Pair of Original Acoustic Research AR-3 Hi-Fidelity Speakers ca.1960s NO RES For Sale

Pair of Original Acoustic Research AR3 Speakers, Great Condition, ca.1960’s

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Up for offer is a great pair of working Acoustic Research AR3 speakers in excellent original condition from the 1960’s. This is the second pair of AR3’s that came out of the original owner’s home, along with a XA turntable, where they sat for 45+ years. The first set of XR3 and the XA sold earlier on this website. The oiled walnut cabinets are in very good to excellent condition for their age, with slight rubs and wear (please view photos for condition). The woofer, dome midrange and dome tweeter are intact and functioning. I did not attempt to remove the grill but I guarantee these are AR3 and not AR3a speakers (larger orange dome tweeters present in both speakers). I hooked these up to my Pioneer SX1050 and they responded appropriately: music in each speaker & responded to volume changes, although the mid/high controls could need attention/cleaning. The sound was, at times intermittent, or dropped out, but when the mid and high controls were moved, the sound returned. Therefore, the speakers work but the mid and high controls may need to be cleaned, reconnected or replaced - which is not uncommon on these classic speakers, given their age. These speakers look like they were well maintained, with the grill in place. They have a relatively low serial numberand are, very close in seq: 39607 and 39624.I shipped the first set of AR3 speakers, double-boxed with around 15 pounds of padding/packaging each, to NYC for approximately $175.

Check out my other sales for a vintage Thorens 160 turntable in excellent condition with original box/papers, a Pioneer RT-1020L Reel to Reel in VG condition, Bowers & Wilkins DM 550 loudspeakers, a Shure V-15 cartridge in the original box, and a vintage Zerostat anti-static gun from the early 1970’s.

History - AR 3 SPEAKERS

Acoustic Research, Inc. (AR) was founded in 1952, and incorporated on August 10, 1954 by audio pioneer, writer, inventor, researcher and audio-electronics teacher Edgar M. Villchur (1917 - 2011) and his student, Henry Kloss (1929 - 2002). Edgar Villchur didn’t set out to start a speaker company; he just wanted to license his acoustic suspension designs to other speaker companies. In the early 1950’s, he shopped the concept to the biggest names in the business, but not a single one was interested. So Villchur started Acoustic Research in 1952, and his very first speaker, the AR-1, was an immediate hit. Villchur’s design strategy used the elasticity of air within a sealed cabinet to provide the restoring force for the driver, which allowed his relatively small speakers to produce deep, low-distortion bass.

The AR-3 entered the market in 1958, 4 years after the first ever acoustic suspension loudspeaker, the AR-1, was introduced. Acoustic Research had by then tested a new tweeter design, developed by Villchur, called the hemispherical dome direct radiator tweeter, which was used in the new AR-3 models. Besides the newly invented dome tweeter, Villchur´s loudspeaker also received the AR-1s woofer from 1954, which had been another speaker technology landmark, as it was the first ever commercial acoustic suspension speaker. The result was a speaker that produced music more accurately than any other speaker at its time and is until today one of the highest performing speakers available when measuring accuracy. This outstanding accuracy made the AR-3 speaker famous, and its reputation for being the \"most accurate loudspeaker at any cost\" led to its usage in many professional settings, such as concert halls or record studios.

The look was pure and clean, just a plain, wood-veneered box, but lurking behind the knit-cloth grille was the world’s first production dome tweeter and dome midrange drivers, and a 12-inch cone woofer. By today’s standards, the AR-3 wasn’t all that small—it came in at 25 inches tall, 14 inches wide, and 11.5 inches deep, and weighed 47 pounds. In 1958, it sold for $216 a pair, making it a very expensive speaker for its time. The plywood cabinets, crossover networks, and drivers were all made at the company’s factory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Build quality far exceeded industry standards, and AR was the first speaker company to provide a five-year warranty.

What made the AR-3 a sensation was the sound. In the early ’60s, Villchur conducted a series of live-versus-recorded demonstrations in which the sound of a live string quartet was compared with the recorded quartet played through a pair of AR-3s. Most listeners couldn’t tell the difference between the speakers and the musicians, a testament to the AR-3’s quality.

International buyers welcome

polk audio, cerwin vega, marantz, mcintosh, sun, AD, klipsch, altec lansing, dual, linn, dbx, dolby, surround sound, thx, bose, tube, amp,

SHIPPING WILL BE DETERMINED AT THE sale’S END.

PLEASE DISREGARD ’S SHIPPING QUOTE.

All sales are final.