My son and I did the circuit of the local Saturday morning garage sales and I stumbled upon a pair of ADS L810s for $20 (asking price was $30). Cabs are weathered and scratched but look much better after a good bathing with orange oil. Drivers all seem excellent. Not crazy about the spring clip connections in back (?!?!) but hope to have some narrow gauge wire figured out soon so I can give them a good listen.

Anyone have experience with this model? Comparisons? Are the spring clips, the push in kind, OEM on these? What is the preferred method for dusting those rubber surrounds? Is armor-all or anything usable?

Photos coming later today, I promise.

Oh, picked up my first Denon, a 3802 home theater receiver, and an older Sansui tuner and integrated amp too. Passed on some Bose 301s with shot surrounds

A few photos. Click the thumbnails to see larger versions if you wish:








It appears that the woofers are having problems on one of the two speakers. No sound at all on initial listen. Am hooking up to a different amp to see if that will help it out after pulling the bottom woofer and visually inspecting the crossover which looked fine.

EDIT --

One bad solder joint on the crossover. Five minutes with a couple of hand tools and my trusty Cold Fire cordless soldering iron and it's playing like a charm!

Would love to find some specs on these. Sound like they hit pretty low in the bass department for such a relatively small speaker.

dude!

http://sportsbil.com/ads/

... and my favorite ADS L810 thread ...

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59256

ADS L810's were my first dream speaker when i had L520's way back in 1979. i found a pair with beat cabs like yours (same series) an ran them as my mains until the AR9's fell into my lap. my pair now pull duty in my daughters bedroom system and sound fantastic driven with a t-amp.

its the ultimate plug-and-play speaker, sounds great no matter whats its driven with or where its placed. unless you want to replace the spring clips, you'll have to live with them. as for the surrounds, i would use a feather duster or something similar - without any solvents or detergents that might contribute to drying them out.

Wow! Thanks for the links! I didn't know these had such a reputation!

I hate to say it but I've been a "bad boy" today. A drive to Renton scored me a pair of Yamaha NS-690s too which are a similar size of speaker. Once I figure out placement I plan to use a good portion of the weekend A/Bing them.

sounds like fun.

$20 for L-810's is a great price and you have plenty of overhead built in for flipping. Seriously, the L-810 is one of the dullest sounding speakers I have ever heard. The treated cloth domes muffle the sound and the dual woofers have phase issues that further dulls the show. If you are looking for the East Coast / British sound, I suppose they are passable. The cloth grill version is not as valuable as the metal grill version but you will make serious coin if you flip.

Great score on the NS-690. The NS-690 came in three versions with II and III having the less desirable foam surrounds. The Mk. I has cloth, which does not need periodic replacement. I think when you A/B against the L-810, the winner will be crystal clear. Post you thoughts when you get a chance.

and you would be the exception to the rule. as for muffled sound and phase issues, um no.

It is incorrect to call my opinion an exception just because you like them. Most of the serious collectors in my area feel the same way about the L-810 and the other dual woofer models like the L-1230 and L-1290.

Have you pulled your woofer and looked at the magnet? ADS had the smallest magnet ever for a "serious" speaker which is why the L-810 needed two. Phase error is caused by two identical drivers driving the same signal. As you know, sound is generated mechanically so both drivers have to be perfectly in sync or there will be phase errors. The is almost never achieved, even in the high-end let alone the cheap stuff like the L-810. Since adding a second woofer only adds 3 dB of sound, the better solution is to spec a single woofer of better quality.

I cannot respect any speaker manufacturer that supplies drivers to NAD, which is the epitomy of budget manufacturers. Enjoy the dullness!

my assertion is based on every other opinion i've heard on the L810, your opinion is the lone exception.

does the magnet do the job? i certainly think so and again i've heard no complaints about the low end of the L810 other than from you. the approach taken by the designers was why the L810 used two woofers, not because it "needed two".

ADS made several 3-way models using single woofers in the x30, x70 and x80 series, yet continued to produce the L810 (as well as the L710 and L910) as well. if the latter design presented phase issues, why would they continue to produce it? As you know there are many dual driver array designs out there that have been used over the years. to say that phase issues are not easily solved with these designs is simply unfounded. your reference to the L810 as being "cheap stuff" reveals your underlying bias that has nothing to do with its design.

i get that you dont care for the sound of the L810, it is colored and the speaker like any other has its limitations, of which i am intimately familiar with. however, to say that sound is the result of a flawed design and a cheap product is way off base.

I find the ADS L810 an interesting speaker to be sure. As I commented early in this thread I was surprised at the amount of bass being produced by these speakers and that was at first listen nearly three feet off the floor using my wife's Cerwin Vega D9s as impromptu speaker stands. Probably the most powerful bass I've heard out of anything 8" or less in a similar arrangement. Faintly recalls the bass reproduction in a pair of Polk Monitor5s I had awhile back, also a sealed cab with a 6.5" (coupled to a 8" passive radiator) that startled me by surpassing what I expected from it's physical size.

Yes, I've seen the basket and magnet assemblies (I had to repair a solder joint) and they are not what one might call impressive to look at but I've seen worse on 8" woofers too. One of the things that baffles me the most however is use of separate, sealed, chambers for these two drivers that I suspect are different in shape and in volume. Indeed, upon listening very closely, I mean physically close, with your ear only inches from the cones, I am sure that these two identical woofers reproduce over lapping but different ranges of the audio spectrum, the bottom one seeming to have been shifted lower into the bass regions than the top one of the two. I hear this effect in both cabinets equally and wonder why no mention of this being the intent of the design was in any of the reviews or documentation I have read on this model?

Dingus, do yours play at slightly different frequencies too?

I haven't had enough time to give them a solid listen yet but plan to do so today.

dunno, i never noticed.... my daughter is feeling a little under the weather so i wont disturb her to find out. i'll check it out though.

I sure hope you take a look at the drivers and compare them with others. If you can convinve anyone that stamped baskets with undersized magnets are superior, I would be amazed. If you are staking your credibility on the L-810, oh well.