[Vintage-Audio] AR History

Mon Jul 7 19:16:04 2003

Didn't somebody just purchase AR, again, a merger or? 	

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From: AA6DX <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Vintage-Audio] AR History
Date: Monday, July 07, 2003 2:27 PM

AR-1   1954
AR-2    1956
AR-2A  1957
AR-3    1958.
The AR-3 is shown in the Smithsonian Museum.
Note:  Teledyne purchased the Acoustic Research company in 1967.
------------------------------
Here is some history about AR.  More to come.  Cheers,  Mark --- Eureka, Far
Northern California

This history was provided by Howard Ferstler, author of: 
        High Fidelity Audio Video Systems
        High Definition Compact Disc Recordings
        The Home Theater Companion
        The Digital Audio Music List

Many thanks to Howard for getting a much more detailed history online! 

There are people out there who know a lot more about the history of AR than I
do, but here is a stab at providing some fairly detailed tidbits.

The first AR speaker was the AR-1. It was a rather large bookshelf model and
used a 12-inch, mostly enclosed-air-controlled (acoustic suspension) woofer. The
tweeter/midrange was a modified 8-inch unit (from GE or General Radio or RCA, I
cannot remember exactly). So, the system was a two-way model that was able to go
into the deep bass range better than just about anything else out there. In
addition to that superior bass performance, it was small and that mattered a lot
in an era when stereo was just starting to appear. If it had any drawbacks,
those involved its need for a lot of amplifier power in an era when a lot of
amplifier power could cost real money.

The AR-2 came shortly later. It was in a smaller box, had a lighter 10-inch
woofer and two 5-inch cone midrange/tweeters. The crossover point was at 2 kHz,
whereas that of the AR-1 was at about 1 kHz, I think, although I could be wrong
about that one. The AR-2's big advantage was that it cost quite a bit less than
the AR-1 and it did not need quite as much amp power. Its disadvantage was that
it could not go as low into the bass.

Both systems were given a shot in the sales arm by a review in Consumer Reports
magazine in 1958 that showed them and some similarly configured KLH models to be
superior to just about anything else available, particularly in the bass.
(See below for more on KLH.)

Obviously, the AR-1's 8-inch tweeter/midrange was a serious compromise, at least
in the top octave, and even in the upper midrange. Edgar Villchur, the man in
charge of the company, was aware of that. So, once they had the necessary
capital he came up with the AR-3, which had the first dome tweeter and dome
midrange along with the AR-1's 12-inch woofer. 

A dome's big advantage, at least at that time, was not so much an inherently
superior dispersion compared to a same-sized cone (a cone of the same size
should disperse nearly as well), as it was power handling. A dome would
ordinarily have a larger voice coil than a cone of similar diameter, and that
made it more efficient. A bit later on, I believe the AR-3 was given a more
modern, easy-to-build version of that original 12-inch woofer.

Backing up a bit, I should note that while the first AR-1 was initially designed
(and patented by) by Ed Villchur, the guy who actually came up with the
final-design-version of the woofer was Henry Kloss, who made it possible for the
unit to be assembly line produced. Villchur held the patent, of course, and
Kloss was more or less second in command when AR first got going. 

Fairly early on, they split (Kloss was company presidential material, not
vice-presidential material), with Henry starting KLH with two other gentlemen.
Part of the separation deal was that KLH got rights to use the
acoustic-suspension principle that Villchur had patented. KLH went on to make
some very good loudspeaker systems, and the two of the best, the KLH-6 and
KLH-4, were among those that Consumer Reports lionized in 1958, along with the
AR-1 and AR-2.

The AR-3 was the company's top system for several years and a bit later the
AR-2a joined the lineup. The AR-2a added the AR-3 tweeter to the existing AR-2
system. The tweeter allowed the cheaper system to deliver genuine high
frequencies. So, then we had three systems in the company offerings: AR-3,
AR-2a, and AR-2. At that time the company was also producing the AR Turntable,
which Villchur designed.

Still later on, the AR-3 was replaced by the AR-3a (although the AR-3 remained
in the line up for some time after the 3a appeared), which had the same woofer
as the AR-3. However, the tweeter and midrange were changed, as were the
crossover points, which were all lower than what the AR-3 had: 575 and 5000 Hz,
rather than 1000 and 7500 Hz. The later AR-2ax also got the AR-3a tweeter, plus
a new midrange driver that was different (much cheaper) from that of the AR-3 or
3a.

The AR-3a was designed mainly by a very competent man named Chuck McShane, under
Roy Allison's direction. Roy had joined AR in 1959, after Kloss left, and became
Villchur's plant manager. Prior to that he had been a contributing editor at
High Fidelity magazine, along with none other than Gordon Holt.

So, after the AR-3a we had the AR-2x and AR-2ax, plus the AR-4, AR-4x, AR-5,
AR-6, AR-7, and AR-LST (the latter being the only one of the group that was more
potent and more expensive than the 3a), each of which was designed under the
supervision of or else fully designed by Allison. Allison also was in charge of
getting the AR Amp, AR Tuner, and AR Receiver into production. Much of the work
on the latter was done by Robert Grodinsky.

By the time these later systems (including the electronics) started to show up,
Villchur had sold AR to Teledyne, and Roy became vice president, with Abe
Hoffman serving as president of the AR branch of the corporation. Under their
command company profits and sales doubled. However, the company was still losing
market share to outfits that were making cheaper speakers, and so a new man was
brought in by Teledyne to replace Hoffman.

A number of years later, after his contract ran out, Allison left the company
and those who were left behind produced the AR-8, AR-LST/2, AR-9, etc., none of
which Roy had anything to do with.

Allison had been doing research on speaker/room interactions, and after he left
AR his knowledge became the foundation for what eventually became Allison
Acoustics. His research was partially the a result of what had happened when
Consumer Reports gave the AR-3a a so-so review in the late 1960s, and partially
because he was aware that much was to be learned about mid-bass boundary
artifacts and the relationship between reverberant-field and direct-field sound
in home-listening rooms.

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