Hi Glenn..... nice addition to your "hoard"..lol. As you know, I had those last year. I saw an ad in CL for them nearby and drove the thirty minutes to hear them and see them. Pulled up to a very high end home and saw people everywhere coming and going. Here he was moving to Florida and had sold the home....and was selling everything.
Speakers were set up in huge family room on the ADS stands and was immediately smitten by the looks....lol. People were walking around and talking....and only could hear a FM station. I figured what the hell.....was afraid someone else was there waiting to buy them....and paid the $570 for them and took them home. Late that night, I set them up and was terribly....terribly disappointed in the sound. It was very muddy......so was bummed big time. My big mistake was not knowing anything about them and going by all the rave reviews....and knowing these were rare........but....... studio monitors and could handle 300 watts of power? What was I missing?
A lot apparently.....as I found out the tweeter and midrange that looked so dark was needing redone....sigh. I again found out only one person could fix these right....but at $235 plus. Sent them to Richard. I thought in the meantime that I would refinish the cabs and wanted to remove woofers for the refinishing and to check out crossover. That damn woofer was in there so tight, I could not budge it. I emailed Richard about it and he warned me that they are very difficult to remove and showed me in pics how he did it. I passed....lol....too scared I would break something.....soooooo....refinished the cab with woofer protected.
Got the drivers back from Richard and was excited to get it all hooked up. I listened and was impressed in how clean the sound was....but it just didn't do anything for me. I tried a couple of amps and still.....beautiful music but not any emotion to it. Sold them to a guy who loves them....so there you go.....different strokes for different folks. Another guy I know likes his 810's over his 980's......so all in how one hears I guess....
Good luck with them.