Who uses ADS Speakers

This is my first post here. I had L710 speakers for 35 years and when downsizing in a fit of feeling overwhelmed by the move, I gave them away. A couple years later full of regret, I bought L780s. I like them. They have the ADS sound but they are not as full sounding as I remember the L710s. I’ll keep them for now. They’re still ADS.

Had a pair of L980's back in the day.  Very musical.  Loved the sound of the "sticky" tweeter dome. Very smooth.

Picked up a pair of L400’s in mint condition last year. Best purchase I’ve made in a long time. Look great, sound even better.

I have a pair of ADS L1590/2 that I absolutely love. They are in excellent condition and sound very good.

Still cranking with my ‘80s still so awesome L1090 towers…in fact, playing a St. Germain playlist as I write…Class D Hypex amp, if anyone’s interested…mellow, mellow sounds.

I used Braun L200 and L300 in the late 70's which I think were similar/same to the ADS versions.

I also had a pair of Rogers Ls3/5a's, and a little later (1980?) the ABS1 add ons.

All were powered by an Eico integrated, MC30's or Dynaco ST70's in either stereo or mono mode.

The Mono 70's had an added TF (choke?) to the power supply, plus a few other parts added/removed. 

Preamps were the Dynaco PAS or the pre and/or phono section of the Advent 300.

Loved them and also sometimes used the 200's in my car via a 12V Advent 300 receiver and a small (playback only) Nakamichi cassettes deck.

In the early 2000's I puchased a pair of mint ADS L880's locally, but ended up selling them as I had switched to flea watt DH/SET amps paired with Reynaud and later on vintage wide range single drivers.

Listened the the 710's in other people's systems many times when they first came out and liked them (much better than the 700, IMO).

There was also a large 900 model that I heard a few times in nice systems (liked it a lot), but forget the exact model number.

DeKay

I had a pair of ADS car speakers on the rear tray of a 1965 Volvo P-1800S. Even with the metal grill covers they were pretty awesome, as was the car. But time and memory tend to make old things better than they really were.

There are those who probably also remember the Nakamichi / ADS system in the metal flight case. …. I had parts of that in my Camaro back in the day… The ADS plate amp and speakers in particular w a Concord head unit….FUN

In 2018 picked up a pre-owned pair of  vintage A/D/S/ L210B speakers for use in a breakfast room system matched up with a Bluesound Powernode N150.  Impressive little speakers.  

I still have a pair of ADS L1290ii that I used for a couple of years.  I used a MINIDSP to biamp them driving them with a total of 350 Watts per channel while they sounded OK I could never get the sound out of them that I liked.  My other system used Dahlquist DQ12s and dynaco tube amps and I preferred the open baffle sound opposed to the sealed boxes even though the ADs had much better bass.   I have replaced the ADS with SpeakerLab corner horns and a SET amp.  I prefer this to any of my other systems.

It may be the amplifiers which are the same vintage as the speakers (Luxman and SAE) but I just couldn't make it work for me. 

The ADS are going up for sale.

@rauliruegas ​​​​@sbank thanks so much for jogging my memory. Congrats Raul for taking the 2030 up many levels. Would be a hoot to hear them someday. My 7’s have a rear firing tweeter which i very rarely use as i don’t have an overly dead room. Every now and again it’s use helpful in spritzing up a dead recording, typically close mic stuff. Interesting addition. Best to you two truly experienced, high sample size passionate audiophiles.

Jim

We carried ADS and displayed the formidable 2030. They were stock but could be easily biamped which we did w a variety of SS and tube amps, notably the CJ Premier. My memory is we sold 3 pair, which given cost / size and complexity was excellent. We carried Infinity and a bevy of ESL, but properly setup they certainly had significant virtues. Given modern cabinet construction advances, i would say the cabinet was the weak link ( same as Infinity ). Man could they rock but still the excellent and sweet dome mid. Obviously we sold a lot of 810 and 710, excellent. ADS had probably the only cat proof and quasi transparent grill on the market….metal perfplate. This is a brand that deserves resurrection. Remember the disaster foray into electronics ? ha.

Jim

A/D/S L-810s were the first pair of home audio speakers I purchased in 1981, and I owned them almost 20 years till I stupidly sold them.

I also had a full car audio system with (I believe) 300i speakers, and I would often get comments such as, “this is the first car system I have heard, that sounds like a home system”.

I still use a pair of metal L-300s in my garage system and they are still going strong.

After trying to live with a variety of speakers, I bought a pair of Aerial Model 9s about 16 years ago, since Michael Kelly formerly of A/D/S is the Aerial Acoustics owner/designer. I found the Model 9s reminded me of the great tone and dynamics I remembered from the L-810s. With Michael’s help, I have migrated from the 9s to a pair of LR5s with a pair of SW-12 subs and will probably never change, except maybe to add another SW-12 sub or two.

I really enjoy the great tone and dynamics of the sealed box LR5s and agree 100% with Michael Fremer’s review of those speakers.

Like Imaninatural above, I bought ADS L710s in 1980. I had saved enough money from my first decently-paying job to replace a KLH model 5 (the portable one) that had been stolen from me three years before. Kept them more than 30 years before trading them in at Echo Audio here in Portland for a pair of used Harbeth M30s. Thanks for the post.

I had a pair of L810 back in the early 80’s.  I liked the sound but they were quite inefficient and didn’t sound good at low volumes so I sold them.  I did have all ADS speakers in my car audio system back then with 3 huge Soundstream amps.  Unfortunately, the car was stolen Dec25, 1991 and was totally stripped.  There was nothing left but the car body minus the interior and tires sitting on milk crates near some housing project.  That was the end of my car audio days and ADS. Also, I only had liability on the 7 year old Nissan so I lost my shirt. 

Dear @bstbomber : Thank’s @sbank . Yes, I’m a proud owner of a pair of L-2030 ADS Monitors.

ADS made extraordinary loudspeakers and in the L-2030 was ADS directly whom build the speaker drivers that are just unique and as you said accurated not analitycal but with high accuracy that’s need it in the professional recording studios.

In those old times Telarc LP manufacturer used an ADS special speakers monitor custom made for the Telarc needs and these ADS monitors were runned by Threshold electronics and Audio Technica cables and was from those monitors where came out my L-2030 designed by M.Kelly who left ADS yeras latter to start designing and manufacturing speakers by his own: Aerial Acoustics, very good quality performers indeed.

So, several of the Telarc LPs were monitored with the L-2030.

I still own it and through the years I made several modifications to compete today and not bettered by names as Magico, Wilson, YG or Soundlabs: you name it and my L-2030 just does not give up. This is the reason why I don’t own any other speakers today. Every time that I change audio electronics, cables, cartridges, tonearms, CDs, etc. etc the speakers always tells me the quality differences.

Telarc needs were for speakers that truly goes deep in the bass range and when they used the L-2030s ADS had to design a dedicated crossover to bi-amp the L-2030, the crossover was the C-2000 that I dont use any more.

Here the today status ( its modifications. ) of my ADS:

" This is a Full Range Professional Monitor that I own for many years.

These L 2030 was designed by Mike Kelly ( Aerial speakers ) and till today it match all my priorities.

It is " heavy " tweaked to do that: first it has " three hands " ( internally ) of a insulation/antivibrational treatment ( like a white paint. I can’t remember the ingredients. ) from Acoustical Magic Company ( it works marvelous ) inside all the box ( a big one box: 58-5/8" ( H ) x 27-1/4" (W) x 13-1/8" (D) ).

It is internally hard wired with Silver Oval by Analysis Plus cable and KCAG by Kimber Kable.

I take out the crossover ( now is external ) and change all the parts: resistors ( Powertron by Vishay. ), all silver air core solid ribbon ( 5.5 cms. of pure silver. Almost 2kg. of silver in the bigest one. ) Alpha-Core inductors , WIMA FKP 1 and KEMET caps in the crossover ( before these caps I used: Duelund, Jantzen, V-caps, Mundorf and the like. All those " boutique " expensive caps are truly a trash. ), the speakers cables goes soldered directly to the crossover parts. This speaker crossover is tri-hard-wired from the amps output to the 3-way crossover parts and speaker drivers.

In reality are three separate/stand alone crossovers: one for the tweeter, one for the midrange and the other for the woofer, all these hard-wired directly to the amps ( no connectors. )

I’m only not biamp my system ( with the subs. ) but these ADS main/satellite speakers are true tri-wired in hard-wire directly from the amps to each crossover parts in the three way speaker design all the way down to the amplifier output.

I change the internal damping glass fiber by 10kg ( each one ) of long hair 100% virgin wool and change the fabric cloth of the grille for a " transparent one ".

Both speakers have at the rear-center the Antiresonant Vibration System by MICROSCAN model TM-8 that works from 20hz to 1.5Khz.

These L 2030 have: One acoustic suspension 1" silk dome tweeter, one main acoustic suspension 2" silk dome midrange, three auxiliar acoustic suspension 2" silk dome midranges ( similar to the main midrange but with a less powerful magnet. ) and two long-excursion acoustic suspension ( sealed. ) paper 14" woofers.

These are exceptional drivers especially the tweeter/main midrange ones.

These L2030 midrange design permit to " run " the speakers on " point source " mode ( tweeter and main midrange ) or through a " weighted " line source mode ( tweeter plus the 4 midranges. ), in this last " fashion " is how I have it ( hard-wired too. )

These are some manufacturer specs:

- Frecuency response: 22-20K +.- 3 db ; 18-28K +.- 5db.

-Efficiency: 95 db SPL.

- Power rating: 300 watts nominal; 1,200 peak.

Weight: 95kg.

These L 2030 are the " speaker satelite " in my subwoofer/speaker satelite configuration and works from around 80Hz and up. Main reason to take this " road " was and is to lower the room system IMD and THD.

In the past I try many configurations: single amp, bi-amp, tri-amp, with sub, with out sub, only SS amps, SS and Tube amps, with passive crossover, with electronic crossover, hybrid crossovers, etc...

Finally I’m here.

Back external tweeters:

These ones was a spare tweeters from a Dalquihst DQM-9 that I owned and already sold.

These tweeters are 1" silk dome ( same efficiency that the front ones ) and are connected in phase with the front ones and works with his own crossover at around 5k and up and have, too, an off/on switch. " "

I was in touch twice with M.Kelly looking for his advise. Good that you were a proudly ADS worker where with out nothing of today technology, parts, materials, etc, etc, ADS still today is a challenger for the best today speakers through the ones I own.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

Yes, I got a pair of L710's about 1980. I always enjoyed them. I recently had the tweeters replaced and gifted the pair to my daughter and son-in-law for Christmas.

I believe @rauliruegas does or at least did for many years in a spectacular system. Cheers,

Spencer