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Stereophile Review of AR3a...


Peter Breuninger

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Not sure if this is directed at me, but I certainly have had enough bad tone, insults,

etc. directed at me over the years here, by just a few seemingly obsessed fans.

I replied here, because certainly the tone of a few of the last posts would tend to drive

Stereophile people away, rather than welcome them and that is unfortunate. Not

sure if you're backing me up here Ken or directing the bad tone at me? Howard has

commented several times that he thinks a few here are in it for the money, what basis

does he have for this claim, did he take any time to investigate? I certainly have given

all of my advice for free and have never been paid for working on any ARs, Advents,

Dynas, or much of what I speak of here. I bring up maintaining value because there

does not seem to be any other reason for another party to care what others think of a

product/design. I would not be surprised if it was about money for them.

I certainly welcome the Stereophile review.

I said what I meant and I meant what I said: there are >several< people on both sides of this "discussion" who are being provocative, arrogant, insulting and dismissive. I don't much care if they feel they are reacting to something a year ago or 10 minutes ago. It's just immature BS, plain and simple. It has reduced what could have been an interesting contribution to the art, to yet another internet pissing contest that will be totally ignored by every professional on earth. What a waste of time.

-k

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I said what I meant and I meant what I said: there are >several< people on both sides of this "discussion" who are being provocative, arrogant, insulting and dismissive. I don't much care if they feel they are reacting to something a year ago or 10 minutes ago. It's just immature BS, plain and simple. It has reduced what could have been an interesting contribution to the art, to yet another internet pissing contest that will be totally ignored by every professional on earth. What a waste of time.

-k

Nothing like being direct. I certainly know why most professionals do not waste their time with

obsessed fans. Yes, it is a waste of time, professional or not.

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Regarding quality of restorations:

I measure the Thiele and Small parameters for most drivers in a given restoration and

compare them to published data and/or subject them to a sanity check. Ferro fluid tweeters

in the New Large Advent, EPI, and Genesis speakers often show an elevated Fs perhaps

due to age or overheating of the ferro fluid. I replace them when necessary.

I've reported about drivers with rubber edges that hold up well, the A-25 SEAS woofer,

and KEF B-139's for example, and others, probably of another composition, mostly US made

types that do not. Here's a link to the DIY Audio forum:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread....&highlight=

All the systems I referred to are stock, all NPE's replaced with film types and added ESR

resistance as needed. The A-25s have new gold binding posts and stainless steel

machine screws - don't consider this to be a significant difference.

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a 0.1 dB level change on one slider in a 64-band graphic.

Can you point me toward a graphic equalizer that enables one to make a 0.1 dB level change or know that one has been made? I'm not in the market for one, but I've seen this mentioned one too many times now to not become curious about it.

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They are welcome to mine, which I have demonstrated measure substantially in accordance with data published by Allison 40 years ago, in some respects, indistinguishably so. "Good" AR3a's are not so rare as some here would apparently prefer to presume, in my experience.

As Pete suggests, this may be more about money than music for some; there are certainly plenty of indicators in evidence....

Since you think so little of them, why not sell them to someone who would enjoy them far more than you do? I'm sure there are many here who would be only too happy to give them a new home. From what you say about their condition, they should have many more years of service ahead of them. You probably rarely listen to them anyway so for you they just take up space.

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Thanks everyone!

What a great thread, please keep the barbs down though.

And, please guys, JA is really a good and thoughtful man and does his best at a-n-y project he is involved in.

Ken, it's good to see you post up too. You have a long history in the industry and have garnered much respect.

To the matter at hand: I indeed got a call today and Jim is providing a restored pair. He'll have them down with in a week and a half.

I'll turn in finished copy on or before May 15. I trully respect the companies and products that this project covers and I'll do a great job (for all of us.)

Very sincerely,

Peter Breuninger

Thanks, Peter. I agree with the "long history part," but as to the respect part, well....

-k

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Since you think so little of them, why not sell them to someone who would enjoy them far more than you do? I'm sure there are many here who would be only too happy to give them a new home. From what you say about their condition, they should have many more years of service ahead of them. You probably rarely listen to them anyway so for you they just take up space.

Now come to think of it Zilch, why would you have AR3a speakers at all and why are you here? I think you have a secret, you are a closet AcousticResearchophile and you're just playing us. If you still have those JBL 100s around it's probably to remind yourself what kind if junk you once liked before you wised up. -_-

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By the way - I'm sure that people interested in Advents will want to know

which version you used for the review. There were a few minor revisions of

the crossover, and of course the well known New Large Advent and 5002/12.

I documented all of the known crossover versions on this page:

http://baselaudiolabs.googlepages.com/ADVENT_LA_XO.html

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Sure, we can have debates about the good and bad points we find with AR speakers of the "classic" era, but some of the negative things being said about the product line (and indirectly about the competence of Villchur and Allison) are going to rile some of the regulars.

My first reaction to claims that today's designers have better insights on speaker design than Villchur, Kloss and Allison and that all their design goals can be equalled or bettered with today's technology is always "Where's the showroom, I have a credit card and I'm not afraid to use it." It's only when I'm told there is no product to back up the claim (unless I'm prepared to break out a power saw and mutilate existing product to install something that has never actually been tested against the originals head-to-head) that I get irritated. I'm tired of hearing pie-in-the-sky claims that better product can be produced; I want to hear the better product. So far, a "superior AR-3a" that sounds any better than Ken's last attempt continues to be the audio industry's equivalent of cold fusion.

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Thanks everyone!

What a great thread, please keep the barbs down though.

And, please guys, JA is really a good and thoughtful man and does his best at a-n-y project he is involved in.

Ken, it's good to see you post up too. You have a long history in the industry and have garnered much respect.

To the matter at hand: I indeed got a call today and Jim is providing a restored pair. He'll have them down with in a week and a half.

I'll turn in finished copy on or before May 15. I trully respect the companies and products that this project covers and I'll do a great job (for all of us.)

Very sincerely,

Peter Breuninger

When you make your evaluation, how about turning the treble control up a couple of notches the way AR did in its live versus recorded comparisons to get the flattest response. We know that there is a deliberate high end rolloff so to be fair, that would have to be taken into account and compensated for...to make the test as close as comparable to the way AR operated them themselves. Otherwise, I expect you to tell us there is a high end rolloff that is audible and that those speakers are not up to snuff compared to others. -_-

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My first reaction to claims that today's designers have better insights on speaker design than Villchur, Kloss and Allison and that all their design goals can be equalled or bettered with today's technology is always "Where's the showroom, I have a credit card and I'm not afraid to use it." It's only when I'm told there is no product to back up the claim (unless I'm prepared to break out a power saw and mutilate existing product to install something that has never actually been tested against the originals head-to-head) that I get irritated. I'm tired of hearing pie-in-the-sky claims that better product can be produced; I want to hear the better product. So far, a "superior AR-3a" that sounds any better than Ken's last attempt continues to be the audio industry's equivalent of cold fusion.

We've heard about your credit card a few times, so tell us, how much

are you willing to spend for a system that betters the 3a to your satisfaction?

This is a serious question.

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We've heard about your credit card a few times, so tell us, how much

are you willing to spend for a system that betters the 3a to your satisfaction?

This is a serious question.

So far, the only speakers I've encountered whose price made me say "Are you nuts?" all had the name "Wilson" on them.

Just for the sake of arguement, let's set the bar at $10k with an option for another $10k if I really, really fall in love with both the sound and the cosmetics. That's about as much as I could put on the card and pay off in one month without having to cash in a CD or sell stocks (it's a bad time to sell stocks). That would be for speakers that, in addition to making me forget my 3a's in every way, are backed by a warranty, service and spare parts experience comparable to AR under Villchur.

If I'm going to find myself having to tear my own speakers apart and prowl eBay for spares in 10 years, drop the bar to $1200 max (that's the highest I can recall seeing a professionally restored pair of 3a's selling for), plus maybe that much again to stockpile parts for the future. The difference is the value I set on my own time and trouble.

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So far, the only speakers I've encountered whose price made me say "Are you nuts?" all had the name "Wilson" on them.

Just for the sake of arguement, let's set the bar at $10k with an option for another $10k if I really, really fall in love with both the sound and the cosmetics. That's about as much as I could put on the card and pay off in one month without having to cash in a CD or sell stocks (it's a bad time to sell stocks). That would be for speakers that, in addition to making me forget my 3a's in every way, are backed by a warranty, service and spare parts experience comparable to AR under Villchur.

If I'm going to find myself having to tear my own speakers apart and prowl eBay for spares in 10 years, drop the bar to $1200 max (that's the highest I can recall seeing a professionally restored pair of 3a's selling for), plus maybe that much again to stockpile parts for the future. The difference is the value I set on my own time and trouble.

I see, interesting, and again just out of curiousity what sort of electronics are you using

to drive your current 3a's?

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I tend to be insulting and dismissive as a matter of style; ask anybody on the old rec.audio.opinion usenet site where I used to hang out way too much. Insult swapping was SOP at that location. Often, the only way to get somebody's attention and get them to say what they really mean is to twist their tails a bit.

In any case, we have us a peaceful crowd of AR fans here, and when somebody (anybody) comes in and, politely or not, basically makes claims about the inferiority of the product line, I find that to be, as you noted, arrogant, insulting and dismissive - and immature - as simple as that. Sure, we can have debates about the good and bad points we find with AR speakers of the "classic" era, but some of the negative things being said about the product line (and indirectly about the competence of Villchur and Allison) are going to rile some of the regulars.

And I can say that even though I am a relative newcomer here, at least on a regular basis.

Howard Ferstler

1- The crowd only becomes unpeaceful when people rise to provocations, and the thread goes critical. I'm just trying to be a little graphite in the reactor, here.

2- You fully well know my history on rao, I think: I enjoy a good work-'em-up and smack-'em-down as much as anyone. But, this ain't RAO, and I don't believe many people want it to become RAO.

3- Corey is not a jerk, any more than reviewers who have trashed my products and philosophies are jerks.

4- In the Jr. High School crowd I hung with, there was constant bitter debate about which guitarist and which guitar. "Clapton is God." "Clapton can't lick Hendrix's [frets]." "No real guitarist plays Tele's. Only Page, and he's a fag." "You're a fag, and you like Simon and Garfunkle!" "Do not." "Do so." You would think the whole world took sides like this. What a shock it was to grow up and learn that 99% of these guys were friends, respected each other, borrowed each other's guitars, went to each other's shows. Likewise in audio. Most pros really respect each other, and find kindred spirits in people who have figured out how to survive in the business. Controversy sells, and nobody is above that. But, 99.999% of it is theater.

5- The world is impure. Fight it! Really. Just don't set up false dichotomies. Guys on one coast get busted for giving coke to their larger retailers. Guys on the other coast go to jail for taking kickbacks from their suppliers. On and on. Hifi was a big industry in those days, ad budgets were 7-figures, and it could support much more corruption than now. If you don't think AR did it's best to wine, dine and strong-arm the mags, well, you must have been at a different party. Only the engineers never got any, as usual. "Yes sir. Yes, I will have it by Monday. I promise! Of course I didn't have any New Years Eve plans, sir... I know CES is always the first week in January!"

-k

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So far, the only speakers I've encountered whose price made me say "Are you nuts?" all had the name "Wilson" on them.

Just for the sake of arguement, let's set the bar at $10k with an option for another $10k if I really, really fall in love with both the sound and the cosmetics. That's about as much as I could put on the card and pay off in one month without having to cash in a CD or sell stocks (it's a bad time to sell stocks). That would be for speakers that, in addition to making me forget my 3a's in every way, are backed by a warranty, service and spare parts experience comparable to AR under Villchur.

If I'm going to find myself having to tear my own speakers apart and prowl eBay for spares in 10 years, drop the bar to $1200 max (that's the highest I can recall seeing a professionally restored pair of 3a's selling for), plus maybe that much again to stockpile parts for the future. The difference is the value I set on my own time and trouble.

Are you nuts? Even a pair of lowly Revel Salon Ultimas will set you back a good $15K. Now Audio Note used to top out at $125,000. That got you two 2-way 8" speakers in large bookshelf enclosures and about 100 pounds of silver used in the crossover network capacitors (I'm not making this stuff up folks, that's real.) Von Schweikert's best will set you back around $150,000 but isn't it worth it? It won't be obsolete for at least another year or two. It just obsoleted his $125,000 version. There are plenty of other choices in that range too. A lot of people will be only too happy to take your money. Hey, if Kantor can do it, so can I. Maybe I'll go in the business myself -_- Some mdf, some glue, a saw, a router, some veneer, a little linseed oil, and oh yes, some Parts express speakers and crossovers and who knows, I might be a world famous speaker designer too. Hey Peter Brunhilda or whatever your name is, don't leave just yet. I've got something I want you to hear. :lol:

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I see, interesting, and again just out of curiousity what sort of electronics are you using

to drive your current 3a's?

Not enough, really. After some movers ran over my old 120WPC AR "W" receiver with a forklift I hooked them to an HK750 (70WPC@4ohms on a good day) "temporarily" until I could get something else, then life happened and I never got around to it because the only decent audio dealer here seems to specialize in electronics with no tone controls. I have an unused HT preamp I picked up on a whim but also never got around to using, got any suggestions for a 5-channel power amp with at least 150-200 WPC? Might as well take the plunge into gear that will give me the option of surround sound in case soundminded ever lines up a licensee.

Maybe the prospect of selling me a whole new amplifier/speaker combo will tempt someone into putting those speakers into production...?

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Are you nuts? Even a pair of lowly Revel Salon Ultimas will set you back a good $15K. Now Audio Note used to top out at $125,000. That got you two 2-way 8" speakers in large bookshelf enclosures and about 100 pounds of silver used in the crossover network capacitors (I'm not making this stuff up folks, that's real.) Von Schweikert's best will set you back around $150,000 but isn't it worth it? It won't be obsolete for at least another year or two. It just obsoleted his $125,000 version. There are plenty of other choices in that range too. A lot of people will be only too happy to take your money.

You're forgetting the "really, really fall in love with both the sound and the cosmetics" part. Most of the models you just described never made it to the point where I asked the price. And now the Wilsons have morphed into dayglo props from the new "Star Trek" movie. I guess they don't have trees in Utah.

Maybe I'll go in the business myself :rolleyes: Some mdf, some glue, a saw, a router, some veneer, a little linseed oil, and oh yes, some Parts express speakers and crossovers and who knows, I might be a world famous speaker designer too. Hey Peter Brunhilda or whatever your name is, don't leave just yet. I've got something I want you to hear. :lol:

My guess is you'd also have to put about $50k into some sort of bonded escrow to guarantee my "AR under Villchur" customer exerience. Unless you're planning on putting in a bid to fill my $2500 "maintain it myself" RFQ.

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My first reaction to claims that today's designers have better insights on speaker design than Villchur, Kloss and Allison and that all their design goals can be equalled or bettered with today's technology is always "Where's the showroom, I have a credit card and I'm not afraid to use it." It's only when I'm told there is no product to back up the claim (unless I'm prepared to break out a power saw and mutilate existing product to install something that has never actually been tested against the originals head-to-head) that I get irritated. I'm tired of hearing pie-in-the-sky claims that better product can be produced; I want to hear the better product. So far, a "superior AR-3a" that sounds any better than Ken's last attempt continues to be the audio industry's equivalent of cold fusion.

Easy: no market.

You're gonna hafta DIY....

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.... Hifi was a big industry in those days, ad budgets were 7-figures, and it could support much more corruption than now. If you don't think AR did it's best to wine, dine and strong-arm the mags, well, you must have been at a different party.

...

-k

Good to see you pointing this out, rather than me, or should I say admitting it.

I knew about it, just never said anything due to the expected response here, LOL!

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Not enough, really. After some movers ran over my old 120WPC AR "W" receiver with a forklift I hooked them to an HK750 (70WPC@4ohms on a good day) "temporarily" until I could get something else, then life happened and I never got around to it because the only decent audio dealer here seems to specialize in electronics with no tone controls. I have an unused HT preamp I picked up on a whim but also never got around to using, got any suggestions for a 5-channel power amp with at least 150-200 WPC? Might as well take the plunge into gear that will give me the option of surround sound in case soundminded ever lines up a licensee.

Maybe the prospect of selling me a whole new amplifier/speaker combo will tempt someone into putting those speakers into production...?

I see, and what modern speakers have you tried that did not perform well?

I mean actually brought home and spent some time with in your own familiar

acoustic space?

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I see, and what modern speakers have you tried that did not perform well?

I mean actually brought home and spent some time with in your own familiar

acoustic space?

None. If I don't like them at least a little in the showroom, things are unlikely to get any better at home.

The last "new" speaker I home trialed was a pair of AR-303's more than 10 years ago. I liked the sound well enough, but for some reason the only ones available were the black laminate model and I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on speakers in fake wood cabinets. I actually toyed momentarily with the idea of buying them anyway, then pulling the drivers and having a cabinet maker peel off the laminate and veneer them. Maybe I should have, but who knew it was going to be the last time I'd hear something I wanted to try at home? I learned much later and too late that there had been a version in real wood. Rosewood. Drat.

Ultimately, our choices in life tend to be severely limited by our preferences.

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Good to see you pointing this out, rather than me, or should I say admitting it.

I knew about it, just never said anything due to the expected response here, LOL!

- It is clear from my post, but not your quotation of my post, that it was a ubiquitous problem, and not in any way specific to AR.

- Your choice of the term "admitting it" implies that I denied it, or felt some internal resistance about sharing it, and was culpable in it. Since that is obviously not the case, and I brought the whole matter up entirely voluntarily to illustrate a point, I find your terminology strangely accusatory. If I am off base, I apologize. If I am correct, please direct your anxieties elsewhere.

- Hmmm, so you delight in rocking the boat with investigative journalism and challenging theses on many subjects, but you didn't want to even mention your exposure to a practice that was widespread at the time, because of the expected response here? Am I understanding this right?

-k

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None. If I don't like them at least a little in the showroom, things are unlikely to get any better at home.

The last "new" speaker I home trialed was a pair of AR-303's more than 10 years ago. I liked the sound well enough, but for some reason the only ones available were the black laminate model and I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on speakers in fake wood cabinets. I actually toyed momentarily with the idea of buying them anyway, then pulling the drivers and having a cabinet maker peel off the laminate and veneer them. Maybe I should have, but who knew it was going to be the last time I'd hear something I wanted to try at home? I learned much later and too late that there had been a version in real wood. Rosewood. Drat.

Ultimately, our choices in life tend to be severely limited by our preferences.

A few years ago, I listened to the Martin Logan Summits. They were powered by a 400 wpc Krell amplifier and a McIntosh preamp, the source was a McIntosh cd player. You'd need a forklift just to move the Amplifier. I counted at least five serious FR errors on the recordings of piano and violin I listened to. Horrible. At the VTV show, I listened to a lot of equipment. It all just sounded like Hi Fi equipment to me. The most expensive was the TOTL Audio Note speakers at $125,000. Because of the ravings by posters on other sites I'd visited at the time, I was curious about them and there were no dealers near me, few in North America. I had no idea what the fuss was about. When I entered the room, blaring rock music was playing. The owner of the company was there. He was complaining about the room. Of course the first thing that occurred to me (after is this guy deaf, can he hear anything at all) is that like just about every other speaker there, no engineering provision was made in the design to adjust for this inevitable important variable. He told me he attended live rock concerts regularly. He played one of the discs I'd bought with me, Marian McPartland Live at Maybeck Recital Hall Volume Nine. I think it's a fine recording of a Baldwin SD-10 piano and unlike some in my household who turn their noses up at Baldwins now that we also own a Steinway too, I have a particular fondness for that piano (not better than a Steinway, just different. Colder and I admit more brilliant.) This disc strikes me as being skewed toward a rolled off high end which needs to be carefully compensated for compared to the average recording. Nevertheless, the AN speakers made the piano sound thin and tinny to my ears. Of all the speakers I heard there, the Opera Tibaldi sounded best to me. With 4 indirect firing tweeters, it came closest to my own experiments (not their equal of course.) I think they were around $18,000. When I left AN, the guy was playing a re-release of 1940s Bing Crosby recordings. Interesting, not one other visitor I saw at that show brought even one recording with him to try out. I met someone there I knew and we heard a few speakers together. He liked one that was a one way speaker. I don't think it put out much above 10 or 12 khz which may be beyond his hearing range anyway, he was in his mid 80s. Needless to say, to my ears it was awful. The one thing I learned that day was that there is a different sound to tubes than to transistors. There was only one solid state amplifier at that show and when I heard it, I knew it instantly. It reminded me why I'd given up on tubes 40 years ago and never looked back.

I also spent considerable time at an audiophile's house (we had a mutual friend.) I listened to a Von Schweikert sub satellite system powered for a while by a Dynaco Stereo 70 knockoff made in China and then by an Italian made "digital" solid state amplifier. The solid state amplifier was clearly more accurate sounding to my ears but the overall sound was still hi fi in a box. But then what do you expect for a mere $1800 for loudspeakers. By today's standards, that's hardly entry level.

I know what people are going to say. You heard a lot of lousy equipment. You should have been listening to brand XXXXX, model YYYYY, then you would have heard something. Mid-fi is the other guy's expensive audio equipment you don't like. That thought struck me when a guy who owned Magneplanar Tympany IV told me my AR9s were mid-fi. Are they? Of course not. Compared to hearing real music, the are all Lo-fi :rolleyes:

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