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From: seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: AR speaker info wanted
Message-ID: <990@ihuxl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Mar-84 09:38:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxl.990
Posted: Tue Mar 20 09:38:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Mar-84 02:06:01 EST
References: <1840@tektronix.UUCP> <352@dual.UUCP> <240@opus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 84

In defense of the AR-11 loudspeaker:

I am quite familiar with these, I've owned a pair for several years.
I have only heard one speaker that sounds clearly superior, that is
the Snell type A. (The AR-9 is a second possibility, but I haven't
listened to these enough to judge them fairly) The Klipsch Cornwalls
and Klipschorns sound approximately similar in quality.
(The Heresy deserve to be hooked up to a $5 AM radio.) Close
seconds include the ADS 810s, the Dalquests, and Magnaplaners.

No speaker is perfect. The AR-11 does not have the *very* low bass
needed for organ pedal notes, it's 3dB point is approx 35Hz. This
is quite adequate for most other music, the limitation is usually
the source, not the speaker. Between 35Hz to over 20Khz, the response
is within +/- 5 dB. Not perfect by any means, but very good.
Remember this is a speaker, not an amplifier. (BTW, I have a
plot of the response measured at a speaker clinic by another
speaker manufacturer, which used a short burst method to eliminate
standing waves or other room effects. I'm not just going by AR's
specs or a magazine report.) They are also of "reasonable"
size, weight, and cost, as opposed to most other speakers I can
stand to listen to.

About the treble response.  Some people like the sound of AR's
tweeters, some don't. I'm quite happy with it, a couple of my
audiophile friends have minor quibles with it. (The ones with
the ADS 810s and Dalquests)  Apparently there is some imperfection
in the high frequency response of ARs that bother some people,
but not others.  Other speakers have similar slight problems that
*do* bother me (but don't bother others).  I picked the speaker
that had the problem *I* couldn't hear. The ADSs have a slight
problem in the bass. (possibly room related) The Dalquests *require*
a subwoofer, since they cut off at 60 Hz. And so on.  The idea
is to find a speaker that sounds good to *you*, even if some
other speaker measures better on the average. If it has some querk
that grates on your ears you're going to hate it, no matter
*how* many golden ears praise it, or how wonderful it's measures
specs are.

About power handling. I've never blown a driver in them. The
rating given by AR is 150 watts clipping 10% of the time, on
normal "music" (not sine waves). I have observed clipping
at over 110 watts (as measured on a 'scope) with no problems.
My current amp is rated at 200 watts into 4 Ohms and so far
no problems. (Thou I'm not stupid enough to drive it into
clipping at these power levels, also I don't listen to hard rock
(read: loud) much these days)  The amp (Hafler) has speaker fuses (2 Amp).
Once a source created a high level noise and blew one of the
speaker fuses, with no problems. In the owners manual, AR
gives a rather complete spec for power rating.  The main problem
is heat buildup, so you can actually pump, say 1000 Watts into
one for a very short time, say 2 seconds, with no damage.
(Check the manual for exact figures)  In the setup described
in previous articles, the amp is quoted as being 1000 Watts, and
24 speakers were used. Assuming power was equally distributed
to all speakers, this gives 41.6 Watts per speaker, which
*should* have been quite safe, given "normal music" and less
than 10% clipping.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the AR3a a member of the
previous (1st) generation, with *much less* high freq output? (They
hadn't invented the whiz-bang dome tweeter with ferro-fluid yet)
Maybe you like a speaker with less treble? (Try playing with the
switches on the back of the speaker, or use eq)  In fact I seem
to remember reading about how the hot setup used to be using
ARs for bass, and someone's electrostatic tweeter for treble.
I think they might have even made a woofer-only system just
for this sort of application!

Warning, before anyone runs out to audition AR's latest,
don't judge the 2nd generation ARs by the 3rd generation
garbage they're making now.  I don't know what they did to
screw them up, but the current ones sound *bad*, dispite
things that should be improvements like lining up the drivers
for better imaging.  Haven't listened to them enough to figure out
*what's* wrong, thou.

The opinions expressed above are mine alone.
-- 
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