great clean powerfull sound very detaild stage and very good bass it cost me 420$ and it graet value for the $.
best way to biamp this speakers then the bass will be deeper .

I bought these speakers about a week ago. My dad ownes a pair of AR 9's since I was a young, so I grew a great sympathy for the brand. After owning a couple of great Mission speakers I decided to search for a pair of second-hand AR speakers. After spending a long time on Ebay and the Dutch equivalent I ran into a pair of 310 HO's. At first I was a little sceptical of the performance of the 'newer series', but was ready to give it a try. I went over to the vendor's house and connected my amp (Rotel RA-980BX) and cd player. I crancked up the volume and was blown away by their power and detail. In comparison to my former speakers (Mission 774's) there is a lot more bass in these babies! Back home I hooked everything up using a Luxman L-4 amp as an pre-amp and the Rotel as power-amp. Grabbed a bear ofcourse ;-) and started listening. I was totally blown away with the sound, so much power and clearity, I was and am really satisfied with my purchase. I was hoping for more bass delivery when you look a the large woofers, but I don't feel it lacks bass. Just for comparison reasons I hooked up my old Onkyo Integra A-8190 amp, that only lasted for half a song. It sounded like cr*p. It really matters a lot what kind of amp you hook up to these babies. You don't do these speakers justice with a low-grade amp. Good speakers deserve a good amp. Back to the listening part;
Bass lines are tight and fast. They have a very spacious soundstage. The mid's are very present and rise vocals to the attention. At the top end, treble is smooth and detailed, but never harsh

After listening to the 310's I made the following conclusion (only based on my own opinions ofcourse);
- The 310's are really sensitive to how and where you place them in your room. I'm still not really satisfied with the placement.
- The built-quality of the cabinets is superb. The have very classy looks.
- They go very loud without any diffusion.
- The terminals are of excellent quality.

outstanding speakers
best value 4 money
i use them for classic, jass and opera mostly,
but also for movies.
connected 2 a haflers pre and power

Great power handling & sensivity. With 100 quality watts they will go VERY LOUD cleanly, without compression. Bloody impressive, but bass still lacks impact.

Turns music into mush. No floor-spikes. Treble has awful off-axis response and also rolls off too early. Different timbres can be indistinct, mid-range is over-emphasied. Goes VERY LOUD but sound is bad! What should be rendered as smooth bass-lines, are not portrayed as such. No off-axis soundstaging.

Description: floorstanding speakers, 4 drivers including 1 x 250mm side-mounted woofer, 95dB SPL sensitivity, 8 -ohms nominal, 200Wrms, bi-wirable, 94x25x43cm.
I bought these floor-standers to use with my Sonic Impact T-Amp, a 2 x 10W class-D amp. The speakers have high sensitivity (95dB SPL), a good nominal impedance (8ohms), and the reviews on AudioReview.com said they sounded great, so I bought a pair online for $NZ450 (~US$250)
Keenly anticipating instant karma I hooked them up to my T-Amp and DVD-player. The sound was gross. There was very little bass from the side-firing 10" woofer, regardless of where I positioned these rear-vented speakers. What was the point of such a large cabinet???
I tried out some CDs: Bjork "Post", Radiohead "OK Computer". Vocals, and the mid-range were very forward. The Kronos quartet lacked "stringiness". The treble rolled off too early, so cymbals lacked bite and definition. Furthermore, the difference in the amount of treble between on-axis response, and *just*-off-axis was large. There was no way I could use these for home theatre, with the poor off-axis treble the sound-staging was crap!
The T-amp sounded much more defined driving my old AR M3s with 90dB SPL sens. There was off-axis "air" and sound-staging for my audience co-members.
I also swapped out the cheapo DVD player for my vintage Philips CD850, with no improvement in sound.

Watching a movie, I got so sick of the sound from the 310HO's that I swapped them out for my Mirage M790's floor-standers. These are merely 87dB SPL & 6ohms, with a tweeter and a single 8" woofer, but even THEY got the low bass a-growling from my beloved T-Amp. I mean, what the f***??!

I also tried the 310HOs in my main system, with a 2 x 100Wrms high-current amp (Rotel Michi RHB05). The sound was pretty much the same. However, I did find one positive point: that with a big amp the 310HOs REALLY CRANK UP LOUD - cleanly too, with no fuss. But the bass STILL lacked impact.

What I learnt:
(1) What lies beneath... Beware if a speaker manufacturer fuses the grille to the cabinet to prevent you from directly viewing the drivers; it probably is better for you if you didn't know what was hiding there. Wouldn't YOU be suspicious if Toyota sold a car where you weren't allowed to see under the hood?
(2) I must differentiate between reviews given by those who use Kenwood receivers, and those who use other stuff ;o)


Associated equipment:
Transonic DVD player (cheap!)
Philips CD850 (CDM-4 mechanism)
Audio Alchemy DDE v2.0 D/A converter
DIY relay-driven 12-step attenuator & input selector
Rotel "Michi" RHB-05 power amp (100w/160w)
Sonic Impact T-Amp powered by sealed lead acid battery
Mirage M790 floorstanders
Acoustic Research M3

Similar Products Used:

Mirage M790 floorstanders
Acoustic Research Holograhic Imaging M3 stand-mounts
B&W P5 floorstanders
Mission 731iLe stand-mounts

clear, strong sound. Great for HT

Could be better for music, but not much.

These have sounded better and better since I got them. I guess it's true that even speakers have to break in. I imagine they could even sound better if I did some room acoustic enhancements. ( have hard wood floors ) Would buy them again!

Prima detailering,mooi open geluidsbeeld

bas prestaties

Mooi presterende box met een prettig klankkarakter.
Mooie detailering en een mooi open en ruimtelijk beeld.
Bas zou iets prominenter aanwezig mogen zijn.

Similar Products Used:

Hepta-Klipsch-ASW-Mission-SystemAudio

Clear midrange and good build quality

Lack of Bass

This AR 310 speakers have an amazing clean mid and high when I bi-wire with my Denon AVR2700 but still lack of bass. I am going to bi-amp this speakers with NHT SA-2 mono Subwoofer amplifer which rated 120w per channel. I listened it at the local store and it sound great.

I will give 5 star if the bass can be deeper.

p.s.: Anybody can you please give any ideal or email me if you biamp this speakers with NHT or other brand Subwoofer amplifer, thanks!

Highs, mids, staging, built, looks and power handling.

Bass is very accurate but just that little bit to weak, just a bit, could be the amp too...

I was looking for a pair of affordable floor-standers with an all-round sound and great looks. The AR 310 HO combines them in a very pleasing way. I got mine 6 months ago and use them as Home Theater fronts and for relaxed and concentrated music-listening. I hooked them up to a Kenwood KRX-1000 THX-receiver which provides 2 x 130 W at 8 ohm's. I listen to all forms of music and mostly beat-driven music, for which they sound great. There might be better choices for classical music though. Since the beginning I loved the straight-forward 5'mids which make voices just sound great and natural (e.g. Dire Straits, Joe Cocker etc... sound exquisite) and the clear and non-fatiguiging highs. They also stage very well but are because of this sensitive to their emplacement. Also bass reproduction is dependent of location (don't put them to close to the back-wall). Bass lines are reproduced very well and with a lot of realism, maybe just to much realism, I admit I do like a fat bass sometimes... anyway, the side-mounted woofer (ah, the looks!) provides a fair, deep-going and controlled bass wich is still audible at low volumes. Compared to a similar type of speaker like the Jamo Cornet 195, the AR's perform better in every way (little bit more expensive of course too). The bass on the Jamo's is very lousy and not at all controlled, even with two 8' woofers on board. My sound improved exponentially with the AR's!!

When having home-parties you might also be amazed by their general dynamics with low distortion, these guys can kick hard if you want them to! Efficiency is OK, they're not hard to drive.

No experience yet with bi-wiring them. If I ever get to it (lack of time nowadays) I will publish if I hear significant differences.

In Home Cinema they perform marvellously alltough I mostly focus on having an excellent Center-channel, which lifts up your entire system, believe me. If Home Cinema and not music is your thing and if you love action-packed movies like Mission Impossible etc. put your money in a decent center that goes deep and has a short 'attack' instead of buying these beauties only for this purpose.

I might say that for this money, you won't get much better speakers. It's no high-end but you're heading in the right direction. I'm keeping them anyway...

Similar Products Used:

Jamo Cornet 195

What can I say!! These speakers are wonderful. Very good image,tight bass, andvery good mids and highs.., but your equipment you use is probably going to
be the big factor in liking these speakers.. They are great for receivers, as
they are very sensitive..These speakers sound great with my Carver seperates
and my micromega stage 2 cd player. For an Extremely great price on AR speakers
check out www.onecall.com I got my 310ho for $690.00 New that includes
shipping.

I am a musician and I have both the 310's and the 312's I think my 312's are great(see my review of the AR 312HO). They anchor my home theater system and sound great; However the 310's are in a smaller room and I prefer them for listening to fine music. I'm not sure whether it is the room or the speakers and I have not been able to put the good ear on the exact difference the 310's just sound better, clearer, cleaner, better definition.