ads 1290L w/upgraded capacitors on internal crossovers/ new woofers 2009 vs vandersteen 5

not sure what your question is?  Just about to recap a pair of Celestion Ditton 66 studio monitors

They are very different speakers. The ADS were well loved, but old, and with mids and tweeters that may not be replaceable. The Vandersteens are more recent and supported by the company, and I think a better speaker overall.

Greetings,

I have sold both The ADS is a good Box design from the 1986 era and for its time was a decent speaker if driven properly

. Driving this whole speaker with a 300 B amp will be somewhat of a challenge.

The Vandersteen 5 is a totally different animal it offers a constrained layer-dampened head isolated from the bass section that gets rid of any box colorations

It’s a phase and time-correct design that’s highly transparent a  bi-amped design that would optimize clarity at all frequencies. Your 300 B amp would be hooked up to a pair of High Pass filters driving from 100 HZ on up. this allows the amp to be relieved of its heavy lifting in the lower bass as the Vandersteen speaker’s built-in Low-frequency amps take care of 20 HZ on up to 130 At one time we had a Cary 300 B amp with 25 WPC playing Nat King Cole sounded absolutely wonderful Add its In room analog 22 point adjustable room EQ and to me its a no Brainer in favor of the Vandersteen. We had been voted Best Sound at the NY show with this speaker when the competition complained about their rooms saying these rooms suck!!

Best JohnnyR

Vandersteen Dealer NJ

As an ADS vintage fan with L910's and L710 currently, both have had their crossover redone and both have new tweeters and mid drivers from Richard So, there are parts still available.  

These were designed by the the same person who designs Arial Speakers T10 etc. 

ADS are wonderful sounding designs with many innovations for the time, obviously those designs are older now though.

They are also very good at imaging and don't have an issue with brightness as a whole they are fairly neutral for the era they were designed. i love the dome midrange and tweeter in them. I'm not sure what the efficiency of the 1290's are i know my L910's are 93db 4ohm. not hi enough for 300b SET that's for sure maybe a parallel one at lower listening levels. 

that said the Vandersteen 5 is a more modern design and will do somethings that the ADS wont be able to do as well. from what i remember its been a long time since i heard any Vandersteens the v5's will be a better overall sounding speaker but not drastically so. and you may prefer the dome mid of the 1290's better. I'd say the ADS will be smoother sounding but may not have the detail level as the V5's. 

neither will be a good match with a 300b based amp IMO. unless your only driving the top end with the 300b amp.