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Vintage Asylum Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time. |
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Vintage Asylum Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time. |
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In Reply to: Re: ADS Speakers posted by isanut on July 12, 2002 at 10:56:42:
Source:
newsgroups: rec.audio.opinion
Date: 1996/09/03
Subject: RE: ADS general opinions
From: BlackMongoose@msn.com (John Butler)
General reputation of a/d/s/?
High quality speakers; excellent build quality; indifferent service.Quality characteristics:
a/d/s/ makes their own speaker drivers, using speaker manufacturing
equipment they designed themselves. Their speaker drivers are made
to very tight tolerances; voice coil gap is almost too narrow to slip
in a piece of paper. This narrow gap produces a speaker with fast
transient response and higher sensitivity to low-level detail. Their
woofers are always (as far as I know, always) made with cast frames,
which helps in the areas of longevity and voice coil alignment. My
woofers butyl surrounds, which are very flexible, air tight, and very
resistant to wear and rot. Woofers are capable of a lot of output.
Woofers in the 1090's have an excursion of nearly 1" without popping
out of the gap or bottoming out on the frame.a/d/s/ usually uses small diameter woofers in sealed enclosures. This
makes for very clean, tight bass. Now that I have a more powerful,
high current amp, it is very easy not only to hear bass, but to know
what kind of bass one is hearing -- electronic keyboard, electric bass, space-miked acoustic bass, close miked acoustic bass, contact pickup on acoustic bass, etc.Midrange and tweeter in my units are doped textile domes. They have
outstanding dispersion, which contributes to their perception that they are "bright" speakers. I think that more accurately, they are linear out to at least 20K, plus they have a very wide dispersion pattern. In a room with many hard surfaces, or if the speakers are close to the side walls, the tweeter reflections can make for a very bright sound. Mine always sound best placed 6 or more feet from the side walls on the long wall of a rectangular room.In my experience, a/d/s/ speakers "disappear" easily with a stereo signal,throwing a wide, seamless soundstage.
I consider them to be a good value. I got my 1090's in 1987 for $880 new. Go price some twin-woofer 3-ways made with cast frames today. They start at about $2500.
a/d/s/ is also one of the "masters" of mini-speakers. They made the original tiny speakers with perforated metal grille that Radio Shack imitates in their Optimus line. But there is no comparison. And they have been making mini's for more than 20 years.
Sometime recently, a/d/s/ stopped manufacturing their big floorstanding speakers, and concentrate on sat/sub systems and
in-wall speakers.On the used market, I consider the a/d/s/ M12 to be a bargain. They retailed at $2500/pair. twin 8" poly woofers, a 5" poly cone midrange, and tweeter. Crossovers were at about 250 and 4KHz, so the entire mid-range was crossover-free. I've seen these go for $600- $900/pair. They are linear (-2dB) to about 30 Hz, with usable bass at least to 25 Hz. When I first heard these powered by a Museatex system playing the Brahms Requiem, it brought tears to my eyes. To me, conveying the emotion of the music is the ultimate test.
Concerning service, it's good news/bad news.
The good news is that when I blew two woofers on my speakers that had been discontinued (including the drivers themselves) for nine years, a/d/s/ had factory rebuilt ones to replace them with. The bad news is I had to wait 8 weeks for them. It wasn't because they were rebuilding them; they had them in stock. They were waiting for some other drivers on back order (to another customer at the same repair shop) so they could save $3.50 and mail them all in one box!So there's my long answer. My short answer is that a/d/s/ speaker systems and the drivers inside are of high build quality, and should last at least 20 years. If a driver breaks, they can probably replace it with a like-new factory rebuild. You just might have to wait awhile, though.
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- ADS L-1090 Review - eThink 11:36:18 07/12/02 (0)
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