The AR1500 in "working condition" is a very nice warm sounding amplifier (much like a Marantz of the 70's) with enough power to run most 6-8 ohm (even inefficient ones) speakers. The issue with the AR1500 was that it had issues running true 4 ohm speakers such as Acoustic Research AR3a speakers. The low impedance could be too much and often resulted in overheating and failure. The AR1500A was redesigned (especially the amp output sections) to handle lower impedance and would run the AR3a's with ease. They were visually the same had identical overall sound. If you have 8 ohm speakers the AR1500 works fine and an upgrade to the "A" is unnecessary. These fellas are getting pretty old and failures can be expected with non refurbished units especially with the 6000uf main filter caps and some of the caps on the amp output boards. Common failure included the FM board the phono board but as these are modular can be switched out for a good one very easily. After 30-40 years of use the power on switch could become non functionalheathkit...ar 1500.. can anyone tell me more about this model.
specs and pictures...
:thmbsp:
Just gotta keep the long view in this hobbyAsk a question here, get a knowledgeable answer 10 years later. This was a pretty dead thread until yesterday.