Help me resurrect my AR-90s


So, I pulled my AR90s out after many years of storage and it looks like the woofers as well as the surround need to be replaced.

My dad bought these back in England in the late 70s for $350 for the pair..."the only time I ever bounced a check he says!" Anyway, he gave them to me in 1997 when I joined the Air Force and I've drug them all over the world from Maine to Pennsylvania to Colorado to Italy to Alaska and now back to Colorado. I haven't used them for over 10 years. I've recently gotten back into vinyl records and I'm wanting to set up as system with the old AR-90s.

Where can I find replacement woofers that won't change the factory sound? Anything else I should check on them before I crank them (once the woofers are fixed?
dtotheatothevtothee

Showing 4 responses by arnettpartners

I have a pair of 90's and replaced the surrounds with a kit that I got from vintageAR. Larry Lilgace is the owner and an expert on vintage ar speakers. He is good to work with. You can probably find surrounds cheaper but I was assured that by getting the kit I would have the right surrounds and quality surrounds and quality glue. The kit comes with good directions and with shims which you will need. If you get into trouble you can contact Larry and he will help you. If you don't want to tackle the refoaming, you can have them refoamed at considerable more cost--maybe as much as $500. for all six drivers if you can't find someone local and they need to be shipped out. The drivers are very heavy.
You don't want to replace the drivers. OEM drivers are no longer available new. The drivers available are only OEM in the sense that they will fit into the cabinets and will be much lower in quality. They won't be 90's anymore. The only way you can get original drivers is to watch for them on ebay or maybe oaktree. Good luck. They are worth refurbishing.
The "cones" look fine in your pics. Refoaming would be no problem. The dented dustcap is replaced--all the dustcaps are normally replaced with refoaming. You want to avoid reconing if possible. You would only need that repair if the voice coil was damaged. Reconing does not have the same electrical properties of the original but is an approximation based on "one size fits several" except in cases of rare coincidence. Back in the day (before reconing kits) damaged voice coils were rewound to exact specifications. I think the practice is as rare as hens teeth now but I've heard that the craft is still practiced if you can find such individual. I had a driver reconed once and the result was less than successful. Was not happy.
The link Dingus left works for me also by simply clicking. The forum talks about bypassing the level controls on the 9 and 90. Dingus, have you ever done that? I'd like to but was told that that board was part of the crossover and that it couldn't be bypassed.
Some 90's had larger dustcaps. It is apparent from your pic that the driver had a large dustcap over a smaller one. You will have to replace the dustcap(s)--after you have removed both of them so that you can shim the voicecoil--with the larger alternative dustcap in order to cover the ring of glue. If Larry gave you the smaller dustcap in the kit, you will have to have him send you the larger ones.