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Did any camera or ski or television or car ever outperform its competitors by that wide a margin for so long a period of time? The AR-3 was introduced in 1958 it was finally replaced by the even-better AR-3a a decade later, having been widely acclaimed as the best speaker in the industry for all that time. In terms of smooth, level frequency response, deep bass extension (-3dB 35Hz, passive-on its own, not an equalized powered subwoofer), low bass THD (under 1% at a 1-watt drive level, a reasonably loud listening level in the home, all the way down under 30Hz), wide dispersion and unobtrusive size, the AR-3 enjoyed a margin of ascendancy over its competitors that is not only unrivaled in the annals of hi-fi, but may be unequaled in any technical consumer field, ever. How many speakers today use a dome tweeter? The AR-3 was the first.ĪR brought many industry first's such as low distortion sealed speakers, and dome tweeters and midranges. ft.), the AR-3 brought forward yet another AR “first”: the industry’s first dome tweeter and dome midrange drivers. Using the same woofer in the same-sized compact enclosure (well under 1.8 cu. In 1958, AR did something else that all modern speaker manufacturers still owe them for: They introduced the AR-3, a major revamping of the original AR-1 sealed system. And they went deeper in the bass and did it more cleanly than the Bozaks did. Two Bozak Concert Grands could hardly have fit in the normal living room of a typical 1962-era suburban home. With AR’s acoustic suspension design, the bookshelf-sized speaker as we still know it today became a reality, paving the way for the commercial success and popularity of two-channel stereo (which was invented in 1958).

AR-3a (separate from 3 because both achieved such huge individual sales/acclaim notoriety)Īll the AR models over this 19-year span could really be considered as embodying the same design philosophy, the same manufacturing approach, the same marketing approach and the same cutting-edge engineering breakthroughs and industry firsts.ĪR introduced the sealed “acoustic suspension” bass-alignment system to the high-fidelity world, making possible deep, clean, distortion-free bass an order of magnitude better than anything else that existed at the time, in an enclosure 1/8 the size or smaller of the then-best Klipschs and Bozaks of that era.

OK, this is kind of a fudge right off the bat because it encompasses at least 6 major product “platforms” and many, many individual models:

1: The Original Acoustic Research models, AR-1 through AR-7, 1954-1973

With that as a backdrop, here are my top 10 picks for the most influential speakers in the Consumer American hi-fi market over the last 50 years. A Top 10 Influence All-Time in the American speaker market? Move along nothing to see here. So for example, if you’re looking for the Rogers LS3/5a on this list, save yourself some time and stop reading now.

Foreign speakers have been evaluated and included with an eye to how they influenced the direction of the U.S. This is an article that deals with the 10 most influential speakers to have appeared on the scene in the last half-century in the American hi-fi market. One other thing up front: This is an American-centric article. This will not be a purely factual article but instead based on my intimate involvement in the speaker market for 50+ years.