Last year I bought a pair of 1965 AR-2ax speakers. Unmolested, never been messed with. In very good condition. I had a friend who raved about his AR-3a speakers. He suggested the 2ax as a less expensive venture; I paid $200 for the pair including shipping them 2,000 miles.
I hooked them up. They sounded terrible. All 3 drivers worked, but the sound was muffled, sqwawky, and not worth listening to. I was major league disappointed.
New capacitors helped, but the sound was still bad. Cleaned the level pots. Still bad sound.
My wife was furious! I had just bought a new pair of KLH 5s the previous year. And now wasted $220 on these old beasts. She told me to put them out on the curb; get rid of them!
So I decided to put some work into them. Repaired one woofer. Cloth surrounds, still in like new shape. Glue had separated around the woofer cones. I disassembled the tweeters and rebuilt them. Quite an interesting design, really. Phenolic domes with a build-in-place surround; no skirt around the dome. The midrange drivers were in great shape.
Once finished, I was blown away!
These sound better than my new KLH 5 speakers, and have now replaced them. No fatigue, very clear and natural sounding, wide dispersion. Tight, articulate bass. Amazing on vocals.
Sample sound. Jazz, from an unmolested speaker, as I bought them:
After rebuilding the woofer and tweeter, same music track: