Which Snell Type A do I have? A-I or A-Original?

The truth remains that high-qualty speakers can still be made and sold for a mid four-figure price. Witness the commercial success of Tekton! 

Agree on all counts Roberjerman! I have heard plenty of six figure systems that sound like hifi. The Snells, even driven by modest electronics, sound like music.

Yes now I remember the white stuff... Putty to seal the woofer chassis. I remember peeling it off, re-rolling it into an even rope again, and putting it back to seal well. Yep just reuse it.

 And don't rethink anything about the speaker... Like removing the little fabric square hanging on the grille, or removing the diffraction bar from the tweeter, or pushing down the insulation to fully expose the mid-range driver. I have heard people on forums say they have done all these things because they thought it would improve the sound. Each is needed. The insulation I believe was intended to reduce floor bounce -- that effect where mid-range sound bounces off the floor AND comes directly at you, and the timing difference causes cancellation that makes the mids sound thin and sterile. I have always believed this is one of the secrets to the Type A having one of the best midranges of any speaker I have ever heard, regardless of cost. Scary real. Peter Snell had ears and brains, not to mention a lot of patience to experiment!

Another thing is the crossover. If you ever have to replace any caps or other components, replace them exactly the way they are configured. If there are several smaller value caps stacked, replace them exactly that way. Repair people will get you it is the same as having one cap equaling the total value of the small caps. Not true. Trust Peter Snell in all cases. He did nearly everything for good reasons.

@ mofimadness   is correct on the revisions.

I originally heard the A1s, ended up buying the A2s, and later the A3s. sold the A2s to buy a second pair of the A3s for another system, and ended up sending all 4 upper cabinets back to Snell to get the i upgrade. Those are/were great speakers, and can run with many today.

They key point to mention on any of the the A versions, is they need a ton of power; no 100 watt  per channel stuff. That crossover really consumes the juice.

I ran mine with a pair of Threshold S500s in a vertical biamp config.

A friend also had a pair of A3is, and drove them with the Grant Lumney tube monoblocks, which sounded quite impressive.

The plenty of power concept, was also needed but maybe to a lesser extent with the other Snell models from that era, including the B minor, CV, the D, etc.

I guess the power discussion is like it always is. All things equal more power is usually better. but being a tube guy I will always take 50 watts of tube power over 250 watts of solid state power any day ... With rare exceptions ;)

I ran my first pair of type A-I's ones with a 45 watt Conrad Johnson tube amp and it was magic. But I believe the AI''s were 89 DB efficient. The A2s might have been 88 and the a3s I believe were 86. So as time went on the point about power became more true. The type A is such a dynamic speaker though, that I think it plays fairly well even without a ton of power but, as pointed out, if you can give them power they are that much better. The A3 is really a different speaker in my mind then the ones or twos. it can really blow a room away and has bigger extension on the top and bottom and crazy dynamics. But the mid-range is more neutral and thinner to my ears. Unless I could use equalization, I would always opt for the A1 or A2 over the A3. but that's because the mid-range and tonal balance are my top priorities.