Garage Speakers

mrbofus

Hello all,
been a while since I posted but have been viewing weekly.
Im looking for a set on garage speakers and found these at a local thrift store.
Was wondering what anybody could tell me about them.

They are Acoustic Research book shelf type, Appear to be a bit older and are quite heavy for they size. I removed the grills and the speaker cones appear to be very good condition. There was a tag inside that said Teledyne AR 18 I believe.

Anything special or just another speaker????
$25 to the pair

I hope everyone has a Joyfull and Safe Holiday Season..

Greg

cnh

The AR 18 is a very capable bookshelf. mhardy has some flyer info as well as personal experience with these, hopefully he'll chime in?

cnh

erniejade

+1 nothing to look at but, the ar 18 are good sounding.

gudnoyez

I own a pair of AR 18's and AR 58's these were made in the early 80's back when Teledyne were a good brand worth the $25 for sure both pair of my Ar's are running off the same Amp these were purchased with and still sound good to this day

MrGlobe

AR is a well respected speaker manufacturer. I would jump on 18s @$25

John in NC

To educate myself I looked the speaker up, seems like they have quite a following:
http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Board/index.php?showtopic=4692
I'd say go for it, I would!

reeltrouble1

Do they have someway to hook them up to make sure they are working?

That said not much risk at 25 dollars, but money is tight and no sense just wasting it.

RT1

mhardy6647

The original Teledyne-era (1977) AR18 was, IMNSHO, the best inexpensive speaker on the market when it was new. These were $65 a pop. Nothing under $100 would touch them for accuracy and smoothness - the Polk Monitor 7 then was about $150 each.

Various iterations of AR (owned by other conglomerates) made AR-18 variants for many years. These, too, were all quite respectable AFAIK.

I recently had and refurbished a pair - even the old foam grilles were intact. Even now, I'd rate them very highly as very musical and well-behaved speakers.



I guess the only caveat would be that these were inexpensive speakers (BOTL, if you will - but what a line it was!), so they should be very inexpensive today. Don't pay AR-3 prices for a pair of AR-18s! :-) Twenty-five smackers wouldn't be unreasonable. The woofers will need new foam surrounds if they haven't already been replaced.

mrbofus

Thanks for the input.
I went ahead and purchased them for $20. The kid at the store hooked them up to the "store" stereo and they work, hard to tell how well but for $20 bucks I took the chance. I have seen real JUNK for more than that.
They do appear to be fairly well built.
I will post a pic when i get time and for the garage I believe they will be just fine.

Greg

steveinaz

Had a pair of AR58's in the early 80's loved them. Later moved on to the big boys: AR9Lsi.

gudnoyez

Greg enjoy them for $20 you cant go wrong for a good sounding pair of vintage Acoustic Research:cool:

hewlew1

I have a pair of AR 38's which I refoamed and for a ten inch 2 way setup I find then very musical and easy to listen to.

mrbofus

Thanks for the input,
I hooked them up on Sunday and They sound pretty good.
Overall I'd say a good Buy!
Greg