Well-defined bass down to below 40Hz, low Xover to mid/woofer a plus. Excellent soundstaging and imaging.

Can sound a bit bright in "hard" rooms and with cheap electronics.

At the closeout price of $377 per pair, these speakers represent an excellent value.
They have excellent bass. In fact, I prefer it to the larger AR9s. The Woofer is quicker and exhiits less overhang than the larger 10" driver in the 9.
The mids are smooth, albeit just a bit forward of neutral.
The highs are extremely well detailed and extended.
They are efficient. Just about any good 50wpc amplifier will drive them. Would even be a good match with a good tube amp.
Give the speakers at least 20 hours or so before making any serious conclusions. Out of the box they are very good, but in my live listening room were more than a little forward and bright on top. This smoothed out considerably by the end of the first 20 hours of playing time.
Definitely bi-wire (Kimber 4TC and AudioQuest Type 4 both work great...even 4PR does OK) and use spikes or cones on the bottom.
Associated gear:

Modified Music Hall table with Grado pickup
NAD 5000 CD player with Theta Cobalt 307 DAC
Musical Fidelity A3 Integrated amp
Straightwire Rhapsody interconnects

Great midrange and high.

Dissappointing bass quality/volume.

While these speakers have wonderful midrange and high end sound, the bass is less than impressive. At $450 after shipping, I wish I had gone with Polk RT55i's and a subwoofer. Circuit City offered a pair of those to me for $300, which was an extremely good deal, although with a decent sub it would have cost more, I believe it would have been more worth it. Still, these AR11's are very good.

Similar Products Used:

several polk, infiniti, jbl mains

GREAT MIDS,HIGHS,TIGHT BASS FROM THE 8" WOOFER, THEY SOUND SO SMOOTH AND CLEAR!! Y LOVE THIS SPEAKERS!! WILL WORK GREAT FOR BOTH MAIN OR SURROUND. GET EM WHILE YOU CAN VERRY GOOD PRICE $389.00 a4l.com you won't regret it.GOT MINE CHERRY!!

NONE THAT Y SEE,WELL MAYBE THE'RE TO COOL FOR YOUR TASTE?
NO!!!!!

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SOME TIGHT LOOKING SPEAKERS THAT ARE LOUD AND CLEAR, HIGH RES AR SPEAKERS FOR MUSIC OR HOME THEATHER THIS ARE THE ONES.

Driver Complement Plasma Transferred Diamond Hardened 1" Titanium Dome Tweeter, 8" Side-firing High Excursion Woofer, 5 1/4" MagAlloy Monocoque Mid-Range
Enclosure Design
Frequency Response 35Hz-23KHz ±2dB
Sensitivity 91dB @ 2.83 Volts/Meter
Crossover Frequency 100Hz and 3.2KHz
Rated System Power See Recommended Amp. Power
Recommended Amp. Power 20 Watts~200 Watts
Nominal Impedance 8 Ohms
Enclosure Dimensions 34" x 8 1/16" x 16

THIS IS WHAT MY LITTLE HOME THEATHER CONSISTS OF:

SONY STD 945 110WATTS x 5
TOSHIBA SD 2200 DVD
TOSHIBA 50" PROJECTION TV
AR 11 MAIN
Polk Audio CS350 CENTER
Polk Audio M3 II SURROUND
Sunfire True Subwoofer MKII
Acoustic Research S115PS x WOOFER

I'M READY TO WATCH U-571(DTS)
ENJOY!!!!!!!!

Similar Products Used:

MY FIRST GREAT FRONT SPEAKERS WILL BUY AR 1 IN THE FUTURE FOR MAIN AND THIS ONES WILL GO FOR SURROUND Y LOVE AR ACOUSTICS!!

Bass, Price, Looks

None for the price

Anybody wanting a great speaker, dirt cheap look no further. These are unreal. I got them for a great price from Accessories 4 less (they were great as well). As far as the speakers sound, the highs and mids sound are great, and the bass is unreal for an 8" woofer. Just a great speaker worth much more than the asking price.

Fit & finish / overall size / power rating / sound / biwire

Sounds a bit muddy in the mids & bass at low volume.
But . . Crank em up & they sound just great.

Actually I am using these as rear surrounds in my HT setup.
I had them biwired to the rear CH of my outlaw 1050 & had to play with the bass managment settings some to get decent bass out of them. I have since run the preamp rear outs in to a spare 100wpc Sony reciever & am now biamping them with the A&B chl. it works well. At moderate to low volume they sounded a bit muffled, but when you crank them up some they deliver nice tight bass, well defined mids & highs. No comparison to my BA's, but at 1/4 the price (450 delivered)they work well. Can not wait to hook up the outlaw 750 power amp so I get a more balanced sound from my system, The Sony sounds OK with them when used as a main front ch amp but lacks somewhat as a power amp for the rear ch.

Similar Products Used:

Boston Acoustic VR-970

Fantastic imaging, powerful 8" sub, wide, even response range of 35hz-23khz.

Grills are a pain to remove

Having crap speakers before these, but always being put through the agony of hearing fantastic systems, I chose these based on reviews and specs. One of the things that drew me to these speakers was the interesting crossover frequencies; 100hz and 3.2khz. The bass is very clean, handled by what I consider to be a sub, due to the fact that the 8" woofer handles only the frequencies under 100hz. While a 100hz and 3.2khz are relatively low ranges for the midrange and tweeters respectively, the crossovers and response range is surprisingly flat and smooth, forming fantastic transitions and blending between high and low tones. While these speakers seem to grace everything you play through them with spectacular clarity, they truly shine, like other great speakers, with classical. I used the soundtrack from Willow to compare to other similar speakers due to the phenominal composing and quality of recording. The imaging the AR-11's produce is simply some of the most astoundingly realistic I've ever heard. I've yet to find any real drawbacks to these speakers, other than the fact that you'll need a good, strong receiver to power them. These draw so much power I've already overloaded my Pioneer 100x5 once, so I'll be upgrading in the near future. It's also possible to bi-wire or bi-amplify these, so there's still room for improvement using these speakers. Definitely worth more than what we've all paid here. :)

Similar Products Used:

Comparible style Cerwin-Vega, RTR, JBLs...

AR Hi Res quality for entry level price

none

I belive this AR model is being discontinued. I picked up a pair of the AR11s for $377/pair and I use them primarily as rear surrounds in my HT setup. But they could easily be used as my mains. The AR11s have similar components as used in the AR1s for much less price except that they do not have a powered woofer. The sound can be a bit on the bright side but the woofer exhibits very good lows. I cant complain at all for the price.

Similar Products Used:

AR1 mains

Titanium tweeter

Not as high powered as other higher priced AR speakers

I paid $220 each for these babies.($450 MSRP) Got em at http://go.to/etronicsonline CHEAP!! The imaging is great; I can pick out distinct sound sources.
A major draw to this particular piece is the 1-inch titanium tweeter. The tweeter is surrounded by foam of varying density, proprietary to Acoustic Research, which controls the tweeter's radiation pattern and loading properties. AR says this helps eliminate distortion in the crossover region.

An 8-inch, side-firing woofer holds down the bottom end while maintaining the speaker's slim profile. A 5-inch aluminum/magnesium driver fills in everything in between the woof and the tweet.

All of the tower speakers in the Hi-RES series have a standard internal package: titanium tweeter, high-output design, high excursion woofers, and MagAlloy drivers. For the advantage and power of built-in Sunfire amplifiers, you could expand your budget to reach the AR3 or the AR5. It ROCKS!!

Very low and articulate bass, well designed x-over (100,3K - 36dB/oct), well defined mid/high, bi-amp/bi-wirable

Cover hard to get off (until special spot if found that has better finger gaps (owners know what I'm talking about)

I upgraded from a very used pair of Magnepans and though the maggies were great, these are doing very well. The bass is very solid and not just loud -- it is defined quite well for an 8" sub (and it is a sub as the x-over is at 100Hz!). The mid-bass is 5.25" and is allowed to run for the vocal range (starting slightly below and extending slightly above), from 100Hz to 3.2KHz. A good rule of speaker design, though hard to follow, is to not put a x-over between 300Hz and 3KHz and they have done this! Way to go guys! The cabinets are solid and I purchased the cherry ones from netmarket.com at a steal of a price -- less than $520 after shipping for the pair!

The midrange is quite smooth and the tweeter does a fine job, though I must emphasize that these babies MUST be broken in before they sound wonderful. This is typical for any speaker, though most casual listeners don't notice.

Power/efficiency as excellent as compared to the maggies that were replaced. I have a Pioneer A301 integrated amp and it is rated at a solid 40wpc and does an excellent job at that power point (this amp was purchased in 1995 and uses the same power supply that they were putting in the 100wpc x 5 surround sound receivers, so it is stout at 40..actually goes to 50 at 4ohms, which it is rated for (yes, a Pioneer...really!))

One last suggestion -- bi-wire them. Try it both ways, but bi-wiring is well worth it as it seemed to give more control to the amp in the whole process and eliminated a connection by a cheesy gold plated piece of metal between the terminals. Very typical design as they want you to bi-wire or bi-amp. Bi-amping to me is overkill, though if you have a 4 channel amp, it couldn't hurt -- just put the money somewhere else if you don't already have it. Get a better 2ch amp or CD player if you want to make these things sing.