Jump to content

AR's marketing strength was their 12" woofer


Steve F

Recommended Posts

Many of the leading companies were helping to advance crossover design.

People from B&W presented "Computer-Aided Design of Loudspeaker

Crossover Networks" in 1979:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=2822

They fully understood by this time that it was the cascade of the electrical

and acoustical responses that determined the complete eletro-acoustic transfer

function for each driver and associated crossover.

KEF was also doing some excellent work and published "A Target Function

Approach to Crossover Design" in Vol. 2 No. 1 (1978) of their KEFTOPICS

publication - in .pdf:

http://www.kef.com/uploads/files/en/kef_topics/KEFTOPICS_vol2no1_a%20target%20function%20approach.pdf

Index: http://www.kef.com/html/us/explore/about_kef/kef_topics/index.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AR 58 is essentially a 3-way AR3a/11 with a 4-inch cone midrange. How does AR 58 sound like?

58S still has the dome mid....58B has the cone mid

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The AR-58S was essentially identical to the AR-91, but in a more "bookshelf-ish" cabinet than the 91's floorstander. Same drivers, and pretty much the exact same crossover, I believe. The 58S was among the very last bookshelf AR 12" 3-way speakers with dome MR and TW drivers. (I think the AR-78 LS in 1984 with the 'dual-dome' assembly was the last.)

When AR went to the B, Bx, and Bxi series, things were going downhill for the company. They were decent speakers, but they were not engineered to the same high standards as the earlier models. Lots of plastic cosmetic trim rings/plates, fake wood vinyl cabinets instead of real wood veneer, cheaper crossovers, etc. As I said, decent speakers, but not up to--nor intended to be--the standards that AR strove for from 1954 right up through the Verticals of 1978-80.

After the Verticals, AR split its model line-up into two distinct families, the LS models which were "good" (the 9 LS-LSi, 98 LS-LSi, and 78 LS--I don't remember if there was a 78 LSi, real wood cabinets, better drivers, serious intentions, etc) and their mass-market line of B, then Bx, then Bxi models--vinyl-covered, cheaper drivers, less serious engineering, etc.

In the late 80's, AR persisted with it's "dual personality" marketing: The TSW series for mass market, and the Connoiseur Series for the "good stuff," although the TSWs were a bit better than the B-Bx-Bxi speakers.

(AR threw in their strange, totally unsaleable Magic Speakers in 1985-6, but it was a great engineering effort by Ken Kantor and the Magics briefly put the spotlight back on AR as the engineering leader.)

The came the Spirit series, then the Holographic Imaging stuff (or did the Spirits come after the HI speakers?), and then the last-gasp but pretty good Classic series of 1992.

After 1980, it was all so sad and forgettable.

But....coming full circle, I still think the 1x with the 3/4" dome tweeter would have far outsold the 5.

Steve F.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

It would have been interesting to see the output of the mike doing the recordings output. Was everything perfect from the mikes of the day? From doing recording sessions with my bands at sound 80 in the 80s in Minneapolis mn the, then engineer admitted that the neuman mikes they were using had a slightly harsh sound in the mid range but were the best in their opinion available at the time. So in listening to sound how accurate is the source of the sound.

I have never heard a recording of a speaker that can reproduce the smooth sound of the strings of a live orchestra concert. In my opinion the ar 3a does the best of any ever made. The modern dome tweeters tend to do injustice to strings as harsh but sound great on brass.

I still am teaching music and hear live every day and if you are not listing to your system at live sound levels you will not get a good idea of what it is supposed to sound like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...