Stereophile's list of "Best top 25 speakers of past 40 years".

[skeptic]

The AR 3 is there because of the design concept and most considered it the best AR speaker made...which apparently wasn't saying much since a lot of folks think it was and is dungheep in a heavy box. I have never yet liked the sound of a speaker with rear firing drivers which are tonally innacurate with phase problems and such. Others support that sound and think it's the best. Sound however is directional and should be directional. One reason I prefer two way designs that sound like all music is of one piece... It would be nice if one speaker could produce it all from a ONE-WAY.

Acoustic Research was the result of the pioneering work done by Edgar Vilcher. Acoustic Research was responsible for more innovations in loudspeaker design than almost any other manufacturer I can think of. AR pioneered the Acoustic Suspension principle and even today, the earliest AR 12 inch woofers will give some of the finest subwoofers a run for their money. The AR3 was the first truely full range compact loudspeaker being only 2 cubic feet. It made high quality stereophonic sound in the home a real possibility and was a benchmark against which all other speakers of its day were compared. One of its major crimes was being inefficient in an era when amplifier electrical power was very expensive. It was the first speaker to use dome tweeters. It also used a dome midrange which was unique. Whether you "like it" or not, it was used successfully in many live versus recorded demonstrations including two I heard personally. This attested to its high degree of accuracy. The AR3 design itself was evolved from the earlier AR1 which used a Western Electric tweeter. The design continued to be refined over a stretch of some 40 years from the mid 1950s to the early 1980 through such production units as AR3A, AR 10 Pi, ARLST, AR 303A and (Teledyne)AR9 which IMO is the ultimate expression of that concept. There are probably few manufacturers of loudspeakers which ever equaled the quality control exercised in the manufacture of AR speakers through most of their history.

IMO, almost every one of the most highly prized loudspeakers (AR, KLH, and Advent not included) of every era used indirect firing sound in some way. This recognized that fact that the limitations of direct firing loudspeakers in real rooms could not be overcome with only direct firing drivers and is especially apparant in the treble range. These products may include bipolar radiators or a long column of tweeters which puts the listener off axis of most of them, or indirect firing tweeters. Think of all the electrostatics, Vandersteen, Snell, JBL Paragon, Magneplanar and so many others which exploited the reflective surfaces of rooms to improve sound reproduction. (I'm not going to type the B word.)

Designers of two way speakers face an insurmountable problem and that is how to get only two loudspeaker drivers which are inherently resonant devices to sound like one non resonant device over 10 octaves. Most can't. They are inevitably a compromise. BTW, by compromising the lowest 2 or 3 ocatves and then using a subwoofer, you no longer have a 2 way system. You have designed your own 3 way system so anyone who thinks they have only a two way but uses a subwoofer is only kidding themselves.

[RGA]

The argument for it is all nice and swell but since pretty much everyone abandoned rear firing tweeters...because they bothered to listen to their speakers no doubt, any advantage the set-up had has obviously been surpassed by realistic presentations(even AR left the technology). Stats are dynamically poor and have no bass dynamics. ML keeps trying and failing to integrate subwoofers in to their panels and it just doesn't work...it would make more sense to use a sub. I believe ML has finally given up on the integrated woofer - or will soon to copy Quad. In fact most classical only lovers seem to love Quad so I'm a little surprised you would go with any boxed speaker design. Stats are faster.

You are correct that the Standmounts greatest liability, and it's one all standmounts I have ever heard has, is deep bass. Bass adds a structure to the rest of the audible band that when it's missing can seem light weight. Big expensive floorstanders have to be top notch because while it adds that weight it often adds annoying resonances or sounds simply terrible in smaller apartment sized rooms.

Which is why Woochifer touts subwoofers. The best place for the midrange and treble is not necessarily the best place for bass. So you pull your speaker 3 feet from a wall and the bass is fine but now you lose out, possibly, on the higher frequencies. Two subwoofers placed very well handles the issue of stereo imaging and most quality subwofers will create more depth than any floorstander for sane money. It is also tue that a subwoofer creates a 3-way system. However the end user has much much more control of the sound. Trouble is I have never heard a truly good system with subwoofers because 98% of the world does not know how to set it up properly and the Behringer site for the novice is awfully bloody hard to understand. With a lot of work on the buyer's behalf it can be done but it's work. I always hear the handoff between sub and speaker though - presumably if that was solved then for about 4k you should be able to get a totally full range system of supreme sound quality. Perhaps you have knowledge of the ultimate subwoofer out there.

It's fine for a compnay to get credit for invention, it is also true that much of the time someone else will come along and improve upon the great idea. And if AR invented Acoustic suspension then I tip my hat to AR.

[skeptic]

Whenever I go to a live concert, I am constantly amazed at how much bass there is compared to what most home sound reproduction systems put out. I don' t know if the people who design equipment are deaf or they just test it in an anechoic chamber, sign it off and ship it out. Any sound system which cannot reproduce deep bass is not high fidelity in my book. The tone of an orchestra, the power of the low register instruments themselves including pipe organs, pianos, cellos is lost without bass. So is the rhythm. One test I listen for whenever I hear a new speaker if I have the opportunity is for plucked double basses and cellos accompanying other instruments. If you can't feel them, you aren't getting anything like what a real orchestra sounds like and this is a very common compositional technique so it isn't something that you rarely hear. I think this is one criteria acousticians use for judging concert halls as well. Bass reinforcement is critical to any good hall.

One problem with using a separate subwoofer is that unless it is physically close to the speaker it is used with, there will be major cancellations and reinforcements in the frequency range where the their frequency response transition occurs. This translates into major peaks and dips in frequency response in that region which is very annoying to listen to. Booming resonances on some notes and nothing audible on others. Therefore the designer who builds the subwoofer into the rest of his speaker system can optimally integrate it. If I were contemplating a subwoofer, I would buy two and use them as stands for the main speakers.

I don't know much about the current market for subwoofers. Possibly the first subwoofer was the monster used in the Infinity Servo Static I. If there is a clone of it or at least something in the same vein, I'd guess it is a Velodyne servo conrolled 15" woofer. That's where I would start.

Among other inventions, AR invented the dome tweeter and ferrofluid cooling. This allowed the design of small drivers that could handle a lot of power and hence produce high volume without distortion and yet have a very wide dispersion up to a high frequency when compared with all of the available alternatives such as horns or conventional cones. Yet when compared to the dispersion of woofers and midranges, even the best tweeters are relatively directional especially in the highest octave where directional cues are so important for stereo reproduction (what some people call imaging or sound staging I suppose.) Anyone doubting this should look at polar responses of speakers as a function of frequency. They all tell the same story to one degree or another which is one of nearly omnidirectional dispersion at low and mid frequencies and increasingly limited dispersion as the frequency goes up. The solution to the problem of early reflections of low and mid frequencies but not high frequencies has been to pull the speakers away from the back wall, use sound absorbing material on the back wall, or add more indirect firing tweeters. This last method allows the speaker to be placed close to the wall where bass reinforcement is much greater. Don't tell pctower that an indirect firing tweeter is no good. He might just wind up throwing out his prized Vandersteen Vs. Likewise owners of Snell AIIIi and Revel Salon. (I've added 3 to each of my AR9s and KLH 6s. Still haven't figured out how to fix the (original)Bose 901s yet. That's a tough nut to crack.) I don't belive Acoustic Research ever used an indirect firing tweeter in any of its models.

[RGA]

You sound like you are personally modifying the AR9. You can add these drivers to most any speaker if you want to.

You also are not truly being realistic. To condemn speakers for not having enough bass is fine when money is no object but the reality is that good bass(not just a lot of it) costs a tremendous amount of money - for CURRENT loudspeakers. The trade-off is so obvious when you hear any big line of speakers the little Standmount is far faster sounding with the trade-off being that no a double bass and organ is not going to have justice done...though some will at least allude to the fact that it's there.

Trouble is A LOT of speakers that can do those Organ and double basses are slugs in the midrange and some have annoying metal tweeters that zing up and completely ruin violins. Directionality means a smaller sweetspot which is not the worst thing in the world...proper system set-up can fix that up.

Your assessment of SUbs is the same as my assessment...the best ones are the ones that are built specifically for the standmount like the Gershman Acoustics Sub 1 for the X1 and I suppose the Wilson Puppy for the Watt(never heard the combo).

If you're a big organ music fan then I can certainly see where you're coming from...you're going to need a considerable speaker - and if you're looking at the current speakers on the market - and let's be fair and compare STOCK speakers then what currently as a stock speaker would you buy.

The AR9 as a stoick speaker apparently had phase problems and was considered pretty average...you fixed them up.

But this does not help current buyers looking for speakers. Most view the Quads as best for classical music as stock speakers - The 63 to me is overpriced dynamically and bass void but they seem to be greatly loved and have lasted forever so maybe they're built for the small British apartments and strictly chamber and light ensemble stuff.