Bass, value

No matching surrounds

I use these speakers in a home theater set up with the AR2C center and AR Phantom surrounds. Used for DVD's and TV 60%, Music 30%, PC games 10%.

Very believable sound stage, especially for movies. Excellent bass (5/5 on quantity, 3.5/5 for quality). Used in a large (18' x 36'), which these speakers fill most adequately.

Overall very pleased with these speakers, excellent performance for the price, especially for HT applications.

Things I would change: Add a servo drive to "tighten" up the prodigous bass, spike feet have very wimpy threaded connections.

Similar Products Used:

Boston Acoustics A400, Cerwin Vega

bass, footprint, value

30db gain knob sucks! 5 min warm up time. It takes about 6 months for these to break in.

O.K. lets stop all of the bickering! The AR-1 is a great value providing you didn't pay retail. They do have a warm up time of about 5 min. and the break in time is rediculous. If you havn't had them 6 months (more than 150 hours), then you shouldn't submit a review.

These speakers will not satisfy most audiophiles. They are great for home theater with the right placement, but lack a little in the highend.

They do shake the neighborhood and will play at high volumes, and for for the average listener sound adequate for music. I suggest larger rooms and using the same (hi res) series speakers for surrounds (I tried nht for the surrounds but found them to be too bright in comparison).

To the average consumer: break them in, let them warm up, and you will be impressed.

To the audiophile: Don't buy them unless they are strictly for home theater.

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!

Similar Products Used:

NHT, klipsch, def tech,

Full range speaker at a reasonable price

None at this price

You do need good upstream equipment to get the most out of
these AR1s.

I recently upgraded from an inexpensive 65wpc amp to a Bryston 4BST at 250wpc.

The AR1s sounded OK before; now they sound much better with this new amp.

These are terrific speakers for the money. Before you denigrate this product on this site, make sure you are reviewing the speakers an not your upstream components.

Similar Products Used:

The usual

deep base and great highs. best value"alot of bang for the buck".No problems handling my ONKYO TX-DS 838 INTEGRA at full throttle!

based on price range, I don't believe there is any weakness.

AFTER SHOPPING FOR A COMPLETE SET OF SPEAKERS FOR MY HOME THEATRE, I CHOSE THE ACOUSTIC RESEARCH AR1 FOR THE FRONT,
AR17 FOR THE REAR, AR4C FOR THE CENTER AND ARS500 SUB WOOFER.
THERE ARE MANY GOOD SPEAKERS OUT THERE. AFTER A LONG LISTENING AND SHOPPING EXPERIENCE,I CHOSE THE AR'S FOR THE SIMPLE FACT THAT THE RETAILER WAS GENUINE AND WILLING TO BARGAIN.
WHEN THE CASH IS BURNING A HOLE IN THE BUYER'S POCKET THE RETAILER SHOULD BE PICKING UP ON THE BUYING SIGNALS AND BE GENUINE AND A LITTLE FLEXIBLE WITH WITH THE RETAIL PRICE.
A LITTLE NOTE FOR A FEW RETAILERS OUT THERE. THE ABREVIATION M.S.R.P. MEANS THE MANUFACTURER'S SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE NOT WHOLESALE PRICE.IF YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS TO SUCCEED IN THIS HIGHLY COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY, AGAIN PLEASE BE GENUINE AND A LITTLE FLEXIBLE WITH YOUR RETAIL PRICE.

Similar Products Used:

boston acoustics and kef

Aaron in the previous review feels I must have bad hearing or be some sort of dealer to like these speakers. I can assure you I am not presently selling audio equipment, as one previous reviewer. I am an excellent critical listener and have been an audio enthusiast for over 30 years. The vast majority of reviewers gave these either 4 or 5 stars. Is it possible that AR used different internal components in some of these speakers, such as crossover network components. I know this is done when some supplies run short. The discrepancy here is too great to not question this. I am using a 250 watt Threshold class A power amp to drive these and like listening at loud levels. I have never blown a driver in over 1 year. There is something amiss here.

Caveat Emptor

I just received my shipment of theses speakers and am presently in the "break in" stage. They replace the Klipsch 10.5 front speakers I've had for the past year. So far, my expectations have pretty much been met. I've read that the after the break in period, the sound gets even better and smoother. I have been used to the Klipsch high and bright horn sound and immediately found myself wishing I had tone controls on my preamp (Harman Kardon Signature 2.0), but after a couple of hours was used to and began to appreciate the pureness of the sound. Granted, they aren't $15,000 sounding B&W's, but I would compare them to almost any speaker system costing nearlyt twice as much. I highly recommend using a high quality cable like Taralabs or Kimber as the sound really opens up and the low frequencies are very tight. There was a review in the June Stereophile that convinced me that these were the best bang for the buck. Using Carver and Parasound amplifiers, Taralabs interconnect and Taralabs RSC100 speaker cable, Klipsch 4.5 rear speakers for now and Polk CS400 center. Am probally going to replace the rears and center with AR's.

First of all, these speakers are awesome. The only weakness I can find is the subwoofer volume attenuator on the back of the speaker (the little plastic dial seems a bit cheap, like a PC board mounted rheostat), but I think the idea was to make it unobtrusive. This is the only flaw I can find in an otherwise exceptionally built speaker. The finish is clean, precise and elegant, and these babies rock. The 15" subwoofer powered by a Sunfire 500-watt amp in each tower produces unbelievable bass: precise, loud (so much so that you need to turn down the subwoofer volume in most rooms; -1.5db seems to work well), and very deep (down to 18hz). These actually bring out the ultra-low sounds most 12" subs can't hit. For those with subwoofer output on their receiver, there is a LFE input and pass-through output on each tower, and I highly recommend using them. This brings the bass to life, especially the low frequency effects on DVDs.
The dual 5.25" MagAlloy midranges are very smooth and the 1" Plasma Transferred Diamond Hardened 1" Titanium Dome Tweeter produces highs that are crisp and detailed. The imaging is detailed the and overall sound is clean and warm.

My system consists of:
Harman/Kardon AVR75 receiver
JVC XV-501BK DVD/CD player
AR1 main speakers
AR2C center channel
AR 308HO surround speakers

These speakers are huge bang for the buck. I recommend them very highly!

Just got these set up as main speakers in a system driven by a Yamaha 3090 head unit. Craftsmanship & finish appear superior. Woofers were screwed in tight. The low frequencies from the 15" side-firing internally powered woofers are loud & tight. Although I'm still experimenting, sound seems best balanced in my configuration (@ 24" in from opposing side walls) with the 30HZ attenuators set @ - 1.5db. Front sub-woofer now seems redundant. Midrange is smooth & well-localized. Tweeters seem a little 'sizzly' to my ears on some music, so I'll listen and hope they mellow a bit after further use. Presentation of video sources and film sound effects is excellent, dynamic and focused. The internal amps and/or overall efficiency of this speaker relieves the load on my head unit, resulting in distortion-free room-filling volume at 12-1 o'clock. I haven't yet explored the pain threshold or structural integrity of my home and the woofers at higher levels, but will do so & report shortly.

I have been listening to speakers for over 30 years, in my own home and using speakers for my occupation of designing audio electronics. I have heard most of the fine speakers. These speakers rank with the best. They need excellent associated equipment. They will reveal all the faults in your system. New, they are harsh, screechy, disconected. They take about 15 hours of loud break in. It just gets better and better. And finally they are absolutely transparent, with extremely deep and tight bass, excellent mid range and highs, and an uncanny revealing of inner detail in good recordins. Bad recordings are unlistenable.

This is a ten day update. As with Bob's review below, I found the speakers needed a fairly loud break-in period. I left them playing music all day while at work with a good variety of music playing. It then took me several days of experimentation to find the best location in the room. What is probally optimum placement is not possible as I have a large Hi Def projection screen that gets in the way of most everything, but found that getting the speakers into the open room as much as possible does the trick. Am using the Tatalabs Prime1000 cable. Expensive but very transparent, highly reccommend using a quality cable other than Monster. The speakers are very clean, smooth and full. I'd been used to large horn loaded speakers and have taken time to get used to the new sound but have fallen in love with it. Would compare these speakers to B and W's I've heard costing more than twice as much.