The 500C is not going to sound incredible with energy hog and muffled/closed in sounding speakers, compared to todays offerings, like the early 60s vintage AR-3s. Many of the todays highly efficient speakers bass, midrange, tweeter speed is blindingly fast, open, and spacious compared to the AR-3/AR-3a days. Using the AR-3s with the Fisher 500C is like putting a cheap lense on a Hasselblad, you can still take a picture but the quality of the picture will be limited by the lense not the camera. Imagine how Ansel Adam's grand, crystaline clear landscapes pictures taken with large format film would look like if he took those pictures with a 1MB digital camera (http://www.anseladams.com/Yosemite-Special-Edition-Photographs-C110.aspx ). Get the Windex out and clean the fog on the window to what the 500C can do: leave the AR-3s in the garage and bring the 500C after cap replacements/routine maintainance into the main listening room.