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Refurbishing a Set of AR-2ax Speakers
In mid June 2020, I rebooted my search of the classic AR-2ax speakers that I've been wanting for several years now. I managed to find a set from someone on eBay who communicated their story to me: the nice man had purchased them in the early 1970s in Okinawa, Japan, used them for several years, then put them in storage in 1980. They haven't seen the light of day until now and you can read about my little adventure in bringing these beauties back into working order (complete with photos and a video below.)
AR-2ax Speakers (1971)
Here they are in their original and beautiful condition. The original owner had them in storage since 1980!
Removing the Grille
The speakers on the interior were in variable condition. Not surprisingly, both woofers had rotted foam surrounds and needed to be re-foamed. The mounting plate for tweeter on this one needed some attention, too.
Opening the Rheostat
To my surprise, the rheostats were in supreme condition! I still wiped them down and cleaned up the contacts, but this was a huge plus as replacements can cost upwards of $60/ea. They can also be replaced with decent Lpads for a lot less $$$.
Contact
Another image of the contact of one of the rheostats. All four were in like-new condition.
Woofer Cleaning
Here's one of the two woofers that needed re-foaming. This one was cleaned using a flat exacto scraper. Carefully, I scraped the old foam and glue off of the basket lip and cone.
Woofers
Here are both woofers ready to be re-foamed. The old seal can also be seen, but I replaced that later.
Re-Foaming
One woofer refoamed! It's an interesting but rather simple process as long as you have the patience to pull it off. The kit was from simplyspeakers.com and they have wonderful video guides on YouTube. The most important thing to remember is to first glue the foam evenly around the cone ONLY. Once that is dry (after about 30-60min), start on the basket lip and make certain the voice coil is not scraping. This is done by repeatedly pressing down on and releasing the center of the cone while the glue dries. Both woofers glued up nicely.
Old Capacitor Pack
The old capacitor pack was testing WAY above initial values of 6uf and 4uf. This is the basis of the rather simple crossover circuit. These caps are quite simple, though they're built inside of a wax containment which is supposed to shield moisture, but that does not stop their eventual failure. Next image shows the replacement circuit I made.
New Caps
Here are the two capacitor packs I made for each speaker: a 6.2uf and 4.0uf 250V non-polar audio capacitors. These are Dayton Audio brand from partsexpress.com
Cap Pack Installed
The new capacitor pack I built is now installed in the circuit. The caps were glued together and then to the base plate. One end of each cap was mounted to the other for ground and the others were mounted to their designated points on the rheostats.
Some Reupholstery
I purchased some new grille cloth from eBay for $20. This was a very large thread count of 22, much like the original. It's much brighter than the original that was 50 years old! The color of the grille cloth is also close to the original shade of off white. Newer material tends to be brighter, but this was perfect. My daughter was very helpful.
Reupholstered!
After about an hour, both grilles were finished with 1/4" staples and some careful stretching. This fabric is pretty delicate when it comes to stretching, so I took my time with it. Spraying it lightly with water after the fact helps to increase the tension on the covers. The old grilles were removed with a flat paint scraper. They were glued on, but the glue was old and came up somewhat easily. I even got some shiny new emblems.
Sealed
One of the crucial components of these speakers is their acoustic seal and that needed to be replaced. I used some insulation tape to accomplish this seal and it seems to have worked well.
Ready For Action!
Here they are ready for action!
THE TEST
First sounds these speakers got to project in 40+ years: Wendy Carlos' Well-Tempered Synthesizer. These speakers are now in top shape and sound incredible. They have a great mid range, though I had to really crank that high tweeter to get the crisp eq I was looking for. The bass response? JUST AMAZING. Super warm, thick, and creamy. They certainly sound vintage and I'm all in favor of that. These are all technical terms to describe sound, btw.
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