AR9 Review

I heard the AR9 last night and spent a couple of hours playing my CD's and A/B'ing with a personal favorite of mine, the NS-1000M. A Concept 16.5 which is a dual transformer amp rated at 165 wpc into 8 ohm and 250 wpc into 4 ohm provided power.

My initial impression of the AR9 is not good. The layout is one lower mid, one mid, one tweet and a pair of side firing woofers in a sealed tower cabinet. The number of drivers goes against my preference for simplicity. I am a firm believer that forward firing single tweeter, mid, and woofer is all you need. (Bose 901's will never make it into my house.) The AR9's acoustic cabinets hold some promise for accurate bass but IMO, the dual side firing woofers defeats the benefits. The woofers under power work within the same chamber so that one woofer creates a small amount of internal pressure that the other woofer must work against. The surrounds are foam which IMO further defeats the benefits of a sealed cabinet. The tone controls are the old style switches, which are EQ effect and do not offer the possibility of fine tuning. I'd rather have gain controls for the mid and tweet with clearly defined x-over points.

Big sound is initially impressive but switching to classical and jazz reveals deficiencies. One of the attendees, who works in the audio industry identified an intermodal distortion problem that was audible as more noise and less accuracy. This was especially noticeable when a/b-ing NS-1000M's on the 16.5. Although bass frequencies are not direction dependent, IMO, side firing woofers do not project bass properly. It is analogous to light beaming at you rather than being reflected off another surface. The bass was ill-defined, I did not get the impression of bass guitar strings vibrating nor did I feel the punch of bass drum.

Woofers should give body to vocals and instruments resulting in dimension but the 9's lack of bass definition has collateral effects. Hence, the need for a lower mid driver. I found the mids to be over-boosted which adds to the presence but kills the balance. Vocals and certain instruments like guitar solos were over-bearing and just the thing for kids but I prefer some sophistication even when pounding. Treble is veiled in certain tracks leading to the question, "where's the cymbol?". I found the AR9's to be crashy and fatiguing making long listening sessions difficult at best. One of my tests is to close my eyes and try to imagine listening in person. The NS-1000M manages to become transparent and the sound floats. OTOH, the 9 always makes it's presence known and gets in the way of enjoying the music.

The AR9 are good rock and roll speakers with lots of presence but not much else to offer. If you are looking for a better HPM-100, the AR9 will fit the bill but without the capabilities of comparable JBL's.

This post has been edited by socal sam on July 12, 2008 07:25 am

Have these speakers been worked on lately ?
Older caps will make a speaker sound bad.
Those speakers are old enough to need a recap job.
I had a set of those a long time ago and was impressed by them.

the noted distortion is a red flag for bad caps or bad drivers. also a well balanced sound is one of the areas in which the 9's excel, so something is definitely not right operationally with the pair you heard. as for the low end, i would bet that the room and setup had more to do with what you heard than any other factor. i did hear a pair of NS-1000's briefly once and i was very impressed with them. compared to the 9's i can only say they are different animals with different sonic characters. ones preference between them will depend on ones preference for sound, but i dont think the 9's take a back seat to the NS-1000's by any stretch.

i've had AR9's for about 3 1/2 years and they are the only remaining component in my main system from that time. with each step up in source, controller and amplification the 9's have consistently shown their ability as a highly refined speaker. mine have been bested in head-to-head comparisons by the Tannoy Berkeley and Vandersteen 2C's, (http://www.sound-thinking.org/index.php?showtopic=1197) but in each case room placement and setup played a huge role and in the end the 9's acquitted themselves very well, pulling even with the Vandy's at the very least.

another factor is proper amplification. i've run mine with big receivers, Luxman R-117 and Yamaha CR-2020 (refurbed by Merrylander) and loved the sound, especially when i bi-amp'ed with these receivers. big receivers will sound good, but they dont come close to the sound quality that separates will give you, it was a revelation for me. i'm running a Yamaha B-2x on the highs and an M-2 on the lows for a combined rated 410 wpc, but 400 wpc is generally considered only just approaching the optimum power necessary to adequately drive the 9's (the above head-to-head comparisons were done with receivers driving the 9's).

with my current system, the 9's are giving me a high level of refinement and delicacy that i did not think they were capable of delivering. through it all the 9's have proven to be a very versatile speaker as well. they will deliver dynamics and slam, and as you noted, they can rip your face off if that is what you want. though i dont listen to jazz or classical, the 9's do not lack for anything with Steely Dan (not jazz but lots of jazz elements), ELO and The Moody Blues' "Days of Future Past" (as close as rock gets to classical).

as someone who has heard many different high end systems and has lived with the 9's through at least a dozen different system configurations, i have to believe that the pair you heard have operational issues and were probably not properly set up in the room. i think they are a very worthwhile speaker to invest the time and money into for restoration. drivers and parts are still available, and all the information one needs for such a project are readily available at http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Board/.

Dingus: Comments noted and appreciated. Here is some history on this particular pair. They were recently purchased by an audio buddy. As delivered, one of the upper mids was blown so he ordered new ones from AR and replaced both of them. The new ones differ from the originals but they mount perfectly. This pair has not been re-capped. Foam on the lower mids and woofers are new.

The room was decently sized but had hardwood floors and a low-ish smooth ceiling which made for lively sound. During normal conversation, voices reverberate as if peaking on a recording. This is a less than optimal setting for listening but the same conditions applied to the NS-1000M. The AR9's were positioned away from the walls and forward enough to give ventilation to the side firing woofers. There was some furniture but also a lot of hard surfaces.

I will also say that I am very familiar with the NS-1000M and I run three pairs of them using three Yamaha PC2002M amps, which is the professional version of the M-2. I have not heard a better setup in my home and I have run various JBL's, ADS, Dahlquist, and others. I have also run dozens of receivers and quite a few of the classic SS separates including Marantz, Kenwood, Sansui, and Pioneer. By no means have I heard them all but I consider my ears to be at least decent.

Of course the provision that personal taste counts for everything in this hobby applies. However, my opinion is driven by what is IMO a less than optimal design. Side firing woofers do not project bass in the same direction as the mids and trebles and that robs the bass guitar and drum of some of its impact. Woofers also carry the upper bass of vocals and instruments. The fact that this is not projected forward means loss of body and fullness that must be made up with the addition of a lower mid. Unfortunately, I found the lower mids and mids to be overbearing and in fact smoothered the treble and surprisingly, the bass.

Your comment about power is interesting to me. The AR9 was more efficient that the NS-1000M so I question the need for 400 plus watts. IMO, the quality of the watts makes a bigger difference in SQ rather than the outright power rating. I posted a thread recently on the importance of square wave reproduction (and got almost no intelligent responses). This aspect of performance is everything to me. IMO, your AR9's shine because the M-2 and B-2X perform very well in the sq-wv test. I've seen the CR-2020 on the scope and it looks aweful. I have not seen the R-117 on the scope but I have one and based on my experience, it is not much better. So, switching to the M-2 will have postive effects no matter what speaker you are running.

thanks Sam, yours as well.

for optimal bass response the 9's are designed to be placed within 2 inches of the back wall and with a minimum of 3 feet of clearance to each side. from personal experience they also benefit from being spaced as far apart as possible, so if the 3 feet side clearance needs to be compromised, short the outside distance and maximize the distance between each speaker.

as for the amount of power required to "adequately" drive the 9's, that is based on what i have gleaned from many owners with more experience and knowledge of the 9's than i. as for quality watts i am in full agreement with you. prior to the M-2 i ran a 60wpc Rotel on the highs and the B-2x on the lows, and this made for a very sweet sounding combination. for my room it had enough volume to satisfy me, but anything past 9 o'clock on the volume and the 170 wpc B-2x began to outpower the 60 wpc Rotel (this was a case too much disparity in power and not a mismatch of quality). no doubt the 9's are benefiting from the B-2x and M-2, but the 9's are also capable of taking advantage of the abilities of the amps.

as for your buddies 9's i think it would be worthwhile for him to at least investigate finding original drivers and ensuring that they are operationally correct. in addition to the good possibility of bad caps, the wrong drivers can affect the balance of the entire speaker. mine had the mid-bass drivers reconed with non-original cones, and though they sounded fine, it wasnt until i bought original replacements on a whim that i knew what i was missing. the 9's opened up and an effortless quality was imparted to the sound. i didnt realize how unbalanced it had been until then. http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Board/ is the best resource i know of for restoring any classic AR speaker. if he doesnt have a manual he should at least download a copy from there.

Good point on non-original (compatible) drivers. My friend paid market for them but discovered problems later. He ended up spending more than he thought.

Placement was 6 feet apart with about twelve inches clearance to the outer sides and back. Two inches was not possible because of placement of other un-movable furniture in the room and I doubt my friend's wife would allow a complete re-arrangement to properly place the AR9's.

When going mutli-amp (or multi-speaker), I always recommend using the same model. The power mis-match you noticed will cause obvious imbalance. Different amps with the same power rating will sound different if the slew rate and damping factors are different. If they reproduce the same frequency square wave with different results, the sound will not be in phase and you will lose clarity and the nuances that make music so...musical. The other thing to consider is power reserves. Different amps will deliver different power levels under various loads so that when loads dip during transitions, the power delivered will be different. Again, bad for balance.

If you can get your hands on another M-2 or B-2X to match your amps, I think you will notice a difference.

definitely. my preference was for another B-2x but those are quite rare so i jumped on the chance when the opportunity for the M-2 presented itself. vertically bi-amping, as i do, lessens the effects of mismatched amps, plus both the M-2 and B-2x have gain controls which allows their output to be dialed in more precisely.

the optimum would be to find another B-2x at some point (Mark B did find a second one for me but i didnt have the scratch to pull the trigger) and another CX-2000 and bi-amp horizontally.

Sam,

I enjoyed reading your write-up.

Good work.

Thanks Thed. Although I am not high on the AR9, they are worthy of my attention and review. I've enjoyed this discussion and appreciate Dingus' comments. Luckily, my buddy likes his AR9's so I'll re-visit my opinion.

i wasnt trying to convince you otherwise, i have no doubt that your estimation of that pair of 9's is quite accurate. my only point was that, like any speaker, the 9's need to be setup properly in the room, and need to be operationally intact in order for them to deliver good sound. i found the same to be true with the HPM-100's that i hated because they were not properly eq'ed and setup in the room. once i heard a pair that were properly setup, my take on them changed considerably ( http://www.sound-thinking.org/index.php?showtopic=2436&hl= ).

unless something changes with the speakers, i seriously doubt that your take on them will change much based on your buddies or anyone else's feelings on them. if it did then it would cast a shadow of psychoacoustics over your ability to evaluate audio gear.

I have no doubt re-capping will yield substantial improvement to my friend's pair. However, the basic layout is IMO not optimal and cannot be improved. Your comment on adjusting the AR9 until they are right is another indicator of some basic design issue. Bringing in the "is it recapped?" question can be applied to almost all equipment reviews except for brand new gear. Having A/B'ed recapped and original receivers side by side, the transformation is fantastic. However, I will also say the basic characteristics of the un-restored piece can still be heard. IMO, if one makes the commitment to spend for a re-cap, start with the right piece of clay.

In the case of the HPM-100 (which I have owned four pairs at the same time and still own one pair), Pioneer missed on the tuning such that the bass and highs smother the mids. (My theory is HPM speakers were tuned to run with the SX line of recievers which are mostly not very dynamic and require bass and treble enhancement.) When I ran the HPM-100 side by side with the JBL L-100 and L-112, I found that plugging the port, boosting the mid, and taming the high controls made them sound more like the L-112. While I have not seen the HPM-100 tone controls on the scope, I have no doubt moving away from neutral has to change the frequency curves which is bad for accuracy.

Coming back to my friend's AR9, I heard them for about 2 and half hours, which is not nearly the time you have. We did some re-positioning and amp swapping but not enough to garner the AR9's a better review. I'll keep an open mind and re-assess my initial impressions. BTW, my core values are well developed and it would take a radical shift for this to change. So changing my initial impressions based on tweeking the AR9 setup will not "cast a shadow of psychoacoustics over [my] ability to evaluate audio gear."

I'll report back later...

This post has been edited by socal sam on July 15, 2008 08:18 pm

thats what i meant, something would need to change with the speakers before your impression of them should change.

driving mine with 200-250 wpc combined by bi-amping with receivers, resulted in a sound more like what you are describing with this pair. and enjoyable but more of an in-your-face, rock-n-roll speaker that didnt have much range across different kinds of music. if you follow the threads on my 9's and the direct comparisons to the Tannoy Berkeley and the Vandersteen 2c's you'll get an idea of this. moving to separates with a decent pre-amp, transport/DAC with higher quality and higher power amps, results in a very smooth and sweet sound that is equally adept at impact, dynamics, and delicacy, that also works very well with material other than rock. the 9's are not an easy speaker to drive, and they are finicky when it comes to setup, but dial them to the room and outfit them with a quality front end, they will transform from what you are heard to what i am hearing.

I remember that when we did our shootout, the 9's sounded very forward and full, they were positioned against the wall and but fairly close together, I suggested we spread them out a little and it made a huge difference with the sound, the forwardness turned into a really nice and wide soundstage.

From what I remember, didnt we run my old 40watt sansui 1000a on the highs for a while, and the yamaha cr2020 on the lows, with that combo was a really nice setup up, that really made things sound good.

scott made the upgrade to the separates and there was no comparison in sound, similar to my upgrade with my yamaha cx/mx2000 setup.

I respect your review and your opinion and that you heard what you heard on that set of 9's, but the sound that I have heard coming from scott's 9's are nothing short of amazing, I put my vandy's even in sound quality but kinda blow the 9's away with the "WAF" factor. although i no longer have a wife it wouldnt matter. I wish southern cal was closer and socalsam had a chance to listen to scotts setup, just to have a comparison.

thats what is nice about having an opinion, sometimes they differ and sometimes they dont.

elroy

Elroy:

You and Scott are very credible enthusiasts and I cannot discount the possibility that my buddy's 9's are not up to par. I would very much like to hear a properly operating and or restored pair of 9's and it was also be interesting to have you guys hear my setup.

After the audition, I went home and played the same CD's on my setup. The comparo helped me to solidify my 9 impressions. This comparo is perhaps not fair as my living room is much better acoustically and I am running three pairs of NS-1000M's, which are tough to beat in singles, let alone as a stack.

Still, my not so positive impressions of the 9 re-inforce my preference for simple, straight forward speaker design. Bass boosting strategies like bottom firing woofers, side firing woofers, dual woofers, passive radiators, woofer arrays, and internal pressure chambers are all off my list.

Sam.

I completely respect your review, you heard what you heard. I just kinda chimed in that a couple set up changes and then scott's massive change in equipment to separates, the sound change in the 9's was and is stunning. I would love to hear your system, and your friends 9's. and I am speaking for scott, if you are ever up in the area and have time, you gotta stop by.

elroy