A/D/S 910 Speakers

Shot in the dark here, but does anyone have a manual for a pair of ADS 910 speakers? I recently picked up a pair and have been unable to even hook them up. 7 different terminals for speaker wire on the crossover, and 3 fuses of which 1 is blown. I've tried A/D/S...no help, tried contacting a recent e-bay purchaser of an almost identical pair...no response. Thanks if anyone can help.

 

I bought my first pair of ADS speakers back in the '70s when they were the new company, I liked their sound so much that over the years, I bought 4 more pairs of ADS speakers, upgrading to a bigger one each time.

Sorry I don't have the manual you want.

 

I have the brochure...3 fuses for each driver section.
Program card for single amp use and optional cards for bi + tri amp use.
As to connectors? I'm just leaving now can't read more right now.

Alan

 

That's great news Alan. I want to know the fuse ratings, so I make sure I replace with the appropriate size, how to tell which card is installed, and the proper connections to amp. May I purchase a copy of the manual from you? If not, the above information is greatly appreciated. Randy

 

Randy,
I only have the eight page sales brochure but the manual is available for sale on the internet.
The existing fuses in the crossover will have ratings on them. What does the plug in card in the crossover look like...just a plain circuit board? The crossover frequencies are 500 and 4K. Tweeter [switch controlled] @ 12.5k flat, -2db;-4db;-6db. Midrange[switch controlled]@2k flat; -2db.
In the crossover.

Alan

 

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure someone hadn't put the wrong fuse in. The plug in card looks like a circuit board...says ADS 910 passive crossover on it. Still don't know which speaker terminals to use. I'll look online for the manual some more. Thanks

 

Randy,
The program card for single amp use is a circuit board, the optional cards for bi and tri amp use have caps on them and permit use with an external active electronic crossover. The fuse values are 5 amp-L, 2.5 amp-M, and 1.5 amp-H, but you might use smaller values for mid and high. You might find a manual at vintageaudiomanuals on the web. The speakers are 4 ohm. If you can post a pic of the terminals maybe some one can help.
Nice score on these speakers...I saw a pair of these almost thirty years ago when I bought a ADS/Nakamichi 2002 system with the ADS 2002PS.

Alan

 

Thanks for the fuse values....that will be a good start. It might be a great score, or it might be two money pits. I e-mailed two online vintage manual companies...one does not have it, the other has one for the ads 910 II. I imagine that the II might be close enough. I saw a pair of the 910 II's sell on e-bay recently for ~$1200. The crossovers are almost identical to mine, and it looks like there is 7 terminals on that crossover as well, so maybe I should order the series II manual. Thanks again for the help. Randy

 

Finally figured out how to hook these bad boys up. One of the fuses that looked good, was actually bad. After figuring that out and figuring out which terminals to use, I discovered that all the woofers are blown. I was pretty sure this was the case before hooking them up, but the hook up confirmed this. Well, somehow I found a guy that worked for a/d/s for 14 years before the company was sold. He bought, or was given a bunch of parts, and he supposedly repairs them as a side gig. He's charging me what I think is a fair price for 4 recones on the woofers. I am also having him check the rest of the internals of the speakers...mids, tweets, and crossovers for proper functioning. I am a little hesitant to just ship off some stuff to joe schmoe, but I am going with my gut, that tells me I can trust this guy. The cabinets are great, so hopefully within a week or two, I'll have some "brand new" a/d/s 910's. Looking forward to hearing these puppies. The guy told me, that once his supply is gone, that's it. So, if there are any other a/d/s owners that might want to talk to this guy, let me know. I will only reccomend him, however, after I am able to verify the work that he does. Thanks for the support Alan....kept me motivated.

 

Good luck with your 910's. Are those the ones where the speaker cabinet is suspended on a kind of "gimbal" stand? I had the L810-II's (loved them) and later had 1230's and L1590's. In the car, I had every driver that a/d/s made starting with 320i's. I still have a contact with a/d/s who used to work there for years and if you still have any issues, he MIGHT be able to help you.....but I underscore "might". Post some shots of them when you get them up and running.

 

No stand with these. It might be the 910 II's that have the stand. Mine are the original 910's. I'm not sure of the difference, though. The guy you know isn't in Arizona is he? I will post some shots of the finished product.

 

No, he's in Massachusetts near the original home office. The guys up there were always a BIG help whenever I had any a/d/s issues. Things "changed" a bit when they were bought .

 

Randy,
You're going to have some classic vintage monitors! The mounting holes accommodate the cast aluminum swivel stands or handles for moving them.

Alan

 

Well my speakers are finished. These are the pictures I received today. The woofers had previously been re-coned rather poorly with non a/d/s parts according to Richard, the guy who has just redone them. He also told me that one of the midranges and one of the tweeters were blown, but I went ahead and had him repair all of the drivers. So, he did 4 woofer re-cones, 2 midrange repairs(?), two tweeter repairs(?), and one crossover repair...had a bad air coil something (sorry I'm not much of a diy'er). I'm still nervous about receiving them, but I'm sure I have nothing to worry about....right??? Cmon ease my mind about this. It did make me feel a little better that he offered to buy them from me, but I declined without even hearing his offer. So, hopefully I'll have some brand new performing 910's soon. Now, all I need is a decent receiver. I'm gonna start a thread on that. Wish me luck on these a/d/s's.

 

Randy,
Good idea to have all the drivers done, looks like one of the caps was replaced too. You're going to have a couple of great vintage speakers! Let us know how they sound once you get them back.

Alan

 

Hey Alan. I think you are talking about the woofer caps. If so, in the top picture, the left woofer was how all my woofers looked when I sent them to Richard. The shot of all 4 woofers is how they look now. I will let you know. I just need to learn how to solder real quick...lol...seriously...so I can re-connect all the drivers.

 

Randy,
I meant in the crossover, left side in the back.

Alan

 

I'm not sure what he did with the crossovers, but he told me that both were repaired.

 

Portisphish,

Can you please share with me the contact that you found in ma that repaired your a/d/s speakers. I am in need of repair as well.

Thank you

James

 

Nine years later. I wonder if he still has them? I have a nice .pdf of the original brochure!

 

Richard So. He even has a website now. http://www.adsspeakersservice.com/

I'm sure I chronicled the forced sale of those a/d/s speakers somewhere on the site when I got divorced shortly after they were repaired.

 

If you like ADS check into the Peachtree speakers. Drivers designed by Michael Kelly, used to be the production/research manager at ADS.

I think Kevin at Upscale Audio is blowing some out.

 

I had my a/d/s 300C drivers rebuilt by Richard. He did a great job and the speakers still work quite well in surround duty . I had a friend that worked for Tweeter in the 80's and I used to go to the a/d/s warehouse in Wilmington, MA to pick up speakers and amps. Excellent quality for sure .

Bill