Acoustic Research, Inc. was founded in 1952 and incorporated on August 10, 1954 by Edgar Villchur and his student Henry Kloss. Edgar Villchur was a loudspeaker engineer and in 1961 introduced the AR Turntable. The AR turntable showed everyone else how to isolate a unified platter/arm support assembly from the outside world. It was floated on ultra low resonance springs and ignored anything up to a 5.6 on the Richter Scale. Most belt drive tables today, 40 years later, still use the basics of Villchur's design. Many AR turntable models are still sought after today. In particular, the mid-1980 models are highly modifiable to become first-rate vinyl playback units.
These are classic wooden units of high quality and solid walnut cabinet. These units play at 33 & 45 rpm and are belt-drive turntables. The platter is of cast aluminum 3.3lb (1.5kg) suspended with a spring-suspended T-bar (sub-chassis) that greatly reduced acoustic feedback. Acoustic Research pioneered the three-point suspension turntable and created many classic models still enjoyed today. The belts employed in these prized turntables are different in terms of length, width and thickness. The original AR-XA, produced between 1962 and 1975, was a bona fide classic...it was the best-selling turntable of all time. It was simple, well-built, but definitely retro.
