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AR2 Ax speakers worth re-foaming?

C

cgiesel1

New Member
Soliciting Opinions

I have a pair of Acoustic Research AR2-Ax speakers. For some reason I paid $20.00 for them even though the foam was rotten on both speakers.

Is it worth re-foaming them? I have never heard them so I am at a loss.

I guess one way to look at it is they would be good practice speakers to learn to re-foam?

Thanks
 
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no. send them to me and I will "recycle" them for you. :D

but seriously, its worth it especially if you do it yourself. its easy to do and cheap. $20 for AR-anything is a steal.
 
Refoam, check pots, maybe recap - then feed with good amount of clean power and get reay to be surprised :yes:
 
Or even dirty power, I ran mine with a few unrestored Heathkit W5M's and was amazed. It's not an accurate speaker but it sure is fun.
 
I bought a pair for $50 recently. The surrounds were fine, but the pots in back were bad. I just bypassed them. These speakers will surprise you!
 
I have a pair, later ones I believe, that I got for $40 a few years ago that I am finally going to get around to re-foaming. Had a roomie with a different AR pair about 40 years ago that made a good impression, that's why I bought these. So yeah, at least what I can remember about them.
 
cgiesel1 said:
I guess one way to look at it is they would be good practice speakers to learn to re-foam?

Thanks
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Why not, at worst you'll have a few bucks and a little time into some mediocre ( IMO) speakers. Who knows, you might even like them.
 
Bass will impress for sure! AR's give some of the best, clean bass reproduction. It's a big part of why they had 1/3 of the market in the '60's :yes:
 
definitely refoam them. I had a pair for a number of years that I fully restored and they handily beat a lot of other well regarded speakers.
 
Had a pair for years, well worth the effort. I bet we'd be surprised how many AR 2ax and 3a are in still in daily use.
 
cgiesel1 said:
...I have never heard them so I am at a loss...
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I bought a pair of wood veneer AR-2ax's at the Cambridge factory back in the 'sixties. Five years ago I recapped them and either cleaned up or bypassed the potentiometers. And then I sold them for a couple of hundred dollars to my wife's regret; they were her favorites.

IMHO your time is well spent restoring your 2ax's.
 
tonyk said:
Jeez Tom, try not to be such a negative Nellie.:thumbsdn:
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Yeah - what he said :nono:

Lots of 2AX fans here. May not be everyone's cup of tea but no reason to disuade someone from rehabing quite a nice and valuable speaker.
 
I concur with Tom. I've had 3 pairs of them and sold each pair after rebuilding them. Some love them, some don't. It's just our personal opinion from having owned them and given them a chance. Is every post in a thread supposed to be singing the praises and revelations of something or in search of a "pat on the back"? If a person can't take a varying range of opinions on any given item/subject/etc, then life if going to be rather tough.
 
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Tom Brennan said:
Why not, at worst you'll have a few bucks and a little time into some mediocre ( IMO) speakers. Who knows, you might even like them.
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Well my apologies. Went back and re-read Tom's post which is pretty innocuous. I jumped on a pile that didn't deserve jumping on.
 
avguytx said:
I concur with Tom. I've had 3 pairs of them and sold each pair after rebuilding them. Some love them, some don't. It's just our personal opinion from having owned them and given them a chance. Is every post in a thread supposed to be singing the praises and revelations of something or in search of a "pat on the back"? If a person can't take a varying range of opinions on any given item/subject/etc, then life if going to be rather tough.
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But the AR2ax is far from a mediocre speaker, and in several threads Tom has mentioned his dislike of the sound of AR speakers in general, and that's fine, but the Op simply asked if they were worth reforming, and that answer is a resounding yes.



Even yourself must heard something in the AR2 as you've owned/rebuilt three pair yourself...no?
 
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