Thanks much, Michael. Which models are your personal favorites?
You are welcome, Mike.
Well, my first real love was the L880 IIs because they blew me away when I auditioned them, they fit my space, they are a 3-way speaker and they were the first model, IMHO, that really presented what ADS and their Chief Engineer Michael Kelly hoped to achieve with the speaker line once production moved to Wilmington and US product design was no longer driven by the Braun corporate group. By the way, Mr. Kelly is the owner and Chief Engineer of Aerial Acoustics and I currently own some Aerial Model 8s. Best sounding speaker I have EVER owned. Interesting that my two faves were designed by the same individual.
The L980 speaker was less well known but a significant step up in power handling, from 200W @ 8 ohms in the L880 to 300W @ 8 ohms. Looking at the 880 & 980 side by side you would be hard pressed to tell them apart. The L980 did drop a bit lower into the lower frequency band, down to 37Hz compared to 40Hz for the L880 units. I really liked the L980s I owned, almost as much as I enjoyed the L880s. It would be very hard to pick one over the other if I were the one doing the picking.
Stepping up beyond those two models I found I really enjoyed the L1290 speakers. I owned a pair for a few years and in comparison to the 880 & 980 units, they require a bit more power to drive them efficiently due to the second 8.3 inch woofer. Interestingly enough, you can bi-wire or bi-amp these speakers as they do have a second set of binding posts behind a panel in the back and you can increase or reduce by up to 1.5 dB if you want to tone them down a bit in smaller spaces. Frequency response remains the same as the L880 II's but in reality, the bass is just a bit more noticeable if you bi-amp these. I'd characterize them as a bit more forward and brighter than the L880/L980 offering. For me, I'd pick the L1290 over the L880/L980 models depending on how much space I had to play with.
Beyond those models I have not spent any real time listening to other ADS models. I do have a pair of L700s but the oldest son absconded with them and I didn't really get a chance to listen to them. He's welcome to them, though. I won't be swapping out the Aerial Acoustics Model 8 pair for anything else. In fact, they are specifically mentioned in my will along with the rest of my gear.