Need help hooking up AR3a speakers

The back of my AR3a speakers have jacks that say T 1 2. Can anyone tell me which is + and which is -?

 

Just a thought, if you don't get an answer..

Get a worn 1.5v battery and 'hit' the speakers a couple times. Watch the cones. If they go outwards, the battery is on 'forwards' (that is, the speaker terminal with the battery + on it is the + terminal).

If the cones 'sink in' when voltage is applied, then the battery is on backwards, and the speaker terminal the battery + is connected to, is the - terminal. Make sense?

 

Good idea, Damian. I don't know why I didn't think of that. I just had to do that with a pair of speakers the other day. However, I don't want to risk a loud pop damaging one of the tweeters. I think I'll just hook them up and use the MFSL test cd kick drum pulse and watch the woofers.

 

Electronics 101: the tweeters should have a capacitor in line with them at the very least, as part of the crossover. No DC can pass through that. In the past, though, I've used 9V batteries on smaller speakers and have never damaged them...even the small 1 watt speakers used in televisions. Music won't do any good--music is an alternating current, where a battery is pure DC voltage, and polarized, which will make the speaker move in one direction only.

 

Well, just tried the AR3a with my Fisher X-202-B(tubes, 30wpc) and frankly I don't see what all the fuss is about. The speakers, to my ears, are not very accurate. They seem to be even more rolled off than my Tannoys and I was hearing things on my Tannoys that were totally buried with the AR3a. Bass on the ARs was muddy and undefined. They seemed to become confused easily and did not sound balanced. Compared to my Tannoys,...saxophones, vocals, and snare drums sounded veiled and dead. Yes, I made sure they were hooked up correctly with my test cd. I will say that they imaged nicely, but that is the only merit I could find in them. I will make one disclaimer here that may make all the difference? I think the AR3a are a 4 ohm speaker. I had my amp set to 8 ohms. I'm wondering A) if the AR3a is indeed 4 ohms and B) if it is, could having the amp set to 8 ohms make them sound really bad? Either one of five scenarios is at play here 1) I am deaf 2) the AR3a are more accurate than my Tannoys and are showing me that my amp is junk 3) my Tannoys are MUCH better than the AR3a 4) I wasn't giving the AR3a enough juice 5) The AR3a are hooked up wrong or not functioning properly. I even checked the controls on the back and they were set to center position. Assuming all was normal, I really don't like these speakers. I'm not saying they were unlistenable, it's just that I don't understand why people go gaga over them. Maybe someone can chime in and shed some light on the situation. I really wanted to like these.

 

Okay, the pots were dirty and the mid and highs were cutting out. Still, these are not anywhere near as nice sounding as my Tannoys. The Tannoys have much better separation and air around the instruments. They are much more clear as well. The AR3a sound very, very nice and smooth and the imaging is quite nice, but what kills them is the bloat, boom, and murk in the bass. With the Tannoys, I can easily make out the different sound of the bass guitar, the floor tom, and the kick. On the AR3a, these sounds all seem to blur together.

 

30 watts??? That's just enough to start waking those power hungry devils up. You might wanna try an amp that's capable of providing more raw horsepower (those acoustic suspension speakers ala AR's caused the horsepower race amongst amp manufacturers back in the day)...

 

He's right. I had a pair of AR 4X's and they are smaller, but also power hungry. The 3A's need losta juice!!!!!!!

 

try 500 w a channel - stack 2 pair - put on some rock and roll and dance in the street.

I have a ton of speakers and the only ones I enjoy listening to are ESS AMT1B and ESS AMT 1T. (the 1D would be similar)
Try these and be amazed.
You should be able to get a pair for $400 - $600.
The AMT 1B have a passive radiator so they are only good up to about 90db or so with my Fisher 400 30w a channel. Midrange magic WOW!
The AMT1T are all bi amped with 1060 watts tube on the Heil Air Motion Transformer and a 500w channel into 4 ohms solid state amp for the woofers with a C20 sweet tube pre amp.
PRIX you will love these speakers and will never sell them. Not super accurate on a test machine yet you will keep coming back because they sound so good. (the bidirectional AMT (tweeter) opens them up a lot.
I can get over 105db on the AMT1Ts. eh what did you say?

 

Okay, well that all makes sense then. I wonder why all those guys at the Scott forum rave about them so much? It seems like they are a poor match for low powered tube integrateds. My friend and tech Steven collects vintage Scotts. He's the only local guy I know who has a Marantz 8b. Anyway, he and I have been curious about AR3s for a long time. As soon as I heard these I called him up and told him they seemed like they would sound great with a high powered solid state amp, but with my amp they sounded horrible. I guess my amp just wasn't pushing them. Speaking of which, those cabinets sure are heavy!

 

The tweeters in those AR's (AR3a's and AR5's) burnt out very easily. The AR LST was designed to overcome that problem. Modern tweeters have fero cooling on the very thin windings to keep the conductors from burning out. Make sure the AR's you have tried have functioning tweeters.

Richard.