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AR TSW 910 --What a speaker !


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I am in the process of restoring a pair of these babies and all I can say is wow! I have JBL L7's ($2,000 a pair in 94), AR 90's, 93's, TSW 410, 510, 610, AR 48, 58, and several other pairs of speakers and the 910's blow them all away. I only have one restored but with the sound it puts out I may not need to restore the other one because one speaker fills the room (20x 37)and I am also having trouble finding another 1" titanium tweeter to finish the 2nd speaker. I bought these things on EBAY for $273 and they were in terrible condition (8 drivers needing refoam, 2 dead 6 1/2" mid ranges and 2 dead tweeters). I had some extra parts (2 mid ranges from an old pair of 510's and 1 tweeter from an 810) I had collected over the years so I decided to go to work on them. However, if they would have been accurately described on EBAY I would not have purchased them, but now I am glad I did. I used a finishing sander and refinished the wood and now they look like new money. I also took the side panels off of them and replaced them with black vinyl.

The speakers have such a full sound and great imaging. They blow away everything in the house.When I first hooked them up after the refoam job they took several hours to break in, but once they broke in they blew the 90's out the window and my 90's are in mint condition. The highs are clear and maybe a little too bright, but you can cut the treble a little if you wish. The bass is solid and they use the same 12" woofers the infamous AR 9's use. I think they are some of AR's better work and I can believe the TSW stands for "This Shits Work". If you ever get a chance to get a pair of these jewels you won't regret it. After listening to the 910's for several hours then switching to the 90's I thought someone had put a hole in the 90's. They are both great speakers, but the 910's are on the top shelf in my opinion. Maybe these speakers didn't break any new grounds for AR, but they are clearly at the top of the heap and who says you have to break new ground to be good.

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Don't buy a meter just to do that for me! I just try to refresh my memory if this is indeed an 8 Ohms tweeter so I can suggest an economy alternative for you to save you some money and get your TSW-910 speakers singing loud and clear again.

Minh

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Guest Frogslips

http://arsenal.net/speakers/ar/TSW%20Series/tsw.htm, this is another

web site I posted AR orginal Brochere Here for ALL of you who have the TSW series AR's

Here is where you get the tweeter for them and some of the

other speakers.

Toll free: 1-800-225-9847

Local: 1-508-478-9800

Fax: 1-508-478-9816

Email: abtechservices@mindspring.com

BEWARE OF THESE SPEAKERS THEY EAT AMPS!!!!!!!

But i love them and will not sell or trade them away.

1391.txt

1392.zip

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The TSW-910 and 810¡¯s 1¡± titanium dome tweeter is 8 Ohms as I remember but I still need you to take a reading of the DC resistance to see if it is around 6.9 Ohms? Hopefully other members who owned the TSW-910 or 810 in the Forum can confirm the DC resistance reading of this tweeter. MB Quart used to make the 4 Ohms and 8 Ohms versions for this tweeter. I don¡¯t have a pair on hands so it is not like I am trying to promote myself to sell you something! I am just glad you have found the special characteristic of this AR TSW-910 speaker¡¯s sound to fit your musical taste. Send me an email at mluong303@aol.com and hopefully I will be able to help you out.

Happy July 4th and God Bless America

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  • 2 months later...

Minh,

Would you by any chance happen to know the difference between the 1" and the 3/4" titanium dome tweeter used in the balance of the TSW line?

I noticed that the xover frequency of the 1" drops to 4,000Hz from the 5,000Hz of the 3/4". Is this becasue the 1" has a wider range of frequency response?

Regards,

Jerry

PS: just wondering because I have the 3/4" in my TSW 610's

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Hi, Jerry

The 1¡± MB Quart titanium tweeter was better built, smoother sounding tweeter and more expensive compare to the 3/4¡± TSW-610 series titanium tweeter. It was made in West Germany around 1979 and custom order by AR with the special designed faceplate/acoustic lens by AR. The original MB Quart tweeter had very small faceplate with different acoustic lens to diffuse the sharp sounding characteristic of the titanium dome. This tweeter can crossover at 2800Hz in the two way design. It has wider range and higher power handling but don¡¯t forget the TSW-910 speakers will suck a lot of juice out of your amp when play loudly. So if your amp is not up to the challenge then both tweeters may turn silent forever while you are showing off to your friends of how loud your reference AR speakers will play during the Demo section!

Minh Luong

http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/dc/user_files/1610.jpg

post-101112-1159456080.jpg

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A 1" dome tweeter, by virtue of its larger voice coil and lower resonance, could certainly cross over at a lower frequency than a 3/4" unit. This has the theoretical potential of affording better midrange dispersion, depending on a number of other factors. In the case of the 810/910, 4000-5000 Hz is not in the directional region for either a 3/4" or 1" dome, so how much practical difference this makes to a listener in the far field is very questionable.

One of the reasons that the 810 and 910 probably used double mids and the 1” tweeter was increase their power handling. Large speakers such as those could logically be expected to be used in large rooms with big amps. Their double-woofer systems could already handle lots of power; with double mids and a 1” dome (instead of a 3/4" dome with its more delicate voice coil), the mids and highs could now better keep up with the woofers from a PH standpoint. Yes, it would have been more consistent, from a marketing standpoint, if all the TSW’s used the same dome, but logical, consistent marketing was never one of AR’s strong suits.

BTW, the stated upper-end frequency limits for the TSW tweeters (40kHz for the 3/4", 32kHz for the 1") have the ring of meaningless marketing blather to them. I'll go back and re-read both Stereo Review's and High Fidelity's test reports of the 910, but I don't recall either magazine saying anything out of the ordinary about the speaker's "32kHz" response. Pretty meaningless, in any event, to a 30-50 year-old male listener whose hearing hits the wall at 15kHz.

Steve F.

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  • 3 months later...

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