Acoustic Research 266HO (ca. 1998)
Not much is documented about the Acoustic Research 266HO in English-language sources. A Japanese-market listing gives the essentials. It was a tall boy floorstanding speaker in AR's HO series, sold around 1998 at ¥108,000 for a pair. That puts it in the upper-middle of AR's late-1990s range, not at the flagship level. It was billed as a performance-oriented model that borrowed a trick or two from the company's high-end designs.
The 266HO is a 2-way, 3-speaker bass reflex system - a pair of long-throw 16.5 cm cone woofers handle the low end, crossed over to a single 2.5 cm soft dome tweeter. AR made a point of the "energy control contour" around the Aeroform tweeter, technology inherited from the high-end models and aimed at cleaner high-frequency reproduction. The cabinet is an anti-magnetic design, which mattered in the late '90s when speakers were routinely parked next to CRT televisions. It was offered in black or maple. Gold-plated terminals accept banana plugs, and the system is biampable, so the low and high sections can run off separate amplification.
Specs, per the Japanese-market documentation: 36 Hz to 20 kHz ±2 dB, 93 dB/2.83V/m sensitivity, 8-ohm impedance, recommended amplifier power of 20-150 watts RMS, crossover points at 900 Hz and 3.5 kHz, and a cabinet measuring 223 × 838 × 381 mm at 18 kg. That works out to about 8.8 inches wide and 33 inches tall.
The record does not contain a production run, country of manufacture, original U.S. price, or any reviewer or owner impressions of how it sounded. No period magazine coverage turned up, and no service documentation specific to this model appears to survive.
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