What is the Weakest Link in my Vintage System

[bruhl001]

Or the strongest ..
Sometimes I wish I could cheerfully listen to a bluetooth speaker like my wife does ... (and that's with two systems in the house that she could stream to from her phone)
She seems to be immune to sound quality ..

Or the strongest ..
Sometimes I wish I could cheerfully listen to a bluetooth speaker like my wife does ... (and that's with two systems in the house that she could stream to from her phone)
She seems to be immune to sound quality ..

Are you not able to appreciate a painting unless you view it @ MoMA? I would prefer MoMA myself but a nice reproduction will do.

 

[markd51]

There's a very common principle-term, and exercise when it comes to audio, and the ownership of an audio system.

I call it "Weeding", yep, just like a Garden. And while it's not isolated to just vintage systems, they can be more prone of many things being overlooked, and/or taken for granted and at fault.

I view it as "every" component, every cable, every connection, as being suspect, of being inadequate-faulty until I'm quite sure otherwise, no exceptions. Figure a Receiver, CD Player, Turntable, 2 Interconnects, that's it! Some decent dollars spent here won't be too hard on the wallet. and can make some audible improvements.

Sure, in the 70's-80's, most everyone was using crappy $4 Rat Shack Interconnects, etc, etc. yeah, they worked but that was about it.

Turntable set-up, isolation, immunity from EMI/RFI, these are highly important.

 

[nefertem7]

Having The Baby Brothers to the AR 90s most definitely you need more separation between them do you have an other room in the house that you could use for your stereo? Ps I also have a luxman intergrated amp and it is a very good match with the Acoustic Research Speakers

 

[E-Stat]

Come on we are talking high fidelity stuff. Even my old Scott and Fisher stuff from the early 60's has lower distortion than 2% of modern loudspeakers.

I haven’t found that a simplistic view of lumped THD provides much in the way of a qualitative measure. Nor does it speak to dynamics in any fashion.

You can dial in tons of corrective feedback to make cheap op amps look good on paper but little else.

 

[chef free]

Your gear is top notch! No problems there.

Can you move the speakers farther apart? Moving your speakers around is the cheapest, most effective upgrade ever! Fun too, have a couple friends over, have some beers and move those things until they sound best.

Room treatments took my sound to the next level, look up "bass traps" and "first reflection points"...

 

[daveshel]

As a former owner of AR-90s, I would have to say they are your weak link. I owned a pair for about three years, and I tried them in many arrangements in various rooms. The best they sounded was with a lot of separation on a very large room, oriented along the long wall, splitting the room in thirds. Even there, I was not completely thrilled with their sound. I powered then with a Dynaco black box 410. I eventually found the best speakers for that amp was double/stacked Advents, which I stayed with until I got into tubes after the turn of the century.

My analysis was (and still is) that they were an overly complicated design from a company that at the time was short on engineering talent.Teledyne did pretty well in its first decade of ownership of AR by refining but not significantly deviating from the original AR designs. By the early 80s then the AR-90s were designed, they were venturing too far from the simple 2- and 3-way designs that had put AR on the map. I worked in a stereo store in those years, and it was easy to sell the lower end of the line - the AR-18,-28 and -38imaged beautifully.The high end tended to have a less focused image. We couldn't sell the expensive models, and eventually our company sold them below cost and paid us big commissions to do so, just to turn dead inventory back into cash. I sold our store's demo pair to a buddy, who had to dump then a year later on his way out of town. I bought them, and after 3 years or so was happy to sell them. Sometimes, more is just more and not better.

 

[nefertem7]

As a former owner of AR-90s, I would have to say they are your weak link. I owned a pair for about three years, and I tried them in many arrangements in various rooms. The best they sounded was with a lot of separation on a very large room, oriented along the long wall, splitting the room in thirds. Even there, I was not completely thrilled with their sound. I powered then with a Dynaco black box 410. I eventually found the best speakers for that amp was double/stacked Advents, which I stayed with until I got into tubes after the turn of the century.

My analysis was (and still is) that they were an overly complicated design from a company that at the time was short on engineering talent.Teledyne did pretty well in its first decade of ownership of AR by refining but not significantly deviating from the original AR designs. By the early 80s then the AR-90s were designed, they were venturing too far from the simple 2- and 3-way designs that had put AR on the map. I worked in a stereo store in those years, and it was easy to sell the lower end of the line - the AR-18,-28 and -38imaged beautifully.The high end tended to have a less focused image. We couldn't sell the expensive models, and eventually our company sold them below cost and paid us big commissions to do so, just to turn dead inventory back into cash. I sold our store's demo pair to a buddy, who had to dump then a year later on his way out of town. I bought them, and after 3 years or so was happy to sell them. Sometimes, more is just more and not better.

The larger ARs needs a very good Quality Amplifier to drive them because of the complicated crossover network even my smaller 93s are power pigs I finally found a good integrated amp to drive them in a Luxman as for the 90s they are not a speaker for a small room but I would never consider them a weak link if you figure out with inflation a pair of Original AR 9s would cost 3000 dollars in today’s market that is why your store had a hard time selling them

 

[daveshel]

Call my wife a whore, say I'm a drunken laggard, but don't you dare dis the 410. 200 watts/ch of high-current capable pure sand power, downright tubey.

 

[nefertem7]

Call my wife a whore, say I'm a drunken laggard, but don't you dare dis the 410. 200 watts/ch of high-current capable pure sand power, downright tubey.

Dave I wasn’t talking bad about the dynamo just a general statement

 

[Akustic]

As a former owner of AR-90s, I would have to say they are your weak link. I owned a pair for about three years, and I tried them in many arrangements in various rooms. The best they sounded was with a lot of separation on a very large room, oriented along the long wall, splitting the room in thirds. Even there, I was not completely thrilled with their sound. I powered then with a Dynaco black box 410. I eventually found the best speakers for that amp was double/stacked Advents, which I stayed with until I got into tubes after the turn of the century.

My analysis was (and still is) that they were an overly complicated design from a company that at the time was short on engineering talent.Teledyne did pretty well in its first decade of ownership of AR by refining but not significantly deviating from the original AR designs. By the early 80s then the AR-90s were designed, they were venturing too far from the simple 2- and 3-way designs that had put AR on the map. I worked in a stereo store in those years, and it was easy to sell the lower end of the line - the AR-18,-28 and -38imaged beautifully.The high end tended to have a less focused image. We couldn't sell the expensive models, and eventually our company sold them below cost and paid us big commissions to do so, just to turn dead inventory back into cash. I sold our store's demo pair to a buddy, who had to dump then a year later on his way out of town. I bought them, and after 3 years or so was happy to sell them. Sometimes, more is just more and not better.

Have to agree .. Kloss and Burhoe created pieces that got the basics right ,, Be they AR's, Advents, EPI's, Genesis, Epicure, or Burhoes .

You're describing the curse of 4-ways in general ... esp. compared to the simplicity of Burhoe's eight inch 2-way module with only 1 cap for a crossover.
They certainly complicated placement with a side firing woofer ...but they do have all the right ingredients..
There are some excellent drivers in that box.. (with a tweeter that's a bit easy to cook)

If you get them right, they can be very very right ... but only in a big space with the right amps and cables ..
An eight inch two way is a far better choice for a small space ..

 

[nefertem7]

Cables, placement, and set-up ..

If it hasn't been tweaked (right down to vibration control) it's only sounding half as good as it could...
So why would you replace a piece and how could you know which piece ??

That combination of pieces doesn't have some glaringly obvious mismatched piece ..but I'll bet it's capable of sounding a whole lot better.
If you're asking which piece would change the colorations that you're listening to, then the answer is always cartridge and speakers ..

Those are very very capable speakers .. If they were mine there would be a serious high quality power amp(s) and preamp hung on them ...
(and they require far more than 55wpc to realize their bass potential )

This post is right on TunerLanding Question

 

[TunerLanding]

I’ve spread them out by about 6feet between mid drivers, found a lower stand and hooked up my highest current wpc amplifier (Luxman L-410 75wpc) and I’m playing dire straights. Sounds more like I’m sitting 20 feet from knopfler himself, which is my goal. Thanks for all the feedback!

 

[TunerLanding]

I decided to put in my TD-160 table with MP-110 nagaoka also.

 

[nefertem7]

I decided to put in my TD-160 table with MP-110 nagaoka also.

That looks good I also have the same cartridge on my AR Turntable

 

[Hobie1dog]

You just need a very good subwoofer. It will give you more return for your money than anything else.i'm not talking about no puny 12" with 100 watt amp.. I'm talking 24" of soul-shaking, chest pounding, tighter than a bung hole, nuclear brain damage subwoofer. stereo Integrity.com