ADS L810 Recap?

[Fast_Eddie]

Hey Gang,

She doesn't remember it, but some time ago I asked my wife to a/b my ADS L810s with my Genesis 2+. It was no contest. The ADS were the winner by a clear and substantial margin.

Well, as documented in another thread, I just recapped the Genesis speakers. Tonight I've been doing some listening. I reached a surprising conclusion, so I asked my wife once again to a/b these two speakers. She chose the Genesis. Hum...

First off, those Genesis/EPI woofers are just outstanding. And with the 10" passive, they go very, very low. Lower even than the L810s, which is saying something. They definately need a decent amp to keep it in check, but with that in place, the bass is simply amazing. No need for a subwoofer here!

Up high, things are a little more complicated. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it, but the ADS sound like they're not up to snuff. They're trying to do some very nice things- I believe nicer than the Genesis, but they can't quite get it together and the overall effect is a bit warm. Not in a bad way, but not in a "just right" way either.

So, flush with success on the Genesis project, I'm going to try a recap on the ADS and add some proper binding posts in place of the push terminals. I'm just curious if anyone has done this before and if you have any advice. I expect it will be quite a bit more complex than the Genesis, but all in all should just be more of the same thing.

I used the Solen caps on the Genesis. I may try something else on the ADS. Thanks to the folks who posted some great info in my "what caps do you use" thread.

Ok, so maybe I'll take a few pics as I go. Look forward to hearing what anyone thinks on this project.

Take care,

Ed

 

[jguzman21]

Sounds like you are still havin' some fun with the Genesis!! :thmbsp: It will be interesting to read your results once the recap on the 810's are done.

-j

 

[Fast_Eddie]

Sounds like you are still havin' some fun with the Genesis!! :thmbsp: It will be interesting to read your results once the recap on the 810's are done.

-j

I am!! Thanks again! It was a fun project too. I upgraded the terminals and did the cap and resistor on each crossover. I had done the foam back when you gave them to me. They're really nice speakers!

Brian and I were talking about getting together for a couple of drinks sometime soon. You should come down to Denver and hear these things!

Take care,

Ed

 

[Robie]

Eddie,

I know you just got the Genesis where you like them and this is not what the thread is all about but there are several parallels between your thread and my experience.

First, have you ever considered installing a bypass cap in your Genesis? I put a Theta .01uF in my Genesis Model 10s and was pleased with the result. I initially recapped them with a Dayton 10uF 1% cap and thought they were way too bright 'til I added the Theta. They were amazing on great recordings without the bypass but "too critical" to use on most recordings, even with a tube power amp (old McIntosh MA230-SS pre/tube power). The bypass cap kind of smoothed them out a bit. They retained much of the sparkle of the fantastic Genesis tweeter but made them much less critical sounding and easy to use on a variety of recordings. The Thetas also improved a smaller pair of EPI 70Cs recently recapped with Dayton 5%s. Kind of made them less mushy sounding and more articulate.

YMMV.

I'll be watching this thread as I also have a pair of ADS 710s. The ADS 3-way crossover looks substantially more complicated than the simple inductor and cap used in the 2-way Genesis. I know my 710s probably need a recap after 25 years or so but I really like them too.

Overall, I think I like 710s better but the simpler 2-way Genesis seem to get out of the way of the music a bit better. Both are very good IMO.

 

[Fast_Eddie]

Ok, not rushing through this project, but tonight, I did remove the lower woofer in one of the L810s, pulled out the insulation and started to figure this out.

On my speakers, there is a threaded rod through the large (very large) coil that holds the whole crossover board down. Additionally, there are screws that hold in the crappy push clips. With those removed, you can pull the board up and have a look. I'll get a couple of pictures at this point and post them up. I'll need to desolder the wires from the board leading to all the drivers. But for the record (and to help me put it all back together!) I'll post up the order and the wire color here. This is with the board pulled off the cabinet and flipped over for acces from left to right:

1 - white (fuse)
2 - white (fuse)
3 - yellow
4 - red
5 - black
6 - black
7 - black (lower woofer - )
8 - purple
9 - blue
10- blue (lower woofer + )

All the blacks, and the red look to be attached to one wide tab on the board. Ok, so, that's that!

This is somewhat intimidating. The much more involved than the Genesis, but not so much that I don't think I can do it.

Robie, thanks for the suggestion. I may try that. We had a bit of discussion about it on the "What caps do you guys use" thread.

Take care,

Ed

 

[Fast_Eddie]

Here are a few pics of the crossover. Tomorrow evening I'll see about getting it out of there.

Take care,

Ed

 

[MikeCh]

Ok, not rushing through this project, but tonight, I did remove the lower woofer in one of the L810s, pulled out the insulation and started to figure this out.

Ed,

What did you find as the best method to remove the drivers without scraping up the metal driver frames? I've pulled many a speaker driver in other cabinets using an awl that has a 90 degree bent-tip, but the ADS drivers seem to be really seated....and I fear on my pair of 710's that I'll do damage if I slip. Is there a gasket beneath the frame?

Mike

 

[Fast_Eddie]

Ed,

What did you find as the best method to remove the drivers without scraping up the metal driver frames? I've pulled many a speaker driver in other cabinets using an awl that has a 90 degree bent-tip, but the ADS drivers seem to be really seated....and I fear on my pair of 710's that I'll do damage if I slip. Is there a gasket beneath the frame?

Mike

Sorry Mike, not a lot of help. Mine came out pretty easily. I just took out the screws and lifted with a flat blade screwdriver from one corner. Popped right out and didn't leave any marks. We'll see how the second one goes when i get to it!

Take care,

Ed

 

[ericj]

Here are a few pics of the crossover. Tomorrow evening I'll see about getting it out of there.

Take care,

Ed

Weird. I'm pretty sure my L810's have different crossovers in them.

But it's been probably 10 years since i had the lower woofers out. All i remember clearly is the boxed capacitors and that it had the address and phone number of the old ADS office on it. My L810's are old enough that all the drivers have brAun stickers on them. At least, the drivers i haven't ended up replacing . . .

 

[Robie]

Robie, thanks for the suggestion. I may try that. We had a bit of discussion about it on the "What caps do you guys use" thread.

Yeah, saw that after I posted. Sorry. Looking at the board is pretty intimidating to me.

I did drill through the boards of my 710s to enlarge the holes to accept bigger diameter binding posts and posted some pics in a recent thread on replacing the posts on both the Genesis and ADS. The following link is for the Genesis replacement but contains a link to the ADS replacement on another thread: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=160617

Regardless, thanks for trying the ADS recap first and I anxiously await results.

Has Soundmotor, Duffinator or other AK ADS "guru" weighed in on the caps used and their anticipated longevity?

Good luck.

 

[Clmrt]

Those white boxes are caps?

 

[soundmotor]

Has Soundmotor, Duffinator or other AK ADS "guru" weighed in on the caps used and their anticipated longevity?

Good luck.

I generally don't recommend replacing anything unless the caps are electrolytics. The electrolytics on a 20+YO speaker are probably starting to degrade by now. If they are films (which is what the white/gray boxes are) they don't really degrade over time. Every cap has a rating called ESR, effective series resistance. It is essentially a small amount of resistance in series with the drivers themselves. In this case the ones of concern are on the tweeter & midrange circuit. For a recap most will use an "audiophile" part with extremely low ESR. Doing so changes the output level of the tweeter & midrange and therefore the tonal balance of the speaker. In some cases the change is dramatic and awful. The only way around it is to series pad the drivers down to the correct level.

If the speaker was voiced by a competent engineer/acoustician, they took the ESR into consideration and developed the sound around those parameters. My own experience on ADS has been that they sound too bright (and less bassy) when the caps are changed to "better" ones on the older speakers. However, when this data mattered to me was 15-20 years back and frankly my ears were better then. A tilted up high-frequency response might euphonic now? I would probably go ahead and do it but now you understand what the downside might be and how to correct it. In other words, save the old film caps so you can put them back in later if needed. (And BTW, the biggest issue on the old ADS crossovers is all the inductors talking to each other.)

 

[Fast_Eddie]

I generally don't recommend replacing anything unless the caps are electrolytics. The electrolytics on a 20+YO speaker are probably starting to degrade by now. If they are films (which is what the white/gray boxes are) they don't really degrade over time. Every cap has a rating called ESR, effective series resistance. It is essentially a small amount of resistance in series with the drivers themselves. In this case the ones of concern are on the tweeter & midrange circuit. For a recap most will use an "audiophile" part with extremely low ESR. Doing so changes the output level of the tweeter & midrange and therefore the tonal balance of the speaker. In some cases the change is dramatic and awful. The only way around it is to series pad the drivers down to the correct level.

If the speaker was voiced by a competent engineer/acoustician, they took the ESR into consideration and developed the sound around those parameters. My own experience on ADS has been that they sound too bright (and less bassy) when the caps are changed to "better" ones on the older speakers. However, when this data mattered to me was 15-20 years back and frankly my ears were better then. A tilted up high-frequency response might euphonic now? I would probably go ahead and do it but now you understand what the downside might be and how to correct it. In other words, save the old film caps so you can put them back in later if needed. (And BTW, the biggest issue on the old ADS crossovers is all the inductors talking to each other.)

Thanks for the great post. I did notice that the coils were not arranged as I would think they should be. If I get terribly ambitious I may have a crack at reorienting them.

I'm going to do one speaker and see what I have. I will indeed save the old caps, so if it doesn't work out well I can put it back. Intrestingly, I and others have observed with my L810s that, if anything, they are a bit bass heavy. So I do think a bit of increase in the upper end would be welcome. Hopefully it will work out perfectly.

Anyone who has seen me post here for the last several years knows that I really like these speakers. So when my recapped Genesis, with their very simple two way design and minimal crossover bested the big L810s I was shocked. I believe the ADS are the better speaker and I hope this opperation restores them to their righful place at the top of my speaker food chain.

Take care,

Ed

 

[Fast_Eddie]

The big blue thing is an electrolytic cap, isn't it?

 

[Fast_Eddie]

Yeah, saw that after I posted. Sorry. Looking at the board is pretty intimidating to me.

I did drill through the boards of my 710s to enlarge the holes to accept bigger diameter binding posts and posted some pics in a recent thread on replacing the posts on both the Genesis and ADS. The following link is for the Genesis replacement but contains a link to the ADS replacement on another thread: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=160617

Regardless, thanks for trying the ADS recap first and I anxiously await results.

Has Soundmotor, Duffinator or other AK ADS "guru" weighed in on the caps used and their anticipated longevity?

Good luck.

Just read through your other posts- those binding posts look great. Can you give me more info (or a link?) on the posts you used? Those look to be a good solution.

Thanks,

Ed

(edit) maybe these?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245

 

[soundmotor]

(edit) maybe these?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245

Those should work, they look long enough.

(The ones I used were US-made Pomonas which can be tough to find now that Chinese ones are ~1/10 the price.)

 

[soundmotor]

The big blue thing is an electrolytic cap, isn't it?

:thmbsp:

 

[soundmotor]

Thanks for the great post. I did notice that the coils were not arranged as I would think they should be. If I get terribly ambitious I may have a crack at reorienting them.

I'm going to do one speaker and see what I have. I will indeed save the old caps, so if it doesn't work out well I can put it back. Intrestingly, I and others have observed with my L810s that, if anything, they are a bit bass heavy. So I do think a bit of increase in the upper end would be welcome. Hopefully it will work out perfectly.

Unsolder the coils & remove them noting where they go. Unwind the outside lead ~1/2 turn so it can be brought over to the opposite side of the bobbin. It will not change the inductor value enough to matter. It will be obvious which is the outside & inside lead. Then reposition the inductors so they are at right angles to one another and perpendicular to the PCB. As there are 3 that will be tough so I would leave one, the one farthest away from the huge one on the other side of the board, in its original position. You can drill through the PCB to add a tie-wrap if you like but as the inductors are such low mass, hot glue will work just fine.

The L810 is not a favorite of mine nor the L710. The issue is not the drivers but the cabinet size. The guts of the L810 are the same as the L1230 which is my favorite. The bass on the L810 does not go down that deep and tends to thump because of the smaller cabinet it has vs. the L1230. However, the smaller cabinet does let you drive the L810 harder than the L1230 which can be bottomed pretty easily. Where I am going with this is that you may be right that the increased HF output will balance it out. I will be interested in how you fare.

 

[Robie]

Just read through your other posts- those binding posts look great. Can you give me more info (or a link?) on the posts you used? Those look to be a good solution.

Thanks,

Ed

(edit) maybe these?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245

Those are them. I didn't use the gold plated though (why, I don't know) and used the nickel plated instead. Their shaft diameter is much bigger than that of the original ADS push button connectors.

 

[RayW]

The L810 is not a favorite of mine nor the L710. The issue is not the drivers but the cabinet size. The guts of the L810 are the same as the L1230 which is my favorite. The bass on the L810 does not go down that deep and tends to thump because of the smaller cabinet it has vs. the L1230. However, the smaller cabinet does let you drive the L810 harder than the L1230 which can be bottomed pretty easily. Where I am going with this is that you may be right that the increased HF output will balance it out. I will be interested in how you fare.

This would mean sacrificing a cabinet to see if it'll work but what about adding an aperiodic vent (a la Dynaco A25) to the 710/810? If the box is too small and it's bringing up the Q enough to create a bass hump then that should help out. We need mhardy to find a pair at the dump to experiment on.

Ray