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My system is getting worse - now what?

Hi all,

First post and I need some guidance. My system started out in the mid-80s with a Hafler DH-500 amp, Adcom GFP-1A preamp and ADS 810-2 speakers. I was perfectly happy with this system for 15+ years except for the occasional cut-out of the Hafler during high-volume sessions, which it did for protection. Eventually the Adcom had a channel signal drop happen enough I had to retire it. I replaced it with a Paradigm as it was one of the few affordable preamps with a phono section. I am nowhere as pleased with it musically as with the Adcom. Recently I grew increasingly frustrated with the Hafler cutouts at volume as well is its general fan noise during low volume operation and sold it. I replaced it with an Adcom GFA-555 based on friends having them and reviews, but I am not happu with it. My ADS speakers hate it at volume, resulting in woofer distortion and it just sounds far less musical. So now I am in a quandary. I can tell the Adcom is more of volume amp and I think I can live with it after I get my ADC equalizer set, but I don't think the ADS speakers will ever take what it gets handed. So I think I want an affordable floor standing speaker that will take whatever I can throw at it. I will even consider getting another GFA-555 and bridge to mono if that will help. So ... is there any affordable ($1000-1500) speaker that will sound as acoustically beautiful as my ADS's and be allowed to be driven to extremely loud volumes when the occasion arises?
hhlodge
mlsstl
694 posts
 
...But a light tap on a couple woofers produces an obviously bad sound, what research is indicating might be voice coil scrape.

If your speakers are damaged, you're wasting time and money monkeying with the other components. A damaged woofer is going to sound nasty no matter what you do.

It also sounds like you frequently listen at high volume. The ADS, even though an efficient speaker, is a 4 ohm unit and this can be difficult for many amps, but that really shouldn't be an issue for your Adcom. That leads back to a suspicion of speaker damage. Get your speakers checked.
hhlodge OP
3 posts
 
Thanks all.

Can anyone recommend someone in the Boston area who can look at my ADS 810's? I figure I'm in the best location given where they were built.
johnnyb53
3,490 posts
 
Check with Tweeter, etc. They used to be a big ADS dealer. Maybe somebody still has some contacts. About a dozen years ago I blew out a pair of woofers in my 1987-era ADS 1090s (one generation after the 810), and my local repair shop (in Seattle) was able to replace them with OEM woofers. There are probably some companies around that specialize in rebuilding drivers for spares.
cleaneduphippy
323 posts
 
I believe Tweeters has gone out of business. I know the one in my town closed down about the same time Circuit City did.
johnnyb53
3,490 posts
 
05-08-09: Cleaneduphippy
I believe Tweeters has gone out of business. I know the one in my town closed down about the same time Circuit City did.
Oops. Missed out by just a few months.

Looks like the former ADS headquarters is occupied by American Florist Supply Inc.

I had a pair of L1090s that I bought new at the end of their run in 1987. Telarc used the flagship from this series, the 1590, as their monitors at the time. The 1090, 1290, and 1590 shared the same soft dome midrange and tweeter and dual woofers in a sealed cabinet. They varied by woofer diameter and cabinet volume. The 1590s had dual 10" woofers and reached pretty deep. The L1x90 series were preceded by the x10 series (e.g., 610, 710, 810) and followed by the M series such as the M10 and M12.

I also picked up a pair of near mint 810s for $100 and made them my rear channel speakers, as they had near identical mids and tweeters as my front L1090s. I experimented a bit with amplifiers and found that to get the most of the 1x90s or 810s, you needed a fairly powerful, fast, wide bandwidth high current amp that is comfortable into a fluctuating impedance. Telarc used Nelson Pass's Threshold Stasis amps at the time. I found nirvana with a used VSP Labs TransMOS SS amp making 200 wpc and lots of current--it weighed about 50 lbs. Today you can get good results with the more recent crop of wide bandwidth high current Mosfet power amps from Adcom such as the GFA-5400 and GFA-5500. These are fast and transparent, and have a nice liquid midrange and treble that mates well with the ADS dome midrange and tweeter.

Of course, it won't fix things if your voice coils are scraping. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that ADS built its drivers with very tight voice coil gap tolerances. They even built the machines to build the voice coils because nothing was available to maintain their tiny gap. My point is, you may hear a clink when tapping on an ADS bass driver even if there's nothing wrong with it. See if you an borrow an amp like I described and see if it gives you what you're looking for.
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