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Those are very good drivers. The tweeters were designed by Roy Allison, and should give a smooth, musical sound. Plus, the woofers are very similar to the 10" woofers in my AR90's. So, they're also nice woofers. I'd be willing to bet, once they're recapped, your speaker's performance will improve for the better.
 
I agree with Stimpy, drivers appear fully original and seem to be in great condition. Not sure why these are not sounding right - - I would expect them to be much like the AR-18s and 28s but with a bigger bottom end.
 
Those should sound pretty good. Aside from the points about recapping and surrounds, I found (way back when) that they were quite placement sensitive. Experiment.
 
The woofer surrounds look fairly new. My gut says these are not the originals hence the lifted edge on the left side in the pic. Except for that, the refoam job looks very good. Glue that edge back down.
Get the caps replaced and report back. This era of AR's are very good.
 
Just took a look at some pics of AR promo shots, and the surrounds are definitely replaced. The surround roll is smaller and the black foam trim ring is absent. I'm sure they will sound great regardless, but thought the more info on these you have, the better.
Cheers, Glenn
 
GD70 said:
The surround roll is smaller....
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Good call....that's exactly what I was thinking, but since the re-foam was so good, I didn't wish to raise another variable since the OP's concerns were mostly with mids and highs. These are excellent tweeters, and should provide ample HF performance.

I'm not at all sure what that 9:00 aberration is all about on the woofer, but it almost looks like a black line made with a marker.
 
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