more pic's

[dingus]

seeing Larry's pic's got me inspired to post mine. i put this up elsewhere, but i'm hoping some of you here might get a kick out of seeing these.
from the outside...
AR9
AR MGC-1
AR91

 

[orange]

That's 1,000,000,000 times better than the pictures coming from NWCN. Awesome speakers, dingus.

 

[dingus]

thanks! pardon my ignorance... whats NWCN?

 

[speakerman1]

Nice stack of speakers Dingus. Which do you like best and why?

Larry

 

[dingus]

the MGC-1's are far and away my fave. not only because they give a better soundstage, greater detail, are more refined, do multi-channel and are just a better sounding speaker than the other two, but also because they were given to me by the designer, Ken Kantor. their only shortcoming is the low end, so i have them augmented with a sub.

the AR9's were my daily drivers until i got the MGC-1's up and running. sold them to rat44. i have the AR91's in the back room in a nice little secondary system.

 

[Pure_Brew]

Nice pic and good to see you! I remember you working on those.

 

[laatsch55]

Ken designed those eh??

 

[dingus]

when Ken was head of R&D at AR he based the design of the MGC-1 on principles of psycho-acoustics, following up on work he did while earning his Masters at MIT in the 1970's. i think he got it right.

 

[laatsch55]

I've chatted with Ken on AK. VERY nice and VERY knowledgable man. I like 'im.

 

[dingus]

he's a hoot! spend any time with him and it becomes readily apparent that he's a true genius and a regular guy at the same time. i was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon with him (he even bought lunch) when i picked up the speakers from his storage unit. i also took advantage of that time to conduct an interview with him that ran in the May and June 2010 issues of Affordable$$Audio ezine (http://www.affordableaudio.org/aa2010-05.pdf) and http://www.affordableaudio.org/aa2010-06.pdf). the interview made an actual print publication when it was later picked up by Australian HiFi magazine (i forget which issues, but i have them in a drawer somewhere). Ken was also instrumental in the restoration of the MGC-1's, offering almost constant guidance via email and even supplying a couple of new drivers for free. keep in mind he did all this on my behalf while he's busy running his own company (ZT Amplifiers) that requires lots of global travel and most of his attention. "nice guy" only skims the surface, the guy is a wonder!

 

[laatsch55]

I would love to meet him someday. he was instrumental in me getting the Audio Precision analyzer as he had used one at Jensen.

 

[stuwee]

Way cool stuff dingus , I'm honored to have a pair of AR's from the 'AR Dude' that'd be you sir

 

[orange]

thanks! pardon my ignorance... whats NWCN?

NorthWest(Cable)News in Seattle, owned by Belo which in turn owns KING, KGW, KREM and KTVB in Boise. Since some of the cable companies dumped their coverage maybe DTV subchannels work pretty well.

Since I have to say the pictures were about the crazy idiot who blew up the house etc. YES much better than that.

I had a pair of AR-3a's and found them to produce thunder perhaps more tha KLH Model Sixes but I got hooked on those kinds of speakers.

 

[dingus]

ah, i see. yes i fully understand the addiction. if i had given in to my habit i would still have the AR9's.

 

[laatsch55]

IIRC the 9's could suck up some juice.

 

[Web Police]

Great looking speaker sets you have there, I bet they also sound real nice.

 

[dingus]

Great looking speaker sets you have there, I bet they also sound real nice.

love the sound, thanks! when i got back into audio about 8 years or so ago, i had never even heard of AR speakers. got the AR9's on fluke and have been a fan of the brand ever since.

 

[dingus]

IIRC the 9's could suck up some juice.

in the years i had them, i topped out at about 400wpc with a vertically bi-amped setup. never heard them with any more power than that, but i initially ran them on a 105wpc Yamaha CR-2020 and they did really well. i think in a moderately sized living room they are fine with 100wpc or so as long as reasonable volumes are maintained.

more surprising to me are the AR91's in the back bedroom with a tiny Trends Audio TA-10.1 class d amp at (i think) only 15wpc. while i havent even tried to reach high spl's with this set up, the 91's easily fill the room with volume levels, dynamics and a low end that are very satisfying. i tried the combination out just for kicks expecting the 91's to be way too demanding for the amp, but they make for a such a sweet sounding little rig that i've found no desire to change it.

 

[laatsch55]

There's that synergy thing again.

 

[stuwee]

If I remember correctly the 9's not only need watts but, they put a wicked load on an amp, sent many amps ocsillating into the magic smoke, am I right Scott?