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JeffS

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  1. The seller also has a pair of rare Allison:Three's for $350. Woofers have already been refoamed. For anyone that has a couple of corners available.
  2. Hello Tom, I hadn’t thought about the KLH models with square cabinets. Those later designs support the notion that Henry may have been curious about building an AR system in a square cabinet. I believe this speaker was built as an AR-1 simply because if it were built as an AR-1W they wouldn’t have had to place the woofer tight to a corner. They could’ve built a custom AR-1W to the same dimensions as the original prototype (19” x 19” x 11"), or some variant thereof, with the woofer centered. There’s a lot of latitude in a custom build if the box only holds a woofer. The interesting thing about this speaker is that it is built to the minimum dimension needed to mount the two drivers diagonally on the front board, to make the smallest possible square. As you pointed out, the front board must be custom cut to allow for minimum spacing between the drivers, which necessitates that a portion of the 755A box sits below the woofer frame. This is shown in the pictures below, and it looks like they even took a rasp to knock down the corner of the upper portion of the 755A box. This is a tight fit to be sure, but due to the diagonal mounting, woofer removal is easy. I believe your assumption is right, this is a one-off prototype or built for a specific customer. If it was built as a square cabinet prototype, it’s easy to see that it is unattractive compared to the rectangular AR cabinets meant to be used horizontally alongside books. One plus here is that the front trim with gold pin stripe matches the grill cloth (though I wouldn’t have chosen black paint for the cabinet finish). Thanks for including pictures of SN: 0006. As with that speaker, this one also has a circular cutout for the woofer, pre-dating the later truncated cutouts. It’s also interesting to see the three hand wound resistors in the crossover, and the same use of a copper strap to hold the capacitor in place. And thanks also for your, as always, detailed and informative post! Jeff
  3. Thank you johnfalc, This speaker offers AR history and a good dose of mystery! I'd really like to know the backstory of this one. It looks like it worked near it's birthplace all of it's life. One of the things that excite me about this unit is the easy ability to get inside the cabinet. The grill board had been glued on years ago but the glue stopped working, so someone wisely put a nail in each corner and fastened it back to the cabinet. Removing the grill was easy. My guess is that anybody that keeps an intact AR-1 in their vintage audio collection doesn't try to remove the woofer. Even if the glue holding the grill cloth to the grill board has dried enough to cleanly remove the cloth, the grill board still has to be removed to get access to the woofer bolts, and there's a good chance that it will have to be removed in pieces. With this speaker I had easy access, and since the flat sides of the woofer frame aren't tight to the front molding like a conventional AR-1, woofer removal was also easy. That allowed me to shine light into an AR-1 that hasn't been opened since the woofer was replaced (probably in the 1960's), and be able to see the internal woodwork and crossover. This box, like other AR-1's, is very well built. So, it's a lot of fun to be able to acquire, examine, and share this find with the members of the CSP. I never thought that I'd see an AR-1 with a custom cabinet.
  4. Just recently, I had the opportunity to acquire this custom AR-1 from a seller in western Massachusetts. He found this speaker in the attic of a Boston area home a couple of years ago, along with a custom assembled mono preamp and amplifier which included an Acrosound TO-300 output transformer. The label on the rear of the cabinet is the earliest label used by AR, and has a handwritten model number: AR-1 Special. The serial number is 3-digit and looks like 150 (the writing has faded considerably). Sadly, all letters but the letter G in the printed word ‘WARNING’ fell off in transit. As you can see in the pictures, the cabinet is square, measuring 20 ½” on each side with a depth of 10 ¼”. The internal volume is approximately 1.67 cu ft, with 1.47 cu ft for the woofer section. The box for the 755A is 0.20 cu ft. The cabinet construction appears to be all plywood, with the sides and top veneered (likely mahogany) and painted with gloss black. Interestingly, the grain runs front to back, instead of side to side like all other AR’s. The bottom is plywood painted flat black. Unlike other AR-1’s, the cabinet sides are butted to the bottom panel, on the top the panels are mitered. The front grill frame has the same bevel and width as other AR-1’s. This one is painted gloss black with a painted gold pin stripe around the perimeter (matching the grill cloth). The grill cloth is the black with random gold swirl typical of the earliest AR-1’s with mahogany veneer. Unfortunately, there is no logo tag, but the masonite grill board has the hole for it in the same location as my other AR-1, but on this speaker the logo tag would be upper left instead of the opposite corner. The back panel still has the pencil marks made to determine the center for cutout of the hole for the crossover connections! ( I love it!) The drivers are an AR-3 woofer, and an Altec 755A with a date code of 5/55. It looks like the original 12” pleated surround woofer was replaced for some reason, and the various glues on the grill board and front panel indicate that the grill was pried off successfully and re-glued after the woofer change. At some point the glue must have failed and the owner resorted to putting a carpet tack in each corner to hold the grill panel to the cabinet. Thankfully they kept the grill and it’s in good shape (though some fraying has reduced its size), the exact cloth is impossible to find! I gave it a quick low level “test drive” and it works well. The woofer donut looks very dry, along with the foam ring just inside the surround, and the woofer springs back in about a ¼ second. I removed the woofer and as I suspected, the spider is coming loose on one side so I’ll need to apply some epoxy to it. The woofer surround will also get a coat of surround sealer (Roy’s, of course!). This all fits with being stored in a warm, dry attic, instead of a damp basement. The cabinet is stuffed with yellow fiberglass, with Kimpak between the woofer and stuffing. Inside the cabinet, the crossover uses two coils (one marked ‘4’), one for each driver, and two US Navy can capacitors in the tweeter circuit. The 3.5Ω resistor is there along with the others used to adjust the tweeter output level. The robust t-nuts are held in place with two carpet tacks each. One shim was tapped into place between the bottom of the 755A box and its supporting post and another spare was left in the bottom of the cabinet. I’m sure it’ll come in handy for something! The price sheet from AR, dated 12-1-54 stated that “Cabinets with custom dimensions available for models AR-1W and AR-1WU only.” I never thought that I’d see an AR-1 in a custom enclosure. Unbelievable.
  5. A rare sighting at the Kutztown Radio Show a couple of weeks ago, three pairs of Allison's for sale and all in great shape. The seller had pairs of AL115's, LC110's and Allison:Fours, and a pair of Allison:Ones off site about an hour away if there was an interested buyer. According to the seller, the AL115's, LC110's, and Allison:Fours had all had their woofers refurbished by Millersound and they looked like new. The first picture was taken by Audiokarma member AdamAnt316, and the picture of the Allison:Four was taken by me after I pulled it out of the box. I was interested in the Fours, but I already have a pair and the seller was asking $500, so I passed.
  6. Alex, Pairs of AR-1's with matching finishes occasionally come up for sale, if that's what you're hoping to find. Finding an AR-1 that matches yours will be more difficult since that veneer / grille cloth combination was much less prevalent than walnut with beige cloth, or mahogany with maroon cloth. You do have choices with your setup. You could run it in stereo as it is until you find another AR-1, or find another Janzsen I-30 to go with your AR-1 as I suggested above, or enjoy driving your single AR-1 in mono with period recordings. And, congratulations on your collection of Marantz Models 1 and 2. That's the envy of every Marantz collector! Those amplifiers should be fine, in either output mode, for safely driving your AR-1's. I'd love to hear the story of how you acquired this exceptional collection of 1950's hifi.
  7. Hello Alex, Congratulations on finding an early AR1 and AR-1W. That's quite a find, especially since you were able to obtain these from the original owner! Your AR-1 is a very rare early unit that was assembled at 23 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge, MA. The company founder, Edgar Villchur, in a Jan. 2005 article in Stereophile magazine stated: "In 1955, we shipped 455 speakers. About half were AR-1s and half were 1Ws." That dates 0519 to early 1956. If you're serious about adding another AR-1 to make a pair, one suggestion would be to take any one that you can find, and it may be more important to you to find another one with a birch cabinet and maroon grill cloth to match the one you have. The reality is that you could wait for years to find a match either in close serial number or cabinet finish, and the asking price will probably be between $2000-$3000. Another, more practical, suggestion is to use your AR-1 and AR-1W as a pair, and find another Janszen I-30 to go with the AR-1. This would require you to change the setting on the three binding posts on the bottom rear of the AR-1 to woofer only operation (switching the strap from A-B to B-C). This would shut off the 755A. Out of curiosity, does the finish on your AR-1W match that of the AR-1?
  8. I am not familiar enough with the LST to offer specific advice. One thought, is the 30 mfd cap, and the dual 6 and 4 mfd cap, wired in parallel to make a 40 mfd?
  9. Correct. I flipped the image in my post above to make the KLH Six appear as an AR (at least when not in sharp focus). The screen grab in Tom's post is the correct orientation. If you watch the video, you can briefly see the texture of the KLH grill cloth, which is another giveaway.
  10. This should fix it. I just read a couple of days ago that William Shatner did a 'Star Trek II, The Wrath Of Kahn' tour. For around $50 a seat, one could see the movie and chat with Bill. I wish it had come to my area, I think that would have been a lot of fun to chat with him for a minute or two. Acoustic suspension speakers and hearing aids, Ed Villchur is in the room!
  11. Your Sherwood amplifier and tuner look exceptionally nice.
  12. They were on sale at 16.67% off the original manufacturer's MSRP in 1968, and assembly was included!
  13. Jim, An original AR base (each piece) measures 17 7/8" wide by 11" high. The notches are 3/4" wide by 1 7/16" deep and angled 8 degrees from perpendicular.
  14. Tom, Your AR-LST setup did look great with the custom stands, sorry to hear it didn’t sound as good as you hoped. The custom made stands blended well with the room. I’ll bet the stacked LST’s sounded great. What amplifiers did you use to drive them? You certainly have the most comprehensive AR collection, and this is just one more piece of supporting evidence! It looks like you not only have the stands, but the assembly wrench! That made my day! Thanks for the pictures. Jeff
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