what is likely to happen to speakers with age?

H

hedrick

Member
I have a pair of ADS L500's which I purchased in the 1970s but haven't used very much for some time. I'm currently using them in my living room, in place of a pair of Paradigm Studio 20's. I've gotten tired of the Studio 20's muddy sound. (I have no idea whether this is a general problem or is specific to my room.) The L500s are great, and are really clean. But I'm wondering whether it's likely that anything would need updating.

As background: the source is a Macbook Pro, feeding a Benchmark DAC-1, with the amp half of a NAD C372. I listen to classical music, particularly relatively early choral works.
 
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Check the foam surrounds (I believe that was stock?), likely they will be getting dry and maybe already deteriorating. xovers, specifically capacitors, will need attention. Typical comments are flat sounding, poor highs (tweeters being forced to play lower frequencies due to deteriorating caps), etc. Mostly minor stuff that most audio nuts can do themselves. There are many excellent video's on doing much of this on YouTube.
 
The Studio 20's are fine, small speakers and have received some good reviews. It could be speaker placement within your listening room. It also could be something in your ancillaries causing the muddiness. Failing that, there may be a problem with your connections or the speaker crossovers.

The ADS are also nice speakers, with a more neutral laid-back quality than that of the Paradigms. It's strange that the ADS sound ok, but the Paradigms do not.
 
Copa1934 said:
Check the foam surrounds (I believe that was stock?), likely they will be getting dry and maybe already deteriorating. xovers, specifically capacitors, will need attention. Typical comments are flat sounding, poor highs (tweeters being forced to play lower frequencies due to deteriorating caps), etc. Mostly minor stuff that most audio nuts can do themselves. There are many excellent video's on doing much of this on YouTube.
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Thanks. Looks like some kind of rubber to me. Crossover is what I was afraid of. Does sound slightly flat, but a slight amount of bass boost fixes that. (I've got them away from the walls because next to the wall was boomy.)

I know Paradigms are well regarded. I had the same complaint in my other system, with an Arcam 250 receiver. Don't know what's going on. The electronics seem fine with headphones and the L500s. It's more likely an incompatibility between the Paradigms and me.
 
Wigwam Jones said:
"Things fall apart. It's scientific." - Talking Heads
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Ah, so that's what he said!! :lmao:


True that... although some things fall apart at much slower rates than others. The simpler the speaker, the easier it is to maintain. Aside from surrounds and capacitors, most of what else is in a speaker could very well last a lifetime. Although I do imagine that at some point, if the cones are of the paper type, they could eventually crumble. Newer cones are made of various composites.
 
myu701 said:
True that... although some things fall apart at much slower rates than others. The simpler the speaker, the easier it is to maintain. Aside from surrounds and capacitors, most of what else is in a speaker could very well last a lifetime. Although I do imagine that at some point, if the cones are of the paper type, they could eventually crumble. Newer cones are made of various composites.
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Depends on your interval. Given enough time, you could honestly say that they will burst into flame; or at least the things that the speaker degrades into will, when the sun expands and devours the earth.

In a somewhat shorter interval, the capacitors will degrade, the foam surrounds if it has them, the paper cones, the glues holding the cabinet together, even the glue holding the MDF in a coherent fashion will fall apart, I'd imagine. But I will be long dead by that time. More likely, just caps and surrounds in the shortest term.
 
hedrick said:
Are there any online instructions on replacing the capacitors?

The brochure for the L500 says they are metal-film.
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Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe metal film last a long long time. Electrolytic's are problem caps, so you may have nothing to worry about in that area.
 
They should be good to go. I think only larger 2.5-way ADS contain caps that would be a concern, and even those are in non-critical roles.
 
Also resistors can go out of tolerance as well. Replaced the crossover components on four of my dad's Fisher speakers (gave to him when I got better stuff) and I found most if not all of the resistors to be out of tolerance.
 
OK, so rubber surrounds and metal caps. Looks like I'm OK. I'm not *looking* for something to do.

They do sound good, with a bit of bass EQ.
 
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