Info Needed on ADS L1530s

One last thing on your speakers: I wouldn't necessarily assume that they don't perform as well as they did 20 yrs ago. Concerning the ADS C-2000, they do not contain amplifiers, such as the PA-1. Those crossovers do contain built-in amps, but were not made for your speakers. I owned a pair of the PA-1's at one time, and frankly I wasn't that impressed with them. They sounded a little thin, at least to me. If you do want maximum performance, then by all means biamp them. It will make a huge difference on the low end. All you need is something like the C2000 and two amps, identical if possible.
Strangely enough, the guy in NY that Ed mentions is selling a C2000 that I sold him. I needed to slim my system down, so sold it to him. However, he's asking way too much for it.
As a by the way, the C2000 can also be modified for use with the ADS 1290/1590's. I have all the info, which was supplied to me by ADS many years ago, if you or anyone else needs that info. Happy listening!!
Alan

Yes, if not using the C2000 or PA1 setup (or another factory ADS setup) you'd need some other sort of line level crossover (Bryston 10B, etc). Frankly I'd suspect the C2000 would beat up on anything from Sonic Frontiers, esp. given that it is designed to work with that specific speaker. They are great speakers, and unless you use the factory a/d/s biamp/crossover stuff, I'd just run them as you are now. Enjoy,
-Ed

Thanks Ed and Sid. This is helpful. I guess I bit off more than I could chew. My objective is to squeeze the most out of this system. My concern is, given its 20+ years, whether it even peforms to specs. Not that I can hear anything but perfection. Also, this bi-amp thing would require specially made crossovers, would it not, if I didn't go with the C2000 unit. I'm running a Sonic Frontiers P2 for an amp, so the C2000 (I assume the C2000 has it own amplification and does not allow pass-thru to external amps) would be a step down in performance. This speaker could compete with and beat the best out there, even now. Thanks for all your advise, I'm glad I haven't taken them apart.
klccharter

Interestingly, I saw someone recently selling off some ADS stuff from NYC area. I think in that, they had a C2000 system. They definitely had a pair of PA1s, which are the factory biamp modules that screw into the back of the L1290/1590 and I think 1230/1530 systems. Quite rare, worth having.

FWIW, I've owned L1290's, M15s, CM7s but currently just the L300s (all a/d/s/), plus 2 pairs of Aerials (the speaker company run by Mike Kelly, who was the brains behind a/d/s/ when the L series were being produced).

The top of the **30 line is the legendary L2030, big, rare, not that pretty, but apparently excellent sounding and quite efficient (uncommon for a/d/s/)

-Ed

Ed sawyer gives great advice! I own a pair of these, and a a pair of 1590's, which are similar. Biamp them if you want a big improvement, but don't mess with the crossover. ADS made a C-2000 Biamp System Control specifically for the 1230/1530/2030. And these speakers are darned good used full range, as is.
Alan

leave them as-is. Anything you do is only going to make things worse most likely, and ruin any long-term value they would have. They are not very common. They were set up for bi-Amping (with external crossover) which has far more merit as an idea, than any type of biwiring (which is essentially useless with these).

Fooling around with the Xover if you dont' know what you are doing is more likely to result in blown tweets and mids than anything else. Given that these dome mids and tweets are unique to the L1530 and L2030, and are no longer made and rarely avaialable used, blowing them would result in a useless pair of rare speakers.

-Ed