Acoustic research AR92 help- 10" woofer under performing

[tonymm]

Hi all,
I have a lovely pair of AR92s i found on the street 15 years ago, Little did i know how spoiled i'v been for so long.
Now i notice the 10" woofer on one is under performing significantly.
I have swapped the woofers and the problem is the same for that particular cabinet, woofers are all good.
I have electrical experience as an industrial/domestic electrician so i would love to be able to do the work to get this cabinet running again.
I see there's a good few coils and capacitors and toggle switchs for the -6 -3 0 settings. After this im a bit lost.
I'm no audio expert so any info/help is appreciated and if anyone can lead me to a schematic for this that would help me greatly.
There are a few AR repair videos but none for the AR92.
Many thanks for reading

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi all,
I have a lovely pair of AR92s i found on the street 15 years ago, Little did i know how spoiled i'v been for so long.
Now i notice the 10" woofer on one is under performing significantly.
I have swapped the woofers and the problem is the same for that particular cabinet, woofers are all good.
I have electrical experience as an industrial/domestic electrician so i would love to be able to do the work to get this cabinet running again.
I see there's a good few coils and capacitors and toggle switchs for the -6 -3 0 settings. After this im a bit lost.
I'm no audio expert so any info/help is appreciated and if anyone can lead me to a schematic for this that would help me greatly.
There are a few AR repair videos but none for the AR92.
Many thanks for reading

I can't find a circuit for that crossover. See if you can find one. If not could you draw it out and post it here? A photograph will not suffice. Without that I can not help you.

There are pictures, and they show those crossover to be a terrible mess. It might be best to draw out the circuit and make two new nice neat crossovers. Electronic "birds nests" tend to give trouble in my experience.

 

[tonymm]

found it, and i've ordered a pair of replacement capacitors for the bass driver, after checking the continuity on the bass driver side of the crossover. If this goes well i might re-foam the bass drivers too! I shall report back.

 

[TLS Guy]

found it, and i've ordered a pair of replacement capacitors for the bass driver, after checking the continuity on the bass driver side of the crossover. If this goes well i might re-foam the bass drivers too! I shall report back.

That is not an acceptable circuit but a drawing of the awful bird's nest those crossover are. When it come to caps when you replace them you need to replace the caps to the mid range driver. These are actually most likely the problem. Failure of the low pass caps to the woofer would just make the woofer play higher than intended.

I would recap the whole board.

 

[tonymm]

ok cool, thanks for that TLS Guy, i'll see what happens after i recap the woofer end of the crossover.
This so far has been a great learning experience so maybe it will all get recapped to keep the boredom at bay.
Any particular brands/suppliers or tolerances i should look out for?
Thanks again

 

[TLS Guy]

I find Solen caps good value. You can get them from Madisound.

 

[Verdinut]

Apart from Solen.ca which sells its caps on line, Parts-Express also carries that brand of amazing polypropylene capacitors. Some high-end speaker manufacturers use them.

 

[tonymm]

Thanks a million guys, i really appreciate the input.
Glad i can look forward to staying home with a great sounding stereo thanks to your help.
Stay safe
Thanks again from Ireland

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks a million guys, i really appreciate the input.
Glad i can look forward to staying home with a great sounding stereo thanks to your help.
Stay safe
Thanks again from Ireland

If you are in Ireland, then you probably want to order your caps from Wilmslow Audio. I used to do business with them before I left the UK 50 years ago!