Teledyne AR-9 plus bonus surprise

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Hi,

I had one of those "No Way...I'm so lucky!" moments I just had to share.

I was trolling around a thrift store the day before yesterday and came across a really old pair of Teledyne AR-9 speakers (the older ones with the three little crossover EQ toggles on the front).

I wasn't familiar with these speakers, so I didn't take too much interest in them, but I looked at them anyway. They were fairly beat up and the foam surrounds around the woofers had crumbled to dust. They were a total project speakers for anyone willing to take it up... no thanks, I have enough projects to finish and am really not interested in this kind of speaker. But one thing caught my eye: It looked like whoever owned them had replaced the original tweeters with what looked, at first glance, like a pair of Electrovoice T-35 tweets.

I have a pair of Klipsch Heresies, so I know these tweets and I think they are great. But I'm chock full of unfinished projects and have very little space, so I passed them up.

The next day I was passing by the store and decided that if they were still there, I would consider getting them. I was actually hoping that someone had purchased them because I didn't want to deal with lugging some really heavy boxes home, taking them apart, and figuring out where to jettison the cabs.

Yep, they were still there. I took a closer look and noticed that the flanges that mate the horns to the magnets were significantly larger than those on my own T-35's. I was starting to get a little excited. Could these be what I thought they might be? One of the tweets was mounted to the baffle with a ring of soft silicon, so I worked it out of the box.

I had in my hand an Electrovoice T-350, but there was no label on the back, only a round ring of dust that had collected on the residual adhesive where the little round badge had been removed. Even so, I was pretty confident that these were the real thing (I know the badges for these are round and of the same size as the dust ring and I'm very familiar with look of the EV tweeter horn).

The tweeter on the other speaker was glued in with a stronger adhesive. I wasn't able to remove it, so I went upstairs, paid for both speakers, and arranged to pick them up today. At home, I removed the remaining tweet from its cab and measured both with a meter. Both matched at 6.8 ohms. No open windings, thank goodness.

Price for the whole package? $4.99 each speaker.

After doing some more research and comparison with pics and descriptions on the web, I'm fully confident that these are the T-350's. Can't wait to try them out!

I had been fantasizing about finding these tweets on ebay for a really great price, but this was so unexpected. I feel very, very lucky to be at the right place at the right time to be able to acquire these.

One question that i have regarding the tweets is that one of the spring-loaded wire terminals on them is slightly loose where it's mounted to the tweeter body. Does anyone know how to tighten this up?

Also, are the dome midrange units on the older AR-9 any good? They look like doped fabric domes, each with a round silver ring around it (the silver ring is gently domed, as well, so that if you look at the cross section of it, it would look like a gentle sine wave). It looks like ceramic magnets on these and the only marking is a part number and a "made in USA" sticker. I'm wondering if these are worth keeping.

Thanks for the attention!

Best,
KT
 
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