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A/D/S line pecking order?

dingus said:
very nice score Barry. i too have found the Yamaha and ADS to be an excellent combo.
Click to expand...

Dingus, you appear to be the resident Yamaha guy - what do you think of the R2000 receiver? The guy I bought the L1290's off of called me back to see if I would be interested in purchasing his NAD 7400 receiver and the old Yamaha.

The R2000 looks kind of cool, but I have heard that they have reliability issues.

Barry
 
Dogman said:
Dingus, you appear to be the resident Yamaha guy - what do you think of the R2000 receiver? The guy I bought the L1290's off of called me back to see if I would be interested in purchasing his NAD 7400 receiver and the old Yamaha.

The R2000 looks kind of cool, but I have heard that they have reliability issues.

Barry
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sorry to disappoint you Dogman, i'm not even close. all i know is that every ADS speaker i've ever heard sounded best on a Yamaha. i have no where near heard every ADS speaker or Yamaha amp\receiver. as for the R2000, i have no first hand experience with it. i always defer to merrylander for my Yamaha questions.
 
Dogman, I have a pair of ADS L-810 II that are driven by a NAD C352 with a C521BEE disc player. Man I'm really happy with everything. I'm not the best for comparison, however, as this is my first and only foray into junior audiophile-um. If I had the dough, I'd be a runaway train, but I don't so this is my budget setup and I'm really happy with it.

I wonder if my L810s would like a big Adcom 555 or something else from Adcom?

Mike
 
hawkeye-- since the L810 is a really great speaker, no doubt it will sound good to you with an adcom. i have used mine with an adcom gfa-555, and sure, it sounded great. a fun experiment for you might be to run them with a sonic impact amp/ar tds 202 combo like dingus and i both do. a fun, low cost experiment for you,and i think you'll be surprised.

right ding?
 
in a small room, such as an office or bedroom, i have never heard my 810's sound as good as they do with the T-Amp\TDS202 combo.
 
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ADS System and amps

Can anybody shed any light on this setup? Looks pretty interesting with amp, cd player, cassette player, tuner, and turntable.

Here
 
Duffinator said:
Can anybody shed any light on this setup? Looks pretty interesting with amp, cd player, cassette player, tuner, and turntable.

Here
Click to expand...

An ADS Atelier stack.

I am amazed to see it still apparently working.
 
Duffinator said:
Does that mean you don't think much of the quality of these electronics?
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10-4

Some caveats, the T2 tuner is quite good, A2 integrated & C2 amp OK, CD3 neat looking 16-bit, 2x oversampling, no digital output, 1986 CD player, the P2 a bit better than a "Close & Play".

With the exception of the T2, all the above had reliability issues.
 
fidtune said:
Portishphish
Happy listening...hope these help you. They are copyright 1977 pages from a A/D/S L910 brochure.
Cheers!
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Thanks a lot for this. I'm assuming my 910's would have similar sensitivity. 93db makes them a good candidate for a small powered tube amp I think. There's been talk of yamaha and a/d/s, what about tubes and a/d/s?
 
portisphish said:
Thanks a lot for this. I'm assuming my 910's would have similar sensitivity. 93db makes them a good candidate for a small powered tube amp I think. There's been talk of yamaha and a/d/s, what about tubes and a/d/s?
Click to expand...

While 93 sens is in a good area for tube gear and stuff with lower power down to maybe
7-8 watts even, it's the impedance that matters more for tube amps then anything else
and especially low power guys. Low impedance isn't necessarily a killer for tube amps
but a relatively flat impedance is what to look for. But low impedance does require some
decent amperage and more to the point in the bass region so higher power is suggested.

I have not been able to find any impedance graphs for ADS speakers but with dual 8 ohm
woofers in parallel running down to 4 ohms (OR LESS) then up to the mid/tweet that are
an 8 ohm rated driver, more then likely do not have the flattest impedance curves so I’d
suggest at least running a good 35wpc or more tube amp to start with and go from there.

Now it’s possible the dual woofers won’t dip below 4 ohms and the mid/tweet may run more
like a 6ohm driver (hence why the same units are used in both the 4 ohm and 8 ohm speakers)
So you could possibly have a nice impedance curve that starts out at 4 ohm and slowly rises to
6 ohm to where a 20wpc tube amp may work just fine. But I wouldn’t count on it.

I run the 880’s which are a single 10” 8 ohm woofer, 3-way with a sens of 89 on 40wpc tube
gear that sound and work wonderful and have tried a few of the 2-ways on tubes with a little
less power that work well also. The 880’s are in my main system and run on tubes, so I do like
the way ADS and tubes sound but with my experience the larger guys do need a little more juice.

If I was running 810’s I would think a 35-40wpc tube amp would be fine and on 910’s it would
be more like 45-50wpc to give you some head room and decent volume for that lower impedance.
(you could probably get away with lower power but best performance will more then likely come from more)
 
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There are certain tubes known for having better bass "Control" then others to.

Like an el84 tube is not known for taking hold of a woofer and really keeping it
inline where a tube like a 6l6gc or 5881 were designed with gutair amps in mind
that tend to run some rather large drivers and do quite well in that regard.

Just an FYI.
 
My 'new' ADS L1290 Series 2 speakers

Here is a few pics of the ADS floorstanders that I picked up last week.
 

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They sound fantastic! Really tight bass, great mids - saxophone sounds unbelievable (listening to Steely Dan right now' Miles Davis also sounds great!), and very clear highs.

They have a wide soundstage where you hear the vocalist and say, an alto sax, hanging in mid air between the speakers, and you also clearly pick up a guitar riff in the left channel and a piano in the right. Amazing! I have original JBL L100 Centurys and there is absolutely no comparison between the two (maybe an unfair comparison as I recall paying $700 Cdn for the JBL's in 1974, and the ADS 1290's sold for about $1800 Cdn in 1987.

I don't have any specs on the series 2 (with the purchase I received a brochure on the L1290 series 1, dated 1983 - the series 2 were made in 1987), but the guy who sold them to me said that they were not very efficient - 86db. But with 1 watt output on my CR-2020 they absolutely fill the room! At five watts it's very loud, and you couldn't stay in the room with 10 wpc output.

The cabinets are finished in a beautiful walnut veneer, and other than a slight change in colour where the grills attach, they're virtually unblemished. Metal grills are perfect, no dents, no marks. Each speaker weighs in at 75 lbs - and they came in their original boxes with matching serial numbers, and protective shipping caps for both mids and tweets.

The speakers are designed for biamplification and there is a small compartment in the back of each for an ADS amplifier - soundmotor says these are fairly rare but work very well so I'm going to keep an eye out for them.

The guy I purchased them from was the second owner, and he said picked them up from the original owner in 1990. He had mostly stored them since then, and now lives in a small apartment in downtown Toronto - so no space for these floorstanders.

My current dilemma is whether to power them with the Yamaha or a Marantz 2325. I currently have the Marantz hooked up, and they do sound good, but perhaps a little less clear in the top end compared to the CR-2020, and a little more emphasis on the bottom end (which these speakers don't need!!). Anyway, I'll audition the Marantz for the rest of the week, and then flip back to the Yamaha to make a final decision.

Fantastic speakers though, and I had never even heard of ADS until I read this thread on AK! Next thing you know the 1290's are available on Canuck Audio Mart!

Barry
 
Dogman said:
Here is a few pics of the ADS floorstanders that I picked up last week.
Click to expand...

Those are beaut's!

The cabinets were made for ADS by a German company called Hados. Pretty sure that HADOS MÖBELFABRIK of today is the same firm. I remember seeing that logo on incoming material once in awhile. They did nice work as you can see by the bookmatched veneering. The discoloration on the fronts is likely because the grilles were left on and the cabinets had direct sunlight on them for many years.
 
Kegger said:
While 93 sens is in a good area for tube gear and stuff with lower power down to maybe
7-8 watts even, it's the impedance that matters more for tube amps then anything else
and especially low power guys. Low impedance isn't necessarily a killer for tube amps
but a relatively flat impedance is what to look for. But low impedance does require some
decent amperage and more to the point in the bass region so higher power is suggested.

I have not been able to find any impedance graphs for ADS speakers but with dual 8 ohm
woofers in parallel running down to 4 ohms (OR LESS) then up to the mid/tweet that are
an 8 ohm rated driver, more then likely do not have the flattest impedance curves so I’d
suggest at least running a good 35wpc or more tube amp to start with and go from there.

Now it’s possible the dual woofers won’t dip below 4 ohms and the mid/tweet may run more
like a 6ohm driver (hence why the same units are used in both the 4 ohm and 8 ohm speakers)
So you could possibly have a nice impedance curve that starts out at 4 ohm and slowly rises to
6 ohm to where a 20wpc tube amp may work just fine. But I wouldn’t count on it.

I run the 880’s which are a single 10” 8 ohm woofer, 3-way with a sens of 89 on 40wpc tube
gear that sound and work wonderful and have tried a few of the 2-ways on tubes with a little
less power that work well also. The 880’s are in my main system and run on tubes, so I do like
the way ADS and tubes sound but with my experience the larger guys do need a little more juice.

If I was running 810’s I would think a 35-40wpc tube amp would be fine and on 910’s it would
be more like 45-50wpc to give you some head room and decent volume for that lower impedance.
(you could probably get away with lower power but best performance will more then likely come from more)
Click to expand...


Thanks for this information. I'm still researching tube amps, and trying to save some money. I was hoping to get away away with ~15 watts per side, but that might not be enough I guess. The problem is these 910's are too big for my office. I think they need more breathing room than I have available. I can tell you that I have a low powered vintage rotel, and a big silver faced optonica sa-5151. The power of the optonica is needed for the 910's to sound decent. The bass is becoming more evident as they break in, and I now feel the need to get them off the ground...too bass heavy.
 
A nice rebuilt Dynaco st-70 just may work out pretty decent, about the lowest power
amp I would suggest. (In the area of 37wpc)

Ecspecialy one with a new input triode board like the tubes4hifi board that I and a few
others I know run that work great.
 
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