Summary: Pros:
Large, sealed floor standing speakers. Dual 8" drivers with mid and tweet. Excellent build and cabinetry. Smooth refined "New England" sound at it's best. Beautiful to listen to and beautiful to see with a high WAF. While sturdy, not terribly heavy, easy to move around. Bi-wireable and has tuning switch for the tweet. Not the best speaker I've ever owned but close. Can be bought relatively cheap on the bay.
Cons:
Orphan speaker from and orphan company. Does NOT have modern drivers so one must be careful. The Audessy self calibration routine on my Onkyo 905 receiver blew the left from tweet soooo, be careful.
Da Worfster
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Summary: What a pair of speakers! Apparently, no one knew what they were, thay just kept passing by them. The standoffs on the grilles were loose and they had a few handling scratches but, work beautifully. Were $50 but, i got them 1/2 off. Didn't need them but, at that price, no passing up! They kick pure audio butt! Using them with an early 70's Sansui intergrated amp, 75/75 and it gives them hell Harry! Something i could never afford back in the day.
Strengths: Better when bi-wired than full range, bass is deep and smooth, mids and highs are non-fatiging and sweet and they do ALL music well, especially Classical.
Weaknesses: Are there any? Says who/
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Summary: These were my Dad's speakers. Boght new in the mid 80s. They were lightly used, and highly lusted by me throughout the 80s and 90s. When my parents decided they wanted to get rid of them, I jumped at the chance! I have the 1290/2 versions. They were run for many years on a Carver 'The Receiver'- the 200 watts/ch version with Sonic Halography. With the right source, quite the magical combination. I sold the Carver on eBay and kept the 1290s. What a pair of speakers!
We are in the process of buying a new home and I will finally have a room dedicated to audio. I can't wait. For HT, these speakers could use a bit of help on the lowest octave ( <40hz), but for music, these things are simply amazing. Smooth, open, non-fatiguing. Ran them with an NAD 7140 receiver and within the power of the receiver, they were great, but they really prefer more power. I am currently running them biamped off a dbx BX3mkII amp (125x4) and they sing. Dynamic range is a bit narrow on the low end, but more power could solve that. All in all, a great pair of speakers that I will never part with.
Strengths: Tight bass. Midrange is powerful and not overbearing.
Summary: Review for the L990 floor-stander. same as larger L1590, but with 1 10" woofer instead of 2.
Very good sounding speaker, with excellent bass response for its size. These, like most all A/D/S', are on the less efficient side, so you'll need some fairly substantial amplification.
At the time I owned the L990's I had an original Adcom GFA-555 amp. Plenty of power, but the 990's brought out the grain and dryness of the 555. Once I switched to the B&K Sonata M200 monoblocks, things got much better.
One of the better 80's era speakers. A real shame A/D/S left the home audio market.
Strengths: ~ bass response - tight, accurate, extended, tuneful.
~ Overall freq. resp. more accurate than its peers at the time.
Weaknesses: ~ A bit inefficient (what sealed-box design isn't?).
~ The dome midrange unit tends to beam more than many cone mids, narrowing the best listening zone.
~ Infamous A/D/S metal grilles always got dented and bent, and the mounting posts were troublesome.
Similar Products Used: Martin-Logan, Apogee, Magnepan, Quad L-series, Mission, KEF, B&W, JBL, Boston Acoustics, etc.
Although I'm not sure about the L990 (must be a mid-70's model, right?), the later ADS speakers were pretty efficient. My L810-2 were specified at 92 (from memory) db/meter/1 watt. I've found that they are more efficient than most speakers I compare them against (except the Klipsch's which are notoriously efficient).
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Summary: This Review is for the ADS L810-2. Please bare with me on this story and I will get to why I now own a set of ADS L810"s First of all I should say that in the 1980's I owned a pair of L710-2's. I sold those to my older brother as at the time I had a Mitsubishi DA-R20 Stereo Reciever and it couldn't handle the low imp.load at high volume levels and would shut down. Anyway my brother still owns them and every time I went to his house and listended to them it reminds me what a fool I was to part with them. I should have replaced the Reciever or run a good seperates amp from the recievers Preamp outputs.Over the years I have owned dozens upon dozens of loudspeakers and auditioned hundreds. I had finally come to the conclusion that in order to have a "REAL" but affordable Audiophile Loudspeaker I would have to build it myself. Since that Conclusion I have Built many from very high quality Drivers but Because of the complexity of designing building the passive crossovers I decided to use the Rane AC-23 Active crossover with 24-db Linkwitz-Riley filters. At first only only One AC-23 X-over for stereo 3-way and then 2 two AC-23 X-overs for 4 and 5-way operation. You can imagine all the amps I needed to go five way. That would be 5 Stereo amplifiers. Yes this was going to extremes and all just to build the ultimate sound system. Needless to say I have owned many amplifiers in the past. Now the Rane AC 23's and all those amps are gone. Although I still have all my own custom designed and built Loudspeakers. I now am using a TDM 24CX-4 active crossover wit 24-db Linwitz-Riley Slopes . The TDM 24CX-4 is far more transparent than the RANE Crossovers. I really noticed this when I was using an Audio Experience Symphonies TUBE Preamp as a buffer between My Denon AVR-2801 and the TDM 24CX-4. "WOW" what a Difference. The Ranes have now been sold on ebay. I did have two of the TDM 24CX-4 X-overs but decided one TDM was enough, so I sold one TDM on eBay as well as many of my electronics I have eventually decide to part with. My System has it's own dedicated 100 amp service located just outside the wall of the system as there is no way I could the system for my standard house wiring. My Sytem Electronics Now consist of 1-Denon AVR-2802 Reciever. 1-TDM 24CX-4. 2-ATI AT-2505 Amplifiers/250 watts X 5 chanels 8 ohm and 375 watts X 5 into 4 ohms. 1 Harmon Kardon PA-2400 Amplifier. 1-SONY DVP-S9000ES DVD/SACD/CD Player. 1 JVC TD-V621 3head Cassette Player/Recorder.1-RCA F38310 38' HDTV with built in HD-Direct TV Reciever. My Speaker System is 2-KEF Q-10 centers. 2- ADS-L200E Left/Right surrounds and 2- ADS L400E Rear surrounds. And of course 2 ADS L810's as Left/Right Mains. The ADS L-810's each stand on My home brew PEERLESS XLS-12" Subwoofers with Matching 12" XLS Passive Radiators. Augumenting these subs is Dual 10" Subwoofer with two Hi Vi W10's in each.These are located in each Left and Right corner of the room. That is a total of 6 subwoofers in all, each powered by their own dedicated ATI 2505 250 watt amplifier My Room is 14 wide X 25 long with a valted ceiling. The Peerless and the Hi Vi woofers are very fast and natural sound and blend very nicely with the ADS Fast transtient capabilities. In Fact I have varied the X-vers from 60 to 160 Hz the ADS and the PEERLESS and the Blending of the two is just shy of being superb. I found that the ADS L810's weakness to be producing low bass at high volume levels. My ATI amps could easily bottom the voice coils of the 8" woofers with no effort on their part at all. But once you X-over the ADS 810's at or above 80 Hz 24db per octave you will really hear these wonderful Loudspeakers sing. If you really want to hear them sing add some Polk Audio LSI Tweeters that are you can often find the on eBay from one seller. These are made by VIFA for Polk.They have cropped edges and will fit. You will have to loosen up the Dome Mid. and get it as far over as possible. The Imp. & Sens. a perf. match.
Strengths: The sound period especially if you all replace the capacitors with the SOLEN Mettalized Polypropylene Caps through PARTS EXPRESS 1-800-338-0531 or www.partsexpress.com.You will need for each L810. 1 ea. 6.8 uF part# 027-560. 3 ea. 4.7 uF part# 027-552 and 1 ea. 100 uF #027-616. These are all the same values as the cappacitors in the L810 but have a 5% tolerance and 400 vdc handeling.Also I possible get hold of the Polk LSI Tweeters made by Vifa.These are often sold on eBay.Polk/Vifa # XT25TG-26. This is the same as the Vifa #XT25TG30-04 sold at Parts express. This Tweeter is the Same Tweeter Used in Krell Audio Loudspeakers that sell for $10,000 for there Sat's and $38,000 for their floor standing. This really Speaks for the performance of this tweeter.These tweeter can also handle gobs more power than the ADS tweeters try 400 watts long term and 900 watts peak.
Weaknesses: Low Freq. output at high volume levels.
Do your self a big favor and add a good quality sub with fast transtient capabiliy and treet you sell to the best oud for under a $3000.00
Thanks for the mod ideas, I've been a happy owner of the 810 for quite some time. I'll have to look into the x-over parts. Note that I don't think the LSi tweeter is a complete upgrade (see my LSi-7 review) - certainally the Lsi tweeter has better imaging; but upon close listening it is perhaps a bit less revealing (of course for some people that could be a good thing). This observation is from my comparison for a couple of months between unmodified 27 year-old ADS L810-2 and factory refurbished LSi-7.
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