Bang for the buck. Wonderful entry level bookshelf speakers. Stylish. Have had these guys in service on and off for the last 7-8 years and they still sound and look great.

Missing the fullness and the mids of a floor standing speaker, or a speaker with a price tag 3-4X higher.

I recently moved the M1s into the limelight of the front channel again. With age, and a load of DVDs, quality surround has become my new quest. I have been close to pulling the trigger on about $1,500 worth of B&W 600 / 601 / LCR60 S3s, but realized my M1s would probably be a great compliment to the 5.1 system. I put some Tag5 brackets above my 53" Toshiba and realized (with some help from my wife) that my M3s might be a little intimidating at 7''. The M1s sound as good as I remember them - a little tinny, missing some mid-range, but ultimately, a lot more than I paid for. Still sound great when I turn the effect off / and keep the sub on. Perfect for us Billy Bragg fans.

Similar Products Used:

Phase 4.5; Bose 301; I want another pair of M1s to wrap up my surround package. If you have some to sell, please send me a message.

Speakers! You can't live with 'em and you can't live without 'em. Gotta have speakers. I've been an a quest to find the perfect pair of speakers for my entire lifetime (just short of 40 years). I even thought that I found the perfect speaker several times. Well, there ain't such an animal. So one's gotta compromise. I've heard hundreds of speakers and finally I settled on the AR M1. A small bookshelf two way speaker. Weird shaped cabinets. Grey in colour. Nice binding posts. Quality build.
Sound quality? Magical. Lovely midrange. More bass than one should expect. Highs are good, sometimes a bit tizzy with cheap gear. Needs good amplification to stand out (I use a Carver 1.0t amplifier with 200 watts a channel into 8 ohms. Must be careful not to blow the AR M1's).

Add a good powered subwoofer and the AR M1's are incrediable. The M1's are to be placed high on stands. They reproduce guitars with amazing accuracy. They remind me of much more expensive speakers, most notably the Harbeth Pl-3's. Yes, I'd rather have the Harbeths ($1100 a pr at least), but for about $250 a pr. the AR M1's are a steal. And unfortunately AR doesn't make the M1 anymore so you'll have to steal a pair. Or you can buy mine for the price of a brand new pair of Harbeth PL-3's. I may even take a trade. Cheers!
And remember kids, all speakers suck, but some suck more than others. Happy listening and my your quest for the perfect speaker be satisfying.

Speakers! You can't live with 'em and you can't live without 'em. Gotta have speakers. I've been an a quest to find the perfect pair of speakers for my entire lifetime (just short of 40 years). I even thought that I found the perfect speaker several times. Well, there ain't such an animal. So one's gotta compromise. I've heard hundreds of speakers and finally I settled on the AR M1. A small bookshelf two way speaker. Weird shaped cabinets. Grey in colour. Nice binding posts. Quality build.
Sound quality? Magical. Lovely midrange. More bass than one should expect. Highs are good, sometimes a bit tizzy with cheap gear. Needs good amplification to stand out (I use a Carver 1.0t amplifier with 200 watts a channel into 8 ohms. Must be careful not to blow the AR M1's).

Add a good powered subwoofer and the AR M1's are incrediable. The M1's are to be placed high on stands. They reproduce guitars with amazing accuracy. They remind me of much more expensive speakers, most notably the Harbeth Pl-3's. Yes, I'd rather have the Harbeths ($1100 a pr at least), but for about $250 a pr. the AR M1's are a steal. And unfortunately AR doesn't make the M1 anymore so you'll have to steal a pair. Or you can buy mine for the price of a brand new pair of Harbeth PL-3's. I may even take a trade. Cheers!
And remember kids, all speakers suck, but some suck more than others. Happy listening and my your quest for the perfect speaker be satisfying.

Good imaging, good clarity for the price.

Thin balance, a bit 'forward' in the midrange. Not the smoothest treble I've heard.

I spent a fair amount of time looking for the ultimate "giant killer" speakers, chasing the "unbelievable bargain of the month" grail too many times. In the end, I think you really do get what you pay for, so long as you are able to discern the well-made, good quality products from the usual mediocrities (Bose or Polk anyone?). That said, the AR M1 wasn't really the giant killer it was made out to be, but it is a really good deal in a small, budget loudspeaker. Rumor had it that they would work fabulously well with SE triode amps (that's why I bought 'em) but they turned out to require at least 10 watts or more to 'light up'. That's typical for most speakers, so there was nothing unusual with the M1's here. With my 6-watts per channel 2A3 amps, they sounded kind of sleepy and 'closed in'. They liked my Audio Van Alstine modified Dyna Stereo 70 much better, but I was really looking for a pair of speaks for the triodes (oh well).

So how do they compare to other speakers? Well... if you like B&W's (I do), you will find that the M1's are more 'midrangey', more 'forward'. My old (1984) B&W DM-100's sound more spacious and have a better sense of 'air', even though they are subjectively 'darker' sounding than the M1's. I also like the DM-100's very smooth midrange, very easy to listen to. The M1's sound more zippy and sparkly than my Tannoy T165's, but that's REALLY comparing apples and oranges, as the Tannoys are much bigger, so have far better bass, and use a horn tweeter which doesn't seem to have the same ability to resolve fine detail as the best dome tweeters.

The M1's image very convincingly -- a vocalist will be reproduced with a very nice solidity right between the speakers. Unfortunately that vocalist will be quite a bit "lighter than life", without much presence in the critical low mids. Also, cymbals and orchestral strings and percussion have a slightly 'opaque' or 'cardboard cutout' quality, rather than the quick transparency of the best speakers. This might be a function of the aforementioned overall 'midrangey' and forward presentation of the M1. The ambience of small acoustic spaces is reproduced better than the complex ambience and resonances of a symphony orchestra in a concert hall.

I would say that a good pair of M1's will make you happy if you prize the good reproduction of audio images over other characteristics such as a full, blooming midrange or bass, spaciousness (in the sense of 'atmosphere'), or a convicing sense of weightiness. The M1's are very nice on small group jazz and chamber music (including solo piano), but that sense of 'lightweightedness' will always be there. That said, bear in mind that some will prefer a small speaker to have an upwardly tilted tonal balance for an increased sense of clarity and 'speed'. It certainly made the Spica TC50 a popular speaker for a while! Others will prefer a 'warmer' presentation. In choosing something with as many inherent limitations as a tiny and inexpensive 2-way speaker (like the M1) your tastes will dictate what you like -- most likely not any technical superiority of one product over another. I mean, how does a speaker company make a profit on a pair of speakers that retail for $250?

Similar Products Used:

B&W DM-100, Tannoy T165, Tannoy LGM, KRK 6000, Dunlavy SC1, Radio Shack PRO-55AX (Linaeum), Yamaha NS-10, Alesis Monitor One, many others...

I gave my AR M1's to my Dad a few years ago - replaced them with EPOSES-11's as my satellite speakers. The AR's imaged as well as my ES-11's
(excellent iamage) but had a bright treble. The treble problem could
be cured with an equalizer or by taping a tissue over the tweeter (as professionals often do with Yamaha NS10 monitor speakers used in
control rooms). A tissue obviously doesn't look very good, so I taped
a thin piece of black cloth so it hung loosely over the tweeter
(with the black tape holding the cloth located above the tweeter).
An experiment using the speaker upside down with the tweeter firing at
the ceiling also worked, but not as well.

Has the Cult of The AR M1 died? Perhaps. I bought my pair of AR M1s during the Ken Kessler-$300 AR M1s+four figure Cello amplifiers=sonic bliss hyperbole era in the early 90s. I still have the grey odd boxes
I can't seem to sell them since I painted one but not the other, and the freakin' grille clothgot a wee torn. The M1s have seen the likes of Pioneer A400 int.9yucchhy combination, imo) amp, Grant(UK tube pre-amp) and even Cary SLA 70, KT88 output, pure class A power amps.

Their sound? Small, thin, bright, but not that detailed, not like the ProAc
Response 2s that I now run with Cary's 300B tubed, single ended 12 watt
monoblocs.
The M1s need a wall close (1 foot)behind it. They need fat sounding electronics, rolled
off cables, softish front ends...I place a double layer of felt over the
front baffle that supports the too forwardly placed tweeters, with only the tweeters
themselves exposed. That reduces the piercing treble somewhat too.
M1s bass is small,boxy and dry, and its midranges suffer the usual 'budget box'
buncha colorations as do twitty speaks like Celestion 3s and More Than Short
Pearl speaks...timbre is noticebly skewered, nasal, and tinny, but soundstage
depth and image placement are pretty damn good for such a cheap speaker.
They seem to equal Spica's, JMLab Microns and yes even Harbeth speakers in this single regard. But still, all in all they don't really seem to represent a direct challenge to much more expensive
minimonitors like the Epos and certainly not the likes of ProAc's $1000+
high end deals. Still you can get decent to high end sound from them, given
a true high end (preferably tubed) amp and smooth CD or Lp player. They worked
surprisingly well with Cary's push-pull SLA 70, and less so with single
ended 300B amps. Lessened coarseness, high boogie factor, more even tonal
balance through the mids to highs...almost better than an Ls3/5a!

Tell you all what...why doncha trade your lineums, celestions sl6s...spica tc 60s,
Quads, AE 1s...
for this closet high end babies, the M1s that sooooo bowled Mark Levinson
(yes, that Mark Levinson) over? Whacha gotta lose?

Heh heh.

Does anyone have any reviews for AR M2 Series 2? I bought them 4 years ago. I find its bass rather bland. Any tips for boosting its bass?

Have had the little M1s for many years now, and no longer my primary speaker. Yes, they have a somewhat hot top, but it is very smooth also. At one point before the Thiel 2 2s I spent the time to merge a Velodyne sub (took about a month) and found with same system, no longer sounded bright at all, so largely, I believe it is the smallish monitor with very extended highs sounding somewhat thin and bright as compared to the bass produced by the 6".

Interesting...I have asked myself that. They image very well, and with the sub cover the range with power and smoothness, but when I got the Thiels I said AH. Something maybe about the time coherent nature of the Thiels perhaps, and very difficult to describe. Can say that have had the 2 2s for 2 years and like them better all the time, and they respond to slightest changes in anything. Well this is supposed to be about the ARs. I still have them too in Garage, and no plans to sell them. With a good sub they can be the equal to systems selling for several grand, in my opinion.

If you need a small monitor, and are tight for bucks, try a pair on high stands with a good quick sub, and see what you think

Similar Products Used:

Epos 11 (could never make it sound natural at my place),Celestion 100. Have had so many speakers over the years, and many of the great names, but few have satisified me as well as the M1 with sub, and none like the Thiels.

I've been using AR M-1's in my home theater system for 4 years and have never had the urge to upgrade. They are everywhere -- in front of me, behind me, to the side of me. They are extremely compact, a feature which most other speakers, regardless of price cannot match, at less than 12 inches tall. The price was certainly right when I bought them too. They listed for $250 a pair but I got them for much less. They are a classic. Sonically speaking, they image extremely well and have a great midrange and can take a lot of power so that they can be startlingly likelike. They lack the smoothness and refinement on top that real high-end speakers may have and the treble can be a little tizzy with poor recordings and amplifiers. Since most recordings are slightly boosted on top, they can be tiring to listen to for long periods. But they compare well with anything on the market for $1000 pair or under and their small size makes them unique among mini-monitors.