I just picked up a pair of ADS L-780's and Sony SS-M5's. They are sitting in my vehicle. I'll get them up and running tomorrow.

I used to have a pair of L-780/2's so I'm relatively familiar with the sound. It was a nice low to medium volume speaker. Under power, the woofer bottomed out, which is unacceptable to me. I've heard other larger ADS models bottom out so I wonder if this tendancy is a common problem. Hopefully this pair of L-780's won't have this fault.

I'm more interested in the SS-M5. The SS-M5 was the BOTL model topped by the large SS-M9. The M5 is a two-way bookshelf design featuring a pyramid-look cabinet which I think is optimized for internal driver volume. Interestingly, each speaker has two pairs of speaker wire binders for bi-amping.

More later...

i have heard other reports of the woofers bottoming out on ADS's but i've never witnesses this with any of the four different models i've owned.

what does that mean to bottom out

over-excursion, when the driver tries to extend past the limits of its range.

Yes, over-excursion. Heard as a something like hard distortion in the bass. I think this is caused by small-ish magnets that offer poor control.

I've experienced this with my L1230s, but only at levels that were unhealthily loud. It took effort to bottom them out.

I have L630s and had not experienced this with them at loud volumes, but I didn't push them to deafening levels like I did the L1230s.


Discussing this with a former a/d/s/ employee, he said it was an issue with these if someone pushed them hard and to loud volumes. It was addressed on the later speakers, such as the 1090, 1290, ect.


Like I said, I had to push them to an uncomfortable volume to experience it.

Oh- I didn't find the magnets to be much different than many of the other manufacturers at the time, like Polk, Boston Acoustics, ect.

And they seemed bigger to me than the EPI and Geness woofers, which I had never bottomed out, and much bigger than the Dynaco A-25 woofers, which I also never bottomed out.



I'm thinking there's something else to it. As the sound is excellent, and far from sloppy- so I believe there's nothing wrong or poor about the woofer or magnet.

I listened to my new L-780's today. First, I hooked them to a Sanyo C-55/P-55 set. The sound was a little lush and not as accurate as I like so I switched to my Sansui AU-717, which his very fast and accurate. The sound improved somewhat. I found the sound to be warmer and fuzzier than I like. The bass was easily accessible but not sharp. This in comparison to my reference NS-1000M's. On the plus side, I found the L-780 to be very easy on the ears. This in sharp contrast to the Pioneer HPM-60, which is bright and schrill.

Thed: The magnet on ADS woofers is under-sized compared to comparable Pioneer HPM's, JBL's, and Yamaha's. Depending on what your definition of comfortable volume is, I've heard ADS woofers bottom out at what I estimated to be 90 to 95 dB, which is loud but should be well within what woofers should be capable of.

That being said, my new pair of L-780's didn't bottom out today so I suspect this issue is hit and miss depending on model and condition.

The Sony SS-M3's got into the rotation yesterday with my AU-717. They are a two-way design and feature large heavy cabinets relative to driver size. The cabs are sealed and promise accurate but not necessarily deep bass. My initial impression is they are very accurate and musical but lack the fullness that a good three-way design will give. To be fair, the M3 does come very close to the NS-100X, which is a three-way design. The 100X is so crisp as to grab your attention while the M3 stays in the background and out of the way of the music. The M3 is easy and engaging in a way the NS-100X is not. I had a chance to buy the SS-M5, SS-M7, and SS-M9 in a package deal and I'm kicking myself because the M3 really is a quality piece.