AR 3 Speakers

They are a very famous and rare speaker. I have some AR-11s from the 1970s collecting dust and drying out.

My original pair of AR3a speakers are sitting on the floor of my closet. From time to time, I imagine having the Marantz 18 and AR table I used with them checked out to create a vintage setup, but I'm unlikely to do it. Nevertheless, I'll hang onto these icons of my youth because I'm basically a pack rat.

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For anyone who questions Violin's perspective in praising the old AR-3s, I can tell you that I've known him for many years and consider him to have some of the best ears I've encountered in this hobby.

What he didn't mention was that he has played the violin since studying it as a teenager and has the experience of playing in multiple orchestras, thus great exposure to the sounds of live, acoustic music.

Also, his AR-3s are not completely 55 years old! He had them gone through to ensure all drivers and crossover parts were performing as intended. He also replaced those troublesome level pots. My reason for mentioning this is you should not expect to pull out a pair that was in storage for the past 30 years, or some you just found at your local thrift store, and expect to experience the same level of performance as Violin enjoys.

But now perhaps the most telling part of the story. For years he has been frustrated that he couldn't convince his wife to sit down to enjoy music with him, regardless how refined of a system he'd assembled. Now with his AR-3s she is happy to have music on and listen all day long.

Hopefully he won't mind my telling "the rest of the story".