|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
67.4.176.21
I purchased a pair of a/d/s L420 this weekend. It appears to be well made and in good condition, but with some garage time.Initial audition, they sound bright and with exaggerated high freq. resp., not much of low bass. Since the cabinet is not very deep, so it looks like it's designed for bookshelf type placement. Since I have no bookshelf, so I put them close to the wall, by that, I get a little bit more midbass, but that's it.
They sound bright, and gives the false perception of being detail, I've heard a lot of speakers from the late 70's through the 80's are like that.
I have a few pairs of vintage speakers with the same characteristic, the sound is too bright and little bass, some of those speakers with big cabinets and big woofers, but guess what, not much bass. So I have plan to replace the caps in the crossover.
Does anyone know what happened to a/d/s? I remember seeing their ad in the Audio magazine in the 80's, and saw some of their speakers in the local stores, then they disappeared.
Follow Ups:
The a/d/s we knew of years past has been sold. The new company is nothing like the old.I'm surprised you find the speakers "bright". Bright was never an a/d/s trait. If anything, they epitomize the "New England Sound".
Best,
otari :-)
My mother-in-law, after seeing the Levinson 33H amps in my listening room: "Those are the nicest electric room heaters I've ever seen".
I've owned a paid of ADS 1230s (floor-standing speakers) since 1983. Normally, I would have "up-graded" by now but have yet to hear a pair of speakers that sound as good for the money (they retailed for $1500 in 1983). It's too bad the company folded. Their speakers were superb in terms of sound and build quality. Little wonder I see little product from the 30 series (1230, 1530, 2030) for sale on ebay. Owners have wisely kept them, knowing they'd be paying thousands more to get better sound.
Anyone knows a suitable tweeter for the L420?Mine still work fine, however, the sticky stuff that they put on the dome tweeter caught a lot of dust and lint over the years, and they don't look shiny like when they were new anymore, I accidentally touched it with a piece of scotch tape and pulled a little of the coating off one of the tweeter, so it has a dull spot on it, but it still works fine.
I inspected the tweeter with a loupe, the tweeter material looks to be a piece of dome shape fabric (looks like fish net under the loupe), impregnated with some kind of sticky glue shiny coating, what's that stuff anyway? It's still sticky after all these year. Doesn't it get dry?
KLHman, the first rule of dealing with ADS speakers is......"Keep the grilles on!!"
Sorry to hear you had to find out the hard way, but if you don't, dust and gunk gets all over the tweeters and mids and is dreadful to remove, as you know!
ADS stuff is cheap right now on ebay, so maybe you can score the correct tweeter and use your old one for a spare? Just a thought...
I kept the grills on, but as you know, those metal grills with big holes don't really filter out the dust and lint. Getting a second pair for the tweeters don't seem to be worth the effort, since it's only a cosmetic issue.The ads tweeters look familiar, I think other manufacturers used the same tweeters in their product line, I think I saw the same tweeter in the Signet speakers. I may just try to find out what the crossover freq. is, then get a tweeter that would fit from Parts Express.
I always thought ADS speakers (and the predecessor Brauns) sounded rather bright compared to Advent and KLH. It used to be referred to as "European" sounding, and the B&O's of that era had the same sound. I haven't listened to a pair for years, so my current opinion might be different. The last pair I heard was a pair of 10" 3 ways with the perforated metal grills (L-6??). One of the guys in our informal audio group got a pair and invited us all over for a listen. On the way home we discussed it, and the consensus was that they were bright compared to other speakers we favored. Power for that session was some kind of 70's receiver, not sure of what.
Hi Jerry,I sold both and the ADS sounded much better than the B&O. The ADS with the smaller woofers could sound bright because they didn't roll off the treble to match the woofer roll off. 990 and 1290 sounded very flat (as in good) and neutral.
The pair of a/d/s L420 I have does sound bright, it's possible that the crossover components deteriorated over the years. Like I said, I have several pairs of different made vintage speakers that sound bright, one pair even have large cabinets, and driven by a 225 watts/ch amp, and it has little bass.During the 80's, I saw a/d/s speakers being displayed at a local stereo store, all models were being hanged on the wall, that leads me to think that it's what these speakers were designed for. They were in the same room with the Polk 10B (I think that's what it was, 10B), a/d/s sounded very close to the Polk, Polk had little bit more bass, but a/d/s had better sound stage and more detail.
I think a/d/s and Polk started making the in-wall speakers, and Polk moved their production to Mexico. Speaker trend at that time became compact, compact, and more compact, many speaker companies start making satellite speaker systems (more to it later), a sad chapter of audio histroy.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: