My AR2 refurb project

[jldeni 439]

I have not had a lot of time over the past three years to do much in the way of playing with my audio toys, but a guy who works with my wife had this old set of AR2 speakers in his basement for a dozen years that came my way for $0. The cabs were in rough shape and one of the woofers seemed to have a "clicking" sound at certain frequencies. So, since they followed me home, I promised to take them in and care for them. He thought his grandfather had originally purchased them in the late 1950's. I did, in fact, find ads ranging from 1957-1959 for these systems.

 

I am not the best at chronicling every aspect of a project, but this was pretty quick and easy - and I really like the way it turned out. So, just thought I'd share what I have...

 

The gold nameplates were pretty classy looking - not the typical glue-on or stick on. These have a screw post welded to the back. They cleaned up nice, but I decided to leave them looking rather old instead of chancing removal of the lettering.

 

 The grills were not easy to remove. There were at least 20 tiny staples holding the frame to the plywood face. The frame was quite flimsy (likely from age) and was hot glued to the plywood. It did not come off intact - but these are readily available for all variations of AR2 cabs - already covered with decent cloth, so I ordered it ahead of time.

 

 

I sanded the cabs and face down completely and finished them using minwax oil based stains - mixing 70% Gunstock and 30% Special Walnut - and cutting it 50/50 with mineral spirits. I had used this years ago on my Cornwalls and it produces a nice, original looking finish. Then, I finished them with a clear coat of Watco Danish oil. I'm very happy with the results.

 

 I had discovered where the clicking noise was coming from with bass freq's. There is a ring of foam material bonded to the woofer cone about an inch from the dust cover. A small area of it had separated from the paper cone and was flapping - creating the noise. I decided to use a rubber cement and reattach the foam ring. It would have been just as effective to remove the ring altogether - I've seen pis of these woofers without the ring but, other than the one section, they seemed to be in good shape - and these are really nice cloth-surround speakers with a heavy alnico magnet. Just wanted to save as much of the original configuration as I could.

 

 Crossover component replacement was pretty easy - I replaced the 5K wire wound pot and pulled the old can-type caps - one 6uf and one 2uf and installed a couple of similar-valued polypropylene caps from Dayton.

 

The gasket material sealing the drivers to the cab was very much like plumbers putty except black - and even after all these years it was still soft and pliable. I did not get a pic before cleaning it off, but here is one I found from someone else's files.

 

The tweeters are enclose in a molded plastic unit that was also sealed to the cab with putty..

 

 

So, after replacing all of the insulation, I reconnected the driver wires and sealed the cabs with putty. 

 

 

 Trimmed the excess to clean it up...

 

Ready for the new grills and to fire up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finishing touch...

 

 

 

I'll report on what I think of these little guys and how they sound in a future post. 

 

 

[PDR 1,194]

Fricken gorgeous.....

[loner_t 2,568]

I have to second PDR's 'frickin' gorgeous'. They look brand new. Very nice work. 

[oldtexasdog 2,456]

Nice work! Did you replace the pots with new LPads? Good canadate for a tube amp

[Charlie 16,430]

Excellent work! I'm sure it was worth all the time it took to bring them back...

[dennismiller55 4,809]

Very nice work.  I always enjoy seeing others diy projects.  Thanks for sharing your work.  

[Dav-Em 335]

Excellent restoration job. Especially the cabinets and grills.

 

 

I have a pair of 2ax. I only use them to listen to jazz.

 

 

[dcl 3,276]

Classic AR design, well done!

[maytag 853]

Great job. I really like the color of the cabinets and the grill

[Ar9Jim 6,512]

Very nice work. Thanks for sharing..

[kve777 6,888]

Excellent! Thanks for the oil formula tip!

[Blues Pwr 766]

Congrats, great project, it turned out very well.

How did you reattach the grill/covers ?

[Belvedere2 232]

Nice! I love ARs.

[danowood 2,167]

  Beautiful Job.  Loved your finish formula.

[fill35U 1,846]

Beautiful work! 

 

Where did you get the big Carver rug? "Powerful - Musical - Shaggy"  

[jldeni 439]

Nice work! Did you replace the pots with new LPads? Good canadate for a tube amp

 

I did. Since I was cracking them open, I wanted to install new pots. I ulled out the old ceramic based wire wounds and replaced them with brand new wire wounds. They work great.

 

[jldeni 439]

Excellent! Thanks for the oil formula tip!

 

I can't take the credit for that one, Kev. It is listed on the Klipsch forum as what several have used to replicate the classic color and finish. It does look spectacular.

[jldeni 439]

 

 

Beautiful work! 

 

Where did you get the big Carver rug? "Powerful - Musical - Shaggy"  

 

That is actually a Carverfest 2015 throw that sea (Ed) had kindly offered last year after everyone who attended had one. There were a few left over and I was lucky enough to snag one that was karma'd. It moves around my man cave but is always displayed prominently! Thanks again Ed!

 

[jldeni 439]

 

 

Excellent restoration job. Especially the cabinets and grills.

 

 

I have a pair of 2ax. I only use them to listen to jazz.

 

 

 

Very nice as well! These speakers do have their place and I am exploring a bit with the style they do best. I'm going to expand on that soon...

 

 

[jldeni 439]

Very nice work.  I always enjoy seeing others diy projects.  Thanks for sharing your work.  

 

Thanks everyone for the comments and positive reinforcement. It means a lot to me and I appreciate all that this community shares.

 

Enjoy!

 

Jim 

[jldeni 439]

 

 

Congrats, great project, it turned out very well.

How did you reattach the grill/covers ?

 

The grill cover frames actually fit perfectly into the face and are tight enough so that I don't feel it necessary to attach them. My original plan was velcro - and I might do that later.

[jldeni 439]

...and...there's more: 

The Acoustic Research AR2 was always meant to be a low end entry into hi-fi and, as expected, the bottom end response of this acoustic suspension unit only reaches down to about 70hz while the high end rolls off somewhere around 12khz. That is not surprising since this two-way system has no tweeter. It relies solely on the two 5” paper-coned midrange speakers for top end.  Frankly, I think that within its range the output is smooth and sweet – with tight bass and clear treble. The airtight cab is built like a little tank with a very nice cloth-surround woofer. These speakers are great for spinning vinyl of rock music or jazz from their era – 50’s and early 60’s, and, I think this is where the speaker’s capability shines.

So, I started reading about these old AR’s and coming across/remembering ads from many years ago which basically said that if you wanted to upgrade your system, a few manufacturers produced after-market electrostatic add-on speakers that would bolster the top end. Of course, as part of my obsession, I have no issues with this kind of experimentation and quickly started looking for a way to follow this path.

The AR2 along with this Electrostat-3 looks like a neat combination.

 

In fact, I was trying to find a pair of the Realistic Electrostat-3’s shown in this ad, but could not – or got impatient while looking. But, I also saw this 1956 ad from Janszen where they matched their 1-30 array up with an AR1, which was AR’s version of an acoustic suspension, single driver sub. 

 

 

 

 …and, I found a pair of these Janszen  1-30 Electrostatic arrays. What can I say? They followed me home. 

 

 

In fact, the Janszen owner’s manual provides diagrams to connect their electrostatics with many of the popular speakers of that time and one of these is the AR2: 

 

These things are totally vintage and in great shape. They currently work fine and sound awesome so I’ll see how they hold up until I can take a good look inside. I’m not sure what they would need as far as refurb of the HV power supply and crossover for preventive maintenance purposes but, performance-wise, they produce highs that are clear and open with an airy quality. I saw (somewhere) that the 1-30’s were advertised as having good response between 1Khz to over 30Khz. I’ll bet that’s pretty close.

There are four ES panels in each cab, each panel is around 6” square. I like how the arrays are spread out in an arc to cut down on the directional-beaming trait of the electrostats. 

 

 

 Anyway, here are a couple pics of my new addition to the AR2 project.

 Additionally, I have my Signature sub running to augment the bottom end. I’m having fun with them. 

 

 

 

 

 

[CT-Seven 764]

Wow that's a nice refurb they look MIIIIIIIIIIIIINT!!

[jldeni 439]

Thanks CT. I did it more for fun (and because a friend gave me the AR2's for nothing) but I do like the way the system sounds at this point.

 

[4krow 6,583]

  Most impressive speakers and futuristic for it's time. There were so many great products back in the day.