Acoustic Research AR XA

Type: Two-speed manual turntable (33⅓ and 45 rpm)
Drive: Belt drive
Motor: Synchronous motor
Platter: 4-lb (approx. 1.8 kg)
Documented period: 1967–1975

Documentation on the Acoustic Research AR XA is thin. What survives comes almost entirely from period equipment directories and system recommendations. It appears to have been a manual, belt-drive turntable that Acoustic Research offered alongside its famous original suspended-chassis model. HiFI-Stereo listed it as early as 1967 (November 1967, p.31), in a packaged system with a Pickering cartridge and University speakers. The same publication still carried the AR XA in its 1975 buyer's guide (1975, p.55). That listing describes a two-speed manual turntable with a synchronous motor, belt drive, and a four-pound platter.

Past those listings, almost nothing is recorded. The original price, exact production years, dimensions and tonearm specifications are all missing, and so is any word on how it differed mechanically from Acoustic Research's earlier turntable design. The AR XA was listed as a two-speed (33 & 45 rpm) manual turntable with a synchronous motor, belt drive, and a 4-lb platter (HiFI-Stereo, 1975, p.55).