[testingtesting]






Howdy AVS,


A buddy of mine recently inherited a set of cello amati AR-LST speakers from his Uncle, unfortunately without an amp or much information about them. He has a set of four passive speakers, how would I go about estimating what kind of amp I should pick up for these? I should also mention that they're around 20 years old, and were supposedly expensive at the time of purchase.


Each speaker has 1x12" 4x6" and 4x5" so 4(1x12" 4x6" and 4x5")=4x12" 16x6"6 and 16x5".


Doing a little rough searching modern day 12" speakers take 400W, modern day 6" speakers draw 240W, modern day 5" speakers draw 200W.


If I'm splitting power like this four ways, and to this many speakers it's beginning to look large.


Would speakers of the same size take a comparable amount of power to what 12" speakers from 1990 or 1980 would draw?


Any thoughts or has anyone seen something like this and can give me some advice?

 

[commsysman]

Cello systems were sold as complete systems, and were VERY VERY expensive.


Your terminology is a bit strange; speakers don't "DRAW" 240 watts or 200 watts or whatever; the wattage rating is the maximum power they can handle without being damaged. The normal power applied to them will be much much lower.


Your statement "modern day 12" speakers take 400 watts" is gibberish; it makes no sense at all. It shows a total lack of knowledge and understanding of speakers.


A typical 12" speaker only requires a few watts of power for a normal listening level, but some are a bit more sensitive than others.


Your statement about "splitting power" also makes no sense.


Do you mean you are connecting all of the speakers to one amplifier? You don't want to do that; period.


You will be much more likely to get some useful information about Cello systems by going to the Stereophile Forums and posting in the Speakers forum.

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by testingtesting  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24503970






Howdy AVS,


A buddy of mine recently inherited a set of cello amati AR-LST speakers from his Uncle, unfortunately without an amp or much information about them. He has a set of four passive speakers, how would I go about estimating what kind of amp I should pick up for these? I should also mention that they're around 20 years old, and were supposedly expensive at the time of purchase.


Each speaker has 1x12" 4x6" and 4x5" so 4(1x12" 4x6" and 4x5")=4x12" 16x6"6 and 16x5".


Doing a little rough searching modern day 12" speakers take 400W, modern day 6" speakers draw 240W, modern day 5" speakers draw 200W.


If I'm splitting power like this four ways, and to this many speakers it's beginning to look large.


Would speakers of the same size take a comparable amount of power to what 12" speakers from 1990 or 1980 would draw?


Any thoughts or has anyone seen something like this and can give me some advice?

There are two models, one with AR's house design drivers, and one with Dynaudio Drivers. Which one do you have?

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=speakers&m=208655


The two might be distinguished if a photograph were available.

 

[testingtesting]



Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504407


There are two models, one with AR's house design drivers, and one with Dynaudio Drivers. Which one do you have?

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=speakers&m=208655


The two might be distinguished if a photograph were available.

I will get some better pictures.

Quote:
Originally Posted by commsysman  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504279


Cello systems were sold as complete systems, and were VERY VERY expensive.


Your terminology is a bit strange; speakers don't "DRAW" 240 watts or 200 watts or whatever; the wattage rating is the maximum power they can handle without being damaged. The normal power applied to them will be much much lower.


Your statement "modern day 12" speakers take 400 watts" is gibberish; it makes no sense at all. It shows a total lack of knowledge and understanding of speakers.


A typical 12" speaker only requires a few watts of power for a normal listening level, but some are a bit more sensitive than others.


Your statement about "splitting power" also makes no sense.


Do you mean you are connecting all of the speakers to one amplifier? You don't want to do that; period.


You will be much more likely to get some useful information about Cello systems by going to the Stereophile Forums and posting in the Speakers forum.

Calm down buddy. I've never dealt with a system like this.

1. Complete system including an amp? The little research I've done suggests that they were sold as a pair, but I haven't found anything as far as specs go.

2. What I was trying to get as was clearly refuted."Connecting all of the speakers to one amplifier" I was trying to get a very rough TOTAL amount of power that would be drawn by the system. Which as you stated is not something I need to worry about.

3. Two amps then is the way to go?

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by testingtesting  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504491

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504407


There are two models, one with AR's house design drivers, and one with Dynaudio Drivers. Which one do you have?

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=speakers&m=208655


The two might be distinguished if a photograph were available.

I will get some better pictures.

Here is the AR LST spec sheet which is right on for the AR-driver model:




Here is a schematic of the crossover:




Here are the impedance curves, which depend on the setting of the attenuator switch:




It pretty well stays above 4 ohms so it should not be overly tough to drive. A stereo amp or AVR should suffice.


Its efficiency is average so excessive amounts of power are not required. The speaker does not have a lot of power handling capacity by modern standards

 

[testingtesting]



Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504642


Here is the AR LST spec sheet which is right on for the AR-driver model:


Here is a schematic of the crossover:


Here are the impedance curves, which depend on the setting of the attenuator switch:


It pretty well stays above 4 ohms so it should not be overly tough to drive. A stereo amp or AVR should suffice.


Its efficiency is average so excessive amounts of power are not required. The speaker does not have a lot of power handling capacity by modern standards

This is fantastic. Thank you for finding these. I'm not 100% confident on how I should interpret these though. What kind of modern day amp would I buy to get these up and running?


Would two of these 300W's work?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/crown-x1000-stereo-2x300w-power-amp

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by testingtesting  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24516689

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24504642


Here is the AR LST spec sheet which is right on for the AR-driver model:


Here is a schematic of the crossover:


Here are the impedance curves, which depend on the setting of the attenuator switch:


It pretty well stays above 4 ohms so it should not be overly tough to drive. A stereo amp or AVR should suffice.


Its efficiency is average so excessive amounts of power are not required. The speaker does not have a lot of power handling capacity by modern standards

This is fantastic. Thank you for finding these. I'm not 100% confident on how I should interpret these though. What kind of modern day amp would I buy to get these up and running?


Would two of these 300W's work?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/crown-x1000-stereo-2x300w-power-amp

Overkill. The AR LST's don't have the power handling capacity that you would expect from modern speakers of their stature. I think you can easily blow their fuses with an fairly ordinary modern AVR. I've never found a pair of legacy AR LSTs in my travels but a high proportion of the mids and tweets in the AR3s that I have found were fried by fairly small amps - 50-60 wpc. I have a friend who serviced the studio monitors at Motown when they were in Detroit and they bought AR3 and AR3a drivers literally by the case.

 

[testingtesting]



Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24518160


Overkill. The AR LST's don't have the power handling capacity that you would expect from modern speakers of their stature. I think you can easily blow their fuses with an fairly ordinary modern AVR. I've never found a pair of legacy AR LSTs in my travels but a high proportion of the mids and tweets in the AR3s that I have found were fried by fairly small amps - 50-60 wpc. I have a friend who serviced the studio monitors at Motown when they were in Detroit and they bought AR3 and AR3a drivers literally by the case.

I see, I assume getting my hands on drivers that could run these would be fairly difficult these days?


I'll get in touch with him and try to figure out what kind of AVR would suit his needs. Then check back in with you.

 

[testingtesting]

Here's what his uncle used to run :


Pass Labs x1 Preamp

Pass Labs x250.5 Amp

Cello Amati Speakers

MIT Output Terminator and CV

Terminator cables

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by testingtesting  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24520147

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24518160


Overkill. The AR LST's don't have the power handling capacity that you would expect from modern speakers of their stature. I think you can easily blow their fuses with an fairly ordinary modern AVR. I've never found a pair of legacy AR LSTs in my travels but a high proportion of the mids and tweets in the AR3s that I have found were fried by fairly small amps - 50-60 wpc. I have a friend who serviced the studio monitors at Motown when they were in Detroit and they bought AR3 and AR3a drivers literally by the case.

I see, I assume getting my hands on drivers that could run these would be fairly difficult these days?

Yes. The later upgrade of this design to use Dynaudio drivers was a pretty constructive way to improve the supply chain for comparable or superior drivers.

Quote:
I'll get in touch with him and try to figure out what kind of AVR would suit his needs. Then check back in with you.

I've got to be frank with you - this speaker is a very dated design. They were attributed to Roy Allison who AFAIK never again designed anything with multiple midranges and tweeters on the same flat baffle.


These are the speakers that he designed later on and actually put his name on them:







Note that there are multiple drivers but they are mounted on seperate baffles at right angles to avoid interference.

 

[Theresa]

I had friends with those Allison speakers. They were pretty good sounding at the time.

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Theresa  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24523828


I had friends with those Allison speakers. They were pretty good sounding at the time.

The most important thing that has happened to speakers since they were built is that modern dome tweeters and midranges can take more power without being damaged. Crossover technology has moved forward quite a bit.


Costs have probably gone down. The basic design seems to remain modern.

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/pdf/bass/BASS-03-10-7507b.pdf

 

[testingtesting]



Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24522301


Yes. The later upgrade of this design to use Dynaudio drivers was a pretty constructive way to improve the supply chain for comparable or superior drivers.

I've got to be frank with you - this speaker is a very dated design. They were attributed to Roy Allison who AFAIK never again designed anything with multiple midranges and tweeters on the same flat baffle.


Note that there are multiple drivers but they are mounted on seperate baffles at right angles to avoid interference.

Well is getting them up and running feasible?


If not what would you recommend he do with them?


I suppose he could ebay them and buy a pretty nice system with the money he would acquire.

 

[arnyk]



Quote:
Originally Posted by testingtesting  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24524686

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk  /t/1523331/need-some-help-identifying-cello-amati-ar-lst-speakers-and-setup#post_24522301


Yes. The later upgrade of this design to use Dynaudio drivers was a pretty constructive way to improve the supply chain for comparable or superior drivers.

I've got to be frank with you - this speaker is a very dated design. They were attributed to Roy Allison who AFAIK never again designed anything with multiple midranges and tweeters on the same flat baffle.


Note that there are multiple drivers but they are mounted on seperate baffles at right angles to avoid interference.

Well is getting them up and running feasible?

Of course, but making major investments to make them useful would only be justified by strong sentimental feelings.

Quote:
I suppose he could ebay them and buy a pretty nice system with the money he would acquire.

My experience is that Audiogon may give you a better return.