[Vintage-Audio] AR-4 Puzzle

[Robert Nickels]

I keep thinking I've seen some info on the AR-4 speakers on the web
somewhere but haven't found it yet for you, Duane.  But in searching around
I did find something pretty interesting about Edgar Vilchur, a teacher at
NYU who invented the acoustic suspension loudspeaker in 1954.  Here's are a
couple of snippets from the story:

Villchur took his new design to two speaker manufacturers but they were not
interested. One of his former students, Henry Kloss, was interested. "Kloss,
who was building Baruch-Lang loudspeakers for mail order sale, had invited
Villchur to develop his loudspeaker design in his Cambridge shop.
Previously, Villchur believed that creating a commercial product would
require the resources of a major loudspeaker manufacturer. 'After these two
rebuffs, and in particular, because of the nature of the rebuffs, I changed
my mind,' said Villchur. In the spring of 1954, Villchur drove Kloss up to
his lab in Woodstock, describing the theory of his new enclosure design
along the way. After they arrived, Villchur played some recordings,
including an E. Power Biggs LP with copious low-frequency content. After
hearing it, Kloss exclaimed, 'That's it!' and again offered the use of his
Cambridge loft to manufacture acoustic suspension loudspeakers. 'And thus,
AR was born,' observed Villchur."

Acoustic Research in Cambridge "started with $4000 that Kloss raised from
his friends, plus $2000 from Villchur. Since they didn't have the
capitalization to hire a production engineer to convert the prototype into a
production model, Kloss worked out the details. 'Henry was responsible for
at least 75 percent of the production desing of the AR-1. The rest was done
by me and by Tony Hoffman, a physicist friend of Henry.' They assembled
several AR-1 loudspeakers in time for the New York Audio Show in September
1954. Although the critics were impressed with the clean 32-Hz organ pedal
tones that the AR-1 could reproduce, they did not quite get the point. 'One
critic commented,' If your space is limited and you're looking for a small
speaker, you should consider the AR-1 very seriously. It's a fine speaker
for its size.' Julian Hirsch, who at the time published the Audio League
Report, wrote that 'the AR-1 had the lowest electroacoustic efficiency of
any loudspeaker on the market - but at 25 Hz and below, it was more
efficient that the Klipschorn, which had the highest efficiency of those
tested.' Hirsch also said that the AR-1 'established a new industry standard
for low distortion bass.' Eventually, the industry began to realize that the
smaller size of the cabinet was only a secondary advantage of the extended
bass response."

Villchur sponsored concerts at AR to demonstrate the accuracy and low
distortion of his speakers. "He placed the musicians (the Fine Arts String
Quartet, among others) on the stage, with a pair of AR-3 loudspeakers behind
them. At various points, they would stop playing and the taped performance
would take over. Most reviewers of the day could not tell the difference
between the live and recorded sound. 'I thought that these concerts defined
what we meant by high fidelity,' commented Villchur with pride. He took care
to use the best equipment possible at the time, including an Ampex tape
deck, two 60-watt Dynakit amplifiers, and number 18 zip cord."

That last comment made me chuckle - how could they ever have fooled anyone
without oxygen-free cable and $100 AC plugs?

73, Bob W9RAN (who still uses #18 zip cord)