HPM-100 -vs- ADS L-810
- Thread starter dingus
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there was a little bit of trying to change the speaker grills out to try to swipe the 810's but dingus did not let them get out of his site.
with charivari's hard negotiation tactics regarding the hpm's, they still didnt make it in kelly's white van.
The thing that was kinda interesting was the sound difference in amplification. Dingus has a luxman r-117 and a yamaha cr 2020, the hpm's were almost painfull to listen to with the yamaha, we switched to the luxman and it seemed to quiet them down a little but still not enough to be able to listen to them for an extended period.
Kencat
Super Member
Could anyone there at the meet perhaps concede some affect (on the HPMs) due to room acoustics? I've also read about the bass suckout that can occur from having other bass drivers in the room....and it looks like there were a lot of bass drivers in that room.
I'm not an HPM fanatic or anything, but how can a speaker attain "cult status" and then fail miserably as it did here? Could there be something wrong with JPs pair of HPMs? (no offence meant there JP, but have you been able to listen to a different set of the HPM-100s?)
Just seems that something is not quite right. How can so many people who rave about the HPMs be so off base?
I'm not an HPM fanatic or anything, but how can a speaker attain "cult status" and then fail miserably as it did here? Could there be something wrong with JPs pair of HPMs? (no offence meant there JP, but have you been able to listen to a different set of the HPM-100s?)
Just seems that something is not quite right. How can so many people who rave about the HPMs be so off base?
Fast_Eddie
Upper-middle fi
Kencat said:
Having heard both, and lucky enough to own the l810s, I believe it's not a matter of the HPMs failing, or being anything other than very fine speakers, but rather the a/d/s l810s performing far beyond anything you expect from them. They're just in a different league, but are not widely recognized as being that good.
When you see the two, similar in size, and both very heavy, and notice the logos, you are drawn to the HPMs. Come on, they're legondary! Then you look at the a/d/s. They are much less assuming and less well known. There had to be many times more HPMs made than l810s. But when you fire them up, there is a clear advantage for the l810s. I wouldn't characterize it as being as wide as some of our friends indicate here, but it's wide enough that you could probably make the call fairly easily even without the benefit of the two being side by side. They are a completely different experience.
Take care,
Ed
markmarc
Active Member
The HPM cult status as I remember came from their ability to pound away in college dorm stereo wars. It didn't take much power to get them loud, much like their nemisis Cerwin Vega's.
My school has a pair that I use for speakers during school dances for 7th-8th graders. They love the boom, while I just try to avoid a headache.
My school has a pair that I use for speakers during school dances for 7th-8th graders. They love the boom, while I just try to avoid a headache.
Kencat
Super Member
Ed,
My read of what was said was that the HPMs were horrible. The word fatiquing kept coming out, no dynamic range, ear shattering. Not too complimentary, and not even being said in a comparitive manner to another speaker. Something good was said about all the other speakers, but not the HPMs. kfa didn't want them.
Others will chime in as the day goes by I think. If I've misread so far, I'm sure I'll be informed of that.
Those that like the HPMs will still like them. But for anyone reviewing this who is interested in picking some up may think twice or thrice, especially paying the Ebay big bucks prices. :scratch2:
My read of what was said was that the HPMs were horrible. The word fatiquing kept coming out, no dynamic range, ear shattering. Not too complimentary, and not even being said in a comparitive manner to another speaker. Something good was said about all the other speakers, but not the HPMs. kfa didn't want them.
Others will chime in as the day goes by I think. If I've misread so far, I'm sure I'll be informed of that.
Those that like the HPMs will still like them. But for anyone reviewing this who is interested in picking some up may think twice or thrice, especially paying the Ebay big bucks prices. :scratch2:
Actually the low end wasnt the problem, it actually wasnt too bad, we even turned the speaker tone control down 5db on the high end and it was still very very much in your face so to speak.
We did not try any heavy metal, and the hpm's might work well with that style of music.
the layout of the room is less than optimum to be sure, but like elroymcgee said, the low end was the best part of the HPM's. i will gladly concede the room acoustics, component synergy, material, speaker placement and anything else that is pertinant. like others, i am puzzled by the results as there is a reason the HPM's have such a following.Kencat said:
i would like to hear the HPM's in their native environment, that is, in an HPM fans setup. i'll bring my L-810's ......
kfa888
Addicted Member
Ok, my turn. I am going to be as honest and blunt about things as humanly possible and not sugar coat things. Understand that this is strictly my opinion and if you disagree or I have slammed your favorite speaker in the world this is just MY opinion and what I like and dislike about a speaker system etc. Also understand about me that I listen to a lot of Jazz, Fusion, instrumental and smooth music and lean towards the "east coast" sound. I do have lots of rock, some of it very hard which I usually listen to in my truck so I do have a broad spectrum of accepted music genders.
I'll jump to the chase and the shoot out and then review the other players of the day below...
Oh, this is actually a good evaluation for me to make as I have never heard the HPM or ADS in my life. The ADS absolutely blew away the HPM in every respect by a huge margin. Did not matter what amp or what source the ADS sounded way better balanced, very smooth from top to bottom, rock to jazz, and no matter where they were placed in the room. The HPM's on the other hand sounded shrill, mid rangy, boomy on the low end and overall very non musical no matter what the material or amp. Sorry, that's how 4 out of 4 heard it and it was not something we even had to discuss. And for the record this is the first time I have met any of these guys so I'm not siding with my Bros :>)
On a side note and something kind of funny that was alluded to earlier, I told Charivari I would be interested in the HPM at an excellent price he offered (this was before the shoot out) and after the shoot out I had to risk loosing a 3 hour old friendship to make sure these did NOT end up going home with me. We argued for about a half hour about it and the bottom line is JP took the speakers home. I felt bad about it but truly had no idea that speakers would be so bad. I'm sorry if I have stepped on toes here but I felt you guys wanted an honest opinion.
So for the rest of the speakers in the room I will rate them good to bad below BUT please read blow my results as I feel some of the speakers were at a huge disadvantage due to placement.
ADS
KLH stack
AR9
AR91
AR1
DA-12
APM
HPM
ADS - The ADS were the most balanced and least picky of the bunch. Nice smooth highs, nice clean accurate mids and good tight bass.
KLH stack - The KLH stack was the stunner of the group and sounded great, smooth, musical and just plain nice. Lows were slightly flabby, highs not the best I have ever heard but simply a good sounding setup.
AR9 - To tell you the truth I was a little disappointed in the AR9's. Highs were good but seemed to forward and a little bright, the mids were good but a little hot and the bottom was boomy and odd sounding. I am 98% sure this is completely due to placement. These speakers are setup all wrong. Set up right I'm guessing these would leap to the top of the list. With room for the woofers to breath it would instantly become a much more well rounded speaker. I think JP hit it on the head, the AR9 are boomy on the bottom in their current placement and turning the bass down sucks that out of it but also greatly disrupts the balance of the speaker and makes a big hole in the upper bass making the bottom boomy and the top to bright.
AR9 note - I noticed the mid woofer on Scotts AR9's were not the same. I would replace the non original one ASAP
AR91 - I personally did not care much for this speaker, seemed unbalanced and odd sounding. Not bad but not real good ether. Cab seems really small for a bigger bass driver and just not very balanced. Could be a placement issue as well and I highly suspect it was.
AR9 / AR91 stack - this sounded much better than ether alone. Why? the AR91 did a great job as filling in the issues with placement on the AR9
AR1 - Not really what I expected but good mid range detail
DA-12 - Well sitting on one tweeter face with the woofer pointing back and in these never had a chance to sound good but you could tell they are musical and have potential. I have them with me so I'll post further when I get a chance to hook them up right. I am thinking these are going to be good speakers, if not very good speakers.
APM - Kind of vanilla, sounded OK, not horrible not great. Sound better at my house with proper placement but still not great speakers. They are what they are.
HPM - In my opinion these are some of the worst sounded speakers I have had the opportunity to listen to. Harsh, distorted and fatiguing come to mind. Lots of mids and bacon frying sounds. The bottom was OK but could be boomy and flabby sounding. this is my honest opinion and one that I did NOT want to have. When JP brought them in I was salivating over the quality look of the drivers, the amazing construction of the cab and the overall quality, I was thinking I had scored until I heard it. We tried both amps and all sorts of music and all agreed without hesitation that these were the worst speakers in the room. I really did want to like them, I do not.
All these compared to my Maggies - In the end and in my own opinion I think my maggie / MK setup is on another level sound wise. Nothing in this shootout on this day TO ME sound even close to as good. I'm guessing the upper end ADS would be in the running if it is just more of the good sound I heard from the 810. Yes, I'm sure this is a highly bias opinion and the speakers in the shootout have not had the amp matching and setup time my maggies have had at my home but it is still my opinion. Even with proper placement the AR9 is going to have a hard time beating the maggies IMHO. I will get those AR90's of mine running shortly and have a little shootout of my own and see whom can knock the maggies off the top spot.
Again, I am NOT out to slam HPM owners. They have different needs than me obviously. I don't dispute that yours may sound terrific in your setup. the pole clearly showed them to be the prefered speaker so I know they have a big following and must be good to those people in their environment.
I'm sure many people might hear my Wharfedale W90's and think they suck. For rock they do. For Jazz etc they are excellent. In the end it is all just perception and what we like to hear in our system. The above is what I like and what sounds good to ME.
I'll jump to the chase and the shoot out and then review the other players of the day below...
Oh, this is actually a good evaluation for me to make as I have never heard the HPM or ADS in my life. The ADS absolutely blew away the HPM in every respect by a huge margin. Did not matter what amp or what source the ADS sounded way better balanced, very smooth from top to bottom, rock to jazz, and no matter where they were placed in the room. The HPM's on the other hand sounded shrill, mid rangy, boomy on the low end and overall very non musical no matter what the material or amp. Sorry, that's how 4 out of 4 heard it and it was not something we even had to discuss. And for the record this is the first time I have met any of these guys so I'm not siding with my Bros :>)
On a side note and something kind of funny that was alluded to earlier, I told Charivari I would be interested in the HPM at an excellent price he offered (this was before the shoot out) and after the shoot out I had to risk loosing a 3 hour old friendship to make sure these did NOT end up going home with me. We argued for about a half hour about it and the bottom line is JP took the speakers home. I felt bad about it but truly had no idea that speakers would be so bad. I'm sorry if I have stepped on toes here but I felt you guys wanted an honest opinion.
So for the rest of the speakers in the room I will rate them good to bad below BUT please read blow my results as I feel some of the speakers were at a huge disadvantage due to placement.
ADS
KLH stack
AR9
AR91
AR1
DA-12
APM
HPM
ADS - The ADS were the most balanced and least picky of the bunch. Nice smooth highs, nice clean accurate mids and good tight bass.
KLH stack - The KLH stack was the stunner of the group and sounded great, smooth, musical and just plain nice. Lows were slightly flabby, highs not the best I have ever heard but simply a good sounding setup.
AR9 - To tell you the truth I was a little disappointed in the AR9's. Highs were good but seemed to forward and a little bright, the mids were good but a little hot and the bottom was boomy and odd sounding. I am 98% sure this is completely due to placement. These speakers are setup all wrong. Set up right I'm guessing these would leap to the top of the list. With room for the woofers to breath it would instantly become a much more well rounded speaker. I think JP hit it on the head, the AR9 are boomy on the bottom in their current placement and turning the bass down sucks that out of it but also greatly disrupts the balance of the speaker and makes a big hole in the upper bass making the bottom boomy and the top to bright.
AR9 note - I noticed the mid woofer on Scotts AR9's were not the same. I would replace the non original one ASAP
AR91 - I personally did not care much for this speaker, seemed unbalanced and odd sounding. Not bad but not real good ether. Cab seems really small for a bigger bass driver and just not very balanced. Could be a placement issue as well and I highly suspect it was.
AR9 / AR91 stack - this sounded much better than ether alone. Why? the AR91 did a great job as filling in the issues with placement on the AR9
AR1 - Not really what I expected but good mid range detail
DA-12 - Well sitting on one tweeter face with the woofer pointing back and in these never had a chance to sound good but you could tell they are musical and have potential. I have them with me so I'll post further when I get a chance to hook them up right. I am thinking these are going to be good speakers, if not very good speakers.
APM - Kind of vanilla, sounded OK, not horrible not great. Sound better at my house with proper placement but still not great speakers. They are what they are.
HPM - In my opinion these are some of the worst sounded speakers I have had the opportunity to listen to. Harsh, distorted and fatiguing come to mind. Lots of mids and bacon frying sounds. The bottom was OK but could be boomy and flabby sounding. this is my honest opinion and one that I did NOT want to have. When JP brought them in I was salivating over the quality look of the drivers, the amazing construction of the cab and the overall quality, I was thinking I had scored until I heard it. We tried both amps and all sorts of music and all agreed without hesitation that these were the worst speakers in the room. I really did want to like them, I do not.
All these compared to my Maggies - In the end and in my own opinion I think my maggie / MK setup is on another level sound wise. Nothing in this shootout on this day TO ME sound even close to as good. I'm guessing the upper end ADS would be in the running if it is just more of the good sound I heard from the 810. Yes, I'm sure this is a highly bias opinion and the speakers in the shootout have not had the amp matching and setup time my maggies have had at my home but it is still my opinion. Even with proper placement the AR9 is going to have a hard time beating the maggies IMHO. I will get those AR90's of mine running shortly and have a little shootout of my own and see whom can knock the maggies off the top spot.
Again, I am NOT out to slam HPM owners. They have different needs than me obviously. I don't dispute that yours may sound terrific in your setup. the pole clearly showed them to be the prefered speaker so I know they have a big following and must be good to those people in their environment.
I'm sure many people might hear my Wharfedale W90's and think they suck. For rock they do. For Jazz etc they are excellent. In the end it is all just perception and what we like to hear in our system. The above is what I like and what sounds good to ME.
Charivari
Fighting Naïve Realism
Gee, Kelly, you didn't have to sugar coat it.
Before others draw their own conclusions based on assumptions, I'll address a few issues.
The room had a bit of boom around the 40-50 Hz range with some suckout down around 30 -- according to my ears, but as I neglected to bring my frequency disk with my SPL meter, I can't give specific numbers. The room wasn't at all bright at the primary listening position and thanks to the rather large, over stuffed couch and the sort of padded curtains behind, I would say it's actually a bit dark. (For the HPM listening, the cat was laying on the window sill behind the listening position to provide further HF absorbtion.) This was the 7th (or is it the 8th) room I've tried the HPM-100s in and the sound is constitent room to room, so that wasn't the case here.
With regards to the HPMs in particular, they are fully operational to spec, as I verified the day before heading down to Graham with a sig gen (including verifying that the super tweeters are fully operational) and so forth. I had also run them extensively the three days (and the morning of the meet) to ensure that there were no issues with suspensions stiffening with non-use. The tweeter dust cap that is pushed in on the one speaker does not cause a difference in sound between the two, as determined through extensive listening with these speakers. I've had two pairs of HPM-40s in the past (one pair Series I and one pair of Series II) and I can say that these HPM-100s are not drastically different from the others -- again, the sound is consistent and not a fluke.
The placement wasn't optimal, of course, but the things that bugged all of us with these speakers were not placement related. The other speakers were moved around a bit during the various times we tried the HPMs, so it isn't sympathetic vibrations and the like in the other speakers messing up the sound.
As to the equipment used, the Luxman provided the HPMs with some of the best sound I've heard out of them and I have tried truly dozens of equipment combinations with these speakers trying to make them sound better. The highs are a bit more tamed with a tube amp, but the bass becomes much too loose with that combination. With like vintage Pioneer receivers, the sound is improved, perhaps thanks to complimentary design, but the Luxman demonstrated equal and perhaps superior taming with neutrality.
Kelly, no worries about the argument on who had to take the HPM-100s home. I fully understood your position, though I would have prefered to never see them again.
- JP
Before others draw their own conclusions based on assumptions, I'll address a few issues.
The room had a bit of boom around the 40-50 Hz range with some suckout down around 30 -- according to my ears, but as I neglected to bring my frequency disk with my SPL meter, I can't give specific numbers. The room wasn't at all bright at the primary listening position and thanks to the rather large, over stuffed couch and the sort of padded curtains behind, I would say it's actually a bit dark. (For the HPM listening, the cat was laying on the window sill behind the listening position to provide further HF absorbtion.) This was the 7th (or is it the 8th) room I've tried the HPM-100s in and the sound is constitent room to room, so that wasn't the case here.
With regards to the HPMs in particular, they are fully operational to spec, as I verified the day before heading down to Graham with a sig gen (including verifying that the super tweeters are fully operational) and so forth. I had also run them extensively the three days (and the morning of the meet) to ensure that there were no issues with suspensions stiffening with non-use. The tweeter dust cap that is pushed in on the one speaker does not cause a difference in sound between the two, as determined through extensive listening with these speakers. I've had two pairs of HPM-40s in the past (one pair Series I and one pair of Series II) and I can say that these HPM-100s are not drastically different from the others -- again, the sound is consistent and not a fluke.
The placement wasn't optimal, of course, but the things that bugged all of us with these speakers were not placement related. The other speakers were moved around a bit during the various times we tried the HPMs, so it isn't sympathetic vibrations and the like in the other speakers messing up the sound.
As to the equipment used, the Luxman provided the HPMs with some of the best sound I've heard out of them and I have tried truly dozens of equipment combinations with these speakers trying to make them sound better. The highs are a bit more tamed with a tube amp, but the bass becomes much too loose with that combination. With like vintage Pioneer receivers, the sound is improved, perhaps thanks to complimentary design, but the Luxman demonstrated equal and perhaps superior taming with neutrality.
Kelly, no worries about the argument on who had to take the HPM-100s home. I fully understood your position, though I would have prefered to never see them again.
- JP
i have been perfectly happy with my 9's for the past year, until you pointed this out you prick. i cant live with replacing the driver, the entire speakers have to go. are you happy now?kfa888 said:
actually i cant tell a difference in sound between the two. i can only guess that when the original owner had the woofers refoamed, 4 years ago, that mid woof was reconed.
kfa888
Addicted Member
dingus said:
Prick? I'm trying to help. I know where you live.
Well one thing I did notice about the AR9's was lack of imaging, that's why I was looking at the tone controls and then spotted the mid driver being different. I think a replacement could be found ridiculously cheap so I personally would replace it as the other one is quite different.
Charivari
Fighting Naïve Realism
I'll gladly take those AR-9s off your hands, as you can't live with them now. In fact, I've just the speakers for you here to act as replacements.dingus said:
None of the speakers imaged all that well yesterday. I wonder why that is.kfa888 said:
Oh, one quick note to others, the average listening level was around 87-90 dB using fast response, C weighting. So, the comparison was fair, but not an indicator of performance at ear bleed levels. Frankly, this was quite loud enough, thank you.
- JP
i have to add it to my list of drivers to find. i'll get to it one day but i dont think it had much to do with what you were hearing. i just have to get the 9's placed properly.kfa888 said:Prick? I'm trying to help. I know where you live.
Well one thing I did notice about the AR9's was lack of imaging, that's why I was looking at the tone controls and then spotted the mid driver being different. I think a replacement could be found ridiculously cheap so I personally would replace it as the other one is quite different.
There's a pair of L-1290s on eBay right now that look quite well preserved. I stuck in a bid for fun, but they're still priced pretty low. I'll not bid again if anyone here wants them.
EDIT: Never mind... they're now at $318 and climbing, not a bargain.
EDIT: Never mind... they're now at $318 and climbing, not a bargain.
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