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Life after ADS

When I first started this hobby a few years ago I was immediately drawn to vintage ADS speakers because of the performance/price ratio plus they are just flat out musical.

Many well regarded speakers have come and gone that offered an amazing hi-fi listening experience but I always kept at least one or two pair of ADS speakers around for background music and so forth.

It has taken me the better part of three years to find a mint pair of L1530's and wouldn't you know it a pair came up for sale to me locally and I grabbed them. However I am moving into a smaller house and will not be able to keep them. My first question is what would be a good modern monitor to replace them with.

I will say I listened to some Adam Audio's (not sure what model)and for the money they were very good. In fact I am thinking of getting a pair. The ribbon tweeter sounded very open and detailed without being harsh or aggressive. Before I get the Adams are there any other speakers with ribbon tweeters I should consider? Others I have been looking at are LSA Statements, Vapor, and Evolution Acoustics.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Thanks.
chrshanl37
paraneer's avatar
paraneer
818 posts
 
I have history with their bigger brother the L520. Bought a pair brand new in 1980 and still have them. They are still in near mint condition and I just can't seem to part with them. I use them in a secondary system and drive them with a NAD 326BEE amp. I would think the L420's are similar, just won't go down as low.

The L series are reasonably high in sensitivity at 92 db but are low in impedance at 6 Ohms nominal, 4 Ohms minimum. They are also acoustic suspension speakers so they do like power. A 4 Ohm stable amp is recommended. Overall, I still think they sound awesome after all these years and I absolutely love the metal grills. You can see the drivers through them. Kind of alleviates the argument of grills on or off.

Good luck!
sid42
244 posts
 
The L420 is a great little speaker, but you should probably use a sub with it as the 6" woofer doesn't quite go low enough.
Most ADS speakers use a 1" tweeter (the 1290/1590 use a 3/4" tweeter), they use either a 1.5" or 2" midrange if the speaker uses one, and the woofers vary in size. Depending on the configuration, the bigger the woofer the lower they go and more power handling. Some, like the L718/810 and others use double woofers for increased power .handling
paraneer's avatar
paraneer
818 posts
 
The L420 actually uses a 7" Stifflite Woofer along with its 1" dome tweeter. Published frequency response by ADS is 48-20K hz +/- 3 Db. Like I said earlier, it is 6 Ohm nominal, 4 Ohm minimum with a sensitivity of 92 Db.

Phasecorrect, suggest you also go over to Audiokarma to learn more about ADS speakers. Lots of ADS fans and owners over there.
phasecorrect's avatar
phasecorrect
2,013 posts
 
Nice, thanks guys...very informative. Report back later on my findings.
chrshanl37 OP
622 posts
 
@ kevinkwann that was funny actually. To Phasecorrect the ADS threads on Audiokarma are very informative as Paraneer points out and quite extensive. The one member on AK who has the most knowledge on the company was a former ADS employee and goes by Soundmotor.

After buying and demoing many bookshelf speakers lately I have finally settled on a pair of Soundfield Audio Monitor 1's. Amazing speakers with true full range sound in my small room.
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