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Producer discovers AR18s and has orgasm

Robert

Robert

Tapehead
Clickbait? - Oh just a little :) - but this guy really is amazed when he hears some of his favourite cuts played on AR18s for the first time.

Cracking speakers and nice to see new people discovering their virtues. Enjoy:

 
I've had two pairs pass through my hands over the years and they both stayed quite a long time. They are such a well integrated, balanced 'speaker and play everything well.
 
He's rather cheerful. I can't understand why they wouldn't mike the sweet spot if he's saying how good a pair of speakers is.
 
Wait until he gets a proper pair of Tannoys!

PS Good fun, I do like the ARs a lot, though personally I’d pick the earlier generation (AR6, AR4 etc) as they are pretty much the same but with much nicer real wood cabs and wheat grilles.
 
Proper AR's are big and has 12" Woofers. AR 3, AR 11, 10 pi and the weird LST. AR 3 was used by Motown as monitors in the sixties, so they aren't anything new in the studio world.
 
AR3s are really nice, though sadly as with all ARs they need refoaming and other work to get them working right. IIRC the internal wadding of a lot of vintage ARs is somewhat corrosive and can react with crossover components, pots, driver baskets etc. There is good advice out there with regards to rebuilding etc though so most can be saved even if donor units are sometimes needed.
 
DavidR said:
AR18s were my very first speakers way back now. Partnered with a Creek 4040 amp and Linn LP12/ LVX / can’t remember the cartridge though.
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My first decent system was based on AR18’s as well wonderful speakers. I just wish I still had them. Subsequently I had a pair of Celestion Ditton speakers powered by a Creek 4040 S2. Thankfully the latter is still with me although it is not used these days as it needs a service.
 
Regardless of what you think about the speakers, whomever sent them to him looks to have been very frugal with the packaging - there was none at all, just the speaker directly in a cardboard box (unless, of course, these were inner boxes). From experience (as a recipient) you never want to entrust a lightly packaged speaker to couriers..........

His Genelecs must destroy the ARs sonically, though?
 
My first decent system was based on AR6's,I would love to hear a pair again to see what was the attraction - that was when you could try at a dealer!
 
JTC said:
His Genelecs must destroy the ARs sonically, though?
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Not necessarily. I’ve not heard those particular Genelecs, but I’ve not been hugely impressed with the ones I have. As with so many studio actives they are great for the cash, but I’d not swap a really decent passive speaker and amp of my choice for them. For me studio active stuff only gets ‘really good’ rather than ‘really good value’ once you get to the MEG or ATC level, and fairly well up the ladder.

There is something very good about ARs. They are not the cleanest or most refined speaker, but they are great fun in exactly the way many studio actives aren’t.
 
Yes. I used to have AR38’s and they were fun with lots of deep bass.
But they weren’t very subtle! They share a tweeter with AR18’s.
The bloke’s music isn’t very good at all by the way, probably very compressed (especially The Police piece, which I like nonetheless). You can’t judge a speaker with that kind of stuff.
Well I can’t.
 
It makes sense that you might enjoy recordings mixed on those speakers!

I'm sure they are very nice but the last word in speakers? I doubt it. I think it's more likely that they were used because they represented a good example of the kind of sound popular at that time. The kind of sound many buyers would hear at home.

I remember reading many years ago about a producer who kept a little Sony rack system in the lounge of the studio which he checked recordings on as he knew it was more typical of what listeners would have at home. What is the point of mixing an album to sound right on big ATCs when hardly anyone has them?
 
Any sound engineer who uses a crap Sony mini-system to check their recordings must be mad.
 
chartz said:
Any sound engineer who uses a crap Sony mini-system to check their recordings must be mad.
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You need to do it as that is how a lot of people access music. Back in my day a typical studio had a proper big pair of Tannoys, these were your absolute reference, they told you what you’d actually recorded. Then you had a pair of NS10s or AR18s as nearfields to give an idea of what things will sound like at home, and finally a pair of Auratones, which were a little cube shaped box with a small single driver in it to give an idea what the mix would sound like over a transistor radio or in the car (back when cars just had simple radios). The art, and it really is an art, is to get a mix to sound good on all three. It is incredibly hard as you can get a stunningly good sound from the Tannoys, but not hear any bass at all when you switch to the smaller speakers, likewise if you boost the bottom so it is driving things along on the Auratones you often end up with an overpowering muddy mess from the full-range monitors.

Your job as an engineer or producer is to serve the music/the artist, not a tiny minority of audiophiles. The result has to sound good on a mono transistor radio in a transit cafe or the little Roberts radio in my bathroom as well as your or my multi-£thousand stereo. That goes for classical too. FWIW it actually amazes me how good R3 sounds via my little Roberts radio. The really skilled engineers get their mixes to sound good on any speaker, but many fail. It is one reason why I like running both a top-end vintage studio rig and a nearfield mini-monitor perspective as if something sounds overblown on the Tannoys (i.e. is obviously a nearfield mix) it will sound great upstairs via either the 149s or LS3/5As, and vice versa.
 
Mr Pig said:
It makes sense that you might enjoy recordings mixed on those speakers!

I'm sure they are very nice but the last word in speakers? I doubt it. I think it's more likely that they were used because they represented a good example of the kind of sound popular at that time. The kind of sound many buyers would hear at home.

I remember reading many years ago about a producer who kept a little Sony rack system in the lounge of the studio which he checked recordings on as he knew it was more typical of what listeners would have at home. What is the point of mixing an album to sound right on big ATCs when hardly anyone has them?
Click to expand...

The drivers contain the secret sauce.

Designed to have very controlled and well behaved performance outside of their pass band such that the simplest of crossovers could be used.
The AR18 contains one crossover component - a cap in series with the tweeter. The bass driver runs direct.
The tweeter is an early version of the ring radiator tweeter popular today.

The bass driver is designed specifically to work in a small closed box and still have bass. That's very, very rare today. Many cheat and use inappropriate drivers with EQ, but it's just not the same.

Bass speed, agility and depth from the AR18 leaves most small ported 'speakers today for dead.

The real clincher is that AR offered this largely hidden tech at remarkably low prices.
AR18s sold for about £70 by the boatload through outlets such as Comet and Laskys.
 
Tony L said:
You need to do it as that is how a lot of people access music. Back in my day a typical studio had a proper big pair of Tannoys, these were your absolute reference, they told you what you’d actually recorded. Then you had a pair of NS10s or AR18s as nearfields to give an idea of what things will sound like at home, and finally a pair of Auratones, which were a little cube shaped box with a small single driver in it to give an idea what the mix would sound like over a transistor radio or in the car (back when cars just had simple radios). The art, and it really is an art, is to get a mix to sound good on all three. It is incredibly hard as you can get a stunningly good sound from the Tannoys, but not hear any bass at all when you switch to the smaller speakers, likewise if you boost the bottom so it is driving things along on the Auratones you often end up with an overpowering muddy mess from the full-range monitors.

Your job as an engineer or producer is to serve the music/the artist, not a tiny minority of audiophiles. The result has to sound good on a mono transistor radio in a transit cafe or the little Roberts radio in my bathroom as well as your or my multi-£thousand stereo. That goes for classical too. FWIW it actually amazes me how good R3 sounds via my little Roberts radio. The really skilled engineers get their mixes to sound good on any speaker, but many fail. It is one reason why I like running both a top-end vintage studio rig and a nearfield mini-monitor perspective as if something sounds overblown on the Tannoys (i.e. is obviously a nearfield mix) it will sound great upstairs via either the 149s or LS3/5As, and vice versa.
Click to expand...
I've often wondered about this, as I'd assumed that the speaker drivers in consumer boomboxes, tranny radios, etc, had a high-pass filter to prevent over-excursion at lower frequencies, which would largely negate an engineer's attempt to boost the low end of a mix. It's been a LONG time since I listened to music on a traditional boombox (I graduated to a midi-system for my 9th birthday and finally progressed to proper separates by my 11th), but from memory I don't think I saw the little 3" boombox woofers pumping in and out much, certainly not as much as a proper, standalone mini monitor like a JR149 or LS3/5A, hence my assumption of a high-pass filter being present. However, I suppose a similar effect could be achieved by using drivers with stiff surrounds and relying on the air spring from the tiny internal enclosure volume to curtail its movement?
 
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