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Recently acquired two pairs of AR5's.....


lakecat

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About two months ago, a guy had two pairs of AR5's in my area CL. I emailed him and asked several questions on the pairs...and I got a smart ass answer so I never responded. Recently, he emailed me and said he had lowered to price if I was interested and left a phone number so I called him.

Ended going to his bike shop and we settled on a price and I left with them.

The grills had never been removed and saw the woofers were trashed with a flashlight but the tweeters and mids looked great and could hear them when I played them softly. The cabs needed work but I can handle that. What was so surprising was the pots. When I got inside and took them apart, they were only slightly tarnished. Not a bit of green corrosion one always finds on them. Took some metal cleaner and a Dremel with a polishing pad to them and they look new! I was surprised to find all Spraque caps in there also so good to go there....:) Got the woofer surrounds and installed them.....put the pair back together......and this first pair sounds crazy good. I cleaned the grills with my magic solution and they came out really nice. Next....get the cabs refinished and these will be very nice.

I am writing this because in three years of searching for AR speakers around here, I had found one beat up pair that I redid....and that was it and had sold them as I just wasn't really happy with them. This pair is much better sounding. I am anxious to see what condition the other pair is. Just so rare to find two pairs.....I feel lucky.

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About two months ago, a guy had two pairs of AR5's in my area CL. I emailed him and asked several questions on the pairs...and I got a smart ass answer so I never responded. Recently, he emailed me and said he had lowered to price if I was interested and left a phone number so I called him.

Ended going to his bike shop and we settled on a price and I left with them.

The grills had never been removed and saw the woofers were trashed with a flashlight but the tweeters and mids looked great and could hear them when I played them softly. The cabs needed work but I can handle that. What was so surprising was the pots. When I got inside and took them apart, they were only slightly tarnished. Not a bit of green corrosion one always finds on them. Took some metal cleaner and a Dremel with a polishing pad to them and they look new! I was surprised to find all Spraque caps in there also so good to go there.... :) Got the woofer surrounds and installed them.....put the pair back together......and this first pair sounds crazy good. I cleaned the grills with my magic solution and they came out really nice. Next....get the cabs refinished and these will be very nice.

I am writing this because in three years of searching for AR speakers around here, I had found one beat up pair that I redid....and that was it and had sold them as I just wasn't really happy with them. This pair is much better sounding. I am anxious to see what condition the other pair is. Just so rare to find two pairs.....I feel lucky.

Nice score... any photos? What part of the country. Areas lacking in humidity would keep the verdigris from forming. Also it is much harder to find ARs out West :)

Roger

Roger

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I will take photos when the cabs get refinished. I want to set them up with the original other pair to see the contrast. I am in the Cleveland, Akron area so plenty of humidity which makes these so surprising. This owner bought them at a garage sale who knows what history is behind them. I am hoping but not expecting to have such luck on next pair....but just maybe!....:)

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I will take photos when the cabs get refinished. I want to set them up with the original other pair to see the contrast. I am in the Cleveland, Akron area so plenty of humidity which makes these so surprising. This owner bought them at a garage sale who knows what history is behind them. I am hoping but not expecting to have such luck on next pair....but just maybe!.... :)

Looking forward to that. I managed to score two sets of Loverly's -- by that I mean decent cabinets with unmolested drivers and crossovers. One set had clean pots, the other didn't. Pristine cabinets are definitely very rare given the nature of the beast, plant stands, dropping them on their corners, basement/garage storage, etc.

Roger

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While the poly is drying on the first pair, I decided to start tackling the second pair and took some pics of them in original condition bought. I am not changing those nice original caps. The pots in these are clean as hell also. I show the date on the woofer...and look how clean that is.....crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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While the poly is drying on the first pair, I decided to start tackling the second pair and took some pics of them in original condition bought. I am not changing those nice original caps. The pots in these are clean as hell also. I show the date on the woofer...and look how clean that is.....crazy.

Nice, curious what the large caps look like. I would put some kind of antioxidation compound on the pots. I'm not big on the automotive type silicone dielectric grease as it dries up and gets gummy after a while and may cause the rotor to float over the coil.

Also curious if the cabinets have serial numbers stamped into the wood under the paste on labels. My '70 and '72 pairs do. I didn't remove the labels on the '72s just burnished the label until I could see the impression of the number in the wood. This pair is the unfinished Ponderosa pine cabinet while the other is the oiled Walnut veneer.

Roger

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Hi Owl.....got a pic of the Spraq caps. Does yours have these? Roy has told me that they seldom are bad so kept them. I did put dielectric grease on the pots but very little. There is no serial numbers on cabs....odd.

Looks nice and clean. The earlier speakers like the ones I have here -- made prior to the Norwood move I believe -- have the large Industrial Condenser Corp double wax cap and a foil cap by the same company for the 4MF cap. I'll go out on a limb and say they are always out of spec -- usually high, although I measured one recently that was low. This after seeing six of them. The 4MF caps often read within spec but replacement is recommended.

RoyC would know about the Spragues.

I'm sure there is some good dielectric grease out there but the automotive type I have has become very thick after a few years. Also a deox spray would be more likely to penetrate into the rivets on the pots.

The die-stamped serial numbers are kind of a new item so I was curious if yours had might have it.

Enjoy,

Roger

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All done with 5's!!!...whew....some work here....but proud of how they came out. I think this may be a rare sight to have two pairs together as in three years of being around AR's, this is the second time I have seen them around here. The odd thing was the owner of these had them upside down to listen to them as the felt pads were on the tops and this was where the wear was pronounced. Had a heck of a time getting most scratches out and some are there for history. Completely sanded down, fresh stain, and three coats of poly added. The drying times were terrible in the wet weather we had recently. Those are the original grills all cleaned of years of use and badges cleaned and waxed.

They sound really good as all tweeters work to my delight and pots work excellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you. The grills had years of dirt, stains, and smoke so I put them one at a time in my empty soaker tub and sprayed then down with Greased Lightning (excellent cleaning product). I used a cheap two inch paint brush to work the cleaner into the grill material. I work fast and go both ways across the material.....front and back. I then turn on hot water and hold it under spout to completely rinse the cleaner out of grill material. Working fast, I left the grill and shake out the water real quick and lay it on a towel that is on a hard surface and use another towel to blot more of the water and moisture. The backer material on grill is not as absorbing as imagined and doesn't get very wet but it is important to work fast. I then take a hair dryer and blow the grill dry as I turn it over several times. Drying the material even tightens up the material some. I remove the badges also before I do this of course. It comes out really clean and nice. The cleaner is not hard on the material at all.

Noting special about the pots as they were pretty clean to begin with. I never removed them from the crossover board but loosened them by removing screws in back of cabinet. I took them apart still attached to all wires. I applied Brasso to asbestos part and then cleaned with cotton rag and then polished with Dremel using a cloth polishing wheel. The copper swipes were also cleaned separately with Brasso , cotton rag, and Dremel polish wheel. They looked brand new. Put some dielectric grease on parts and snapped top with swipe back into place and secured with wire bracket. That was tricky to do in that ten inch hole!

I installed the pots back into place and put nuts back on in back of cabinet and tightened. I made sure the speaker lead screws were put into the holes first and nuts applied before I did the pots.

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Hi Owl.....got a pic of the Spraq caps. Does yours have these? Roy has told me that they seldom are bad so kept them.

My 5´s had one 72uf Compulytic with loose terminal lug. Capacitor measured within spec, but I had to trash it. I figured that if I try to tighten lug with hammer and center punch I will break capacitor internally. It seems odd that this kind of defect has passed Spraque quality control, as there was no evidence that lug was loosened in the cab.

Best Regards

Kimmo

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Yes....I think these fives sound really good and with acoustic material especially. I am still baffled at how much I have to push the amp to get the same amount of sound as my other speakers.

lakecat: high sensitivity isn't an AR-5 charm. If you like the sound now, they will sound better with an amp with a little headroom -- at least mine do.

Kimmo: The cap may have been damaged during assembly of the crossover making it an AR QC issue.

Roger

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Hi Owl.....yea.....but the 3a 4 ohm are easier to push than these. I am using a Sansui G-8000 that is completely recapped and pushing 120 WPC. I have had the 3a's down here before and don't remember having to push them like I do these. Believe me when I say they sound wonderful....but odd that it takes more to get them going. This weekend, I want to try all four together and excited about hearing them.

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Hi Owl.....yea.....but the 3a 4 ohm are easier to push than these. I am using a Sansui G-8000 that is completely recapped and pushing 120 WPC. I have had the 3a's down here before and don't remember having to push them like I do these. Believe me when I say they sound wonderful....but odd that it takes more to get them going. This weekend, I want to try all four together and excited about hearing them.

May want to monitor the heat dissipation on the Sansui as it is not rated for 2 ohm loads which is where it will be going with those two speakers in parallel.

Here are some amp basics on this site: http://www.rocketroberts.com/techart/amp.htm

Roger

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