AR 17 speakers worth $75?

[danger boy]

There is a pair of Acoustic Research 17 speakers for sale near me for $75. I don't know anything about them. or the condition yet.. I emailed the seller to see if he could send me some pics or I could go see them in person.

any info would be great.

[mhardy6647]

Nice speakers; pricey at $75 unless they're perfect and refoamed, I'd opine.
If you want to taste ARs of the Teledyne era cheap(ly), I'd suggest some of the bigger two-ways with the AR dome tweeters (e.g., AR-14, AR-15).


http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/library/acoustic_research/add_series_1975-1978/add_series_brochures/ar_truth_in_listening_broch/

[dorokusai]

You should let the current owner keep them.

[George Grand]

I'd agree with Mark. IF they're perfect, IF they're already recently re-foamed, and IF they are plain vanilla AR-17 instead of something like 17b, 17bx or 17bxi, they may be well worth the $75.

[dcmeigs]

I have a friend who has some AR 92s in the same room with some SDA1As on an adcom speaker switch for easy comparison. They don't sound very good anymore, with particularly slow and muddy bass. Absolutely no comparison to the revamped polks.

I looked into the possibility of rebuilding the crossovers and found that they had huge caps (I want to say 200uf but I forget now). It would really cost a bundle to refurbish the crossovers; we decided against spending the money on them. You might want to have a look at the schematics before you jump into them unless you get them for garage speaker pricing.

[danger boy]

ok. i'm not jumping on these.. last thing I need is another pair of any speakers.

[dcmeigs]

I did a search for crossover schematics and came up empty handed. Are we talking about vintage or these? (http://www.digital.com.uy/ar/hi_res/ar17.htm)

Another (harsh tweeter) (http://www.audioreview.com/cat/speakers/bookshelf-speakers/acoustic-research/PRD_118991_4290crx.aspx)

[mhardy6647]

oh, I assumed the originals... didn't know that "AR" had recycled the model number so recently. Dunno even who owns the "AR" brand name nowadays...

[danger boy]

yeah me either. I assumed originals.. but since the seller says they are bookshelf.. i bet they are these newer ones.. they should never have used the same model number again. :(

[zingo]

You mean like SDA 2? :p