My Audio Systems: The a/d/s/ Era

 

Audiophiles of a certain age will instantly recognize these as the "new" and "old" logos of Analog and Digital Systems of Wilmington Mass. Before I get into my end of things, indulge me while I get into it's convoluted history a little bit.

Starting all the way back to the 50's and 60's, the area around Boston was the epicenter of the "East Coast Sound". And by the 70's and 80's home of audio manufacturers which in some way had spun off from the mother ship that was Advent were still in the area. That group included companies such as KLH started by Henry Kloss who had been at Advent, AR, and Jensen, as well as other companies either based on the design theories behind the "East Coast Sound" or guided by someone who had worked for those original companies. This second wave that hit the audio scene included Boston Acoustics, Allison, Analog and Digital Systems (ADS), etc.

Bear with me while I go off on a tangent from my digression! In the speaker world (and somewhat the American audio world as well), there are basically two camps; the East Coast and the West Coast..... yeah, like Rap. At the risk of starting a flame war, here goes! Generally speaking, the East Coast "sound" is thought to be smoother, more refined at the cost of efficiency because of acoustical suspension (sealed boxed) designs. Whereas the West Coast "sound" was a more "boom and sizzle" presentation, but more efficient due to the use of ported designs. The West Coast "sound" is associated with JBL (James B. Lansing) and it's off-shoots such as Altec Lansing, Cerwin Vega etc. Not surprisingly, the Japanese makers tended to be more West Coast oriented, whereas the East Coast sound is similar to the "British" makers (eg. B&W, Tannoy, KEF, etc.). That's all I'm going to say without commentary since everyone's hearing and tastes are different. As for me:

I grew up listening to a German Telefunken system belonging to my father. Then later, that was replaced by a system built around a Dual turntable, KLH cassette deck and Jensen speakers. When I started buying equipment of my own, I started with B&W speakers fronting a Rotel stack. Then came the a/d/s/.

It started innocently enough when I came across an a/d/s/ C2/3 Cassette deck sold on clearance. It sounded good and was nicely understated. Around that time, I had taken some bad advice and replaced the Rotel electronics with Adcom. Don't get me wrong; there wasn't anything wrong with the Adcom, but it was a bad marriage between it and the B&W DM500 speakers that I was using at the time. We'll just leave it at that.

Around that time, a/d/s/ stopped it's home electronics importation from Braun leaving those components orphaned. That was just the nudge that shoved me off right off of the edge of cliff and down that proverbial slippery slope! Next thing I knew, the Adcom was gone and I had a house full of a/d/s/ equipment. This included:

• R4 Receiver
• PA4 Amp
• CD3 CD Player
• C2/3 Cassette Deck
• P4 Turntable
• A2 Integrated Amp
• T2 Tuner
• CD4 CD Player
• C2 Cassette Deck
• P2 Turntable
• L1290 Tower Speakers
• L300 Speakers
• L200 Speakers

Now, this took some years to do and a lot of it was less equipment that I seriously listen to, but were part of a "collection" and run as a secondary system in my bedroom. 

In fact, I was close to owning all of these iconic pieces designed by the famed Deiter Rams. Then home theater intervened. By that time, it had been a few years since a/d/s/  had stopped importing this gear from Germany and availability was drying up. That was before the common use of the Internet. Although I loved the way it sounded AND looked, it was just a huge headache to connect/disconnect and haul around when I moved (which was a lot since I had just started in Higher Ed Administration in those days). Doing home theater meant that I had to patch in an external decoder, try and match a center channel and get more speakers and amplification. 

 

So, I said goodbye to Dieter Rams designs and greatly simplifying my systems and moving!


 

COVID-19 and Keeping Busy

So, here we are...... sitting at home, wondering how long we're going to be here before COVID-19 crests and we can all go back to our normal lives. For someone like me, who tends to be a little mentally ADHD anyway, that means keeping my brain busy while I'm at home conducting Virtual Education! That's focusing on working on "shelved" projects.

It's a pretty long list! House/home stuff is actually pretty well managed, due to my highly organized wife..... However, my personal list of projects isn't in as good of shape. Most of it has to do with my hobbies; computing, firearms, reloading, photography/camera, woodworking and electronics..... ohhh the electronics!!! As you guys can tell from my writing or lack there-of on this subject, you can probably deduce how much I've neglected it. This ranges from the complex like upgrading my sound system to better focus on vinyl to repairing equipment that can be fixed and either sold off or gifted to someone who can use it. I will say that I've done well in updating and streamlining my photography stuff, but AV? Yeah... Then COVID-19 happened and I bought some more audio equipment!

 

You might be wondering; how in the heck can buying more help me with having too much equipment? So, here's what happened. First I bought the Rotel RP-855 turntable, a piece I've wanted for years to upgrade the vinyl end of my system, and soon after, I bought the Rotel RSX-1057 receiver (which by the way doesn't even have a Phono stage input). What that did was started me on reevaluating my system(s) as a whole.

I came to the conclusion that my system was set up for my family as it was 10 years ago, when the kids were 6 and 3. Now, they're 16 and 13. 

 

I figured, we no longer need to protect the DVDs from their handling by loading them into a huge Mega changer and they haven't played Wii-U in some time! Although, the new turntable only replaced the old one, the much heavier and by far, biggest of all my components is now gone. Off to live out another life with my brother-in-law who DOES have young children. This has now turned into a "domino effect" where, one of the 2 outboard amps has given up it's job of driving the surround channels to the new receiver.

Alas, all is not all wine and cheese as yet. I will have to admit that I pulled an oldie-but-goodie out of storage and put it into the stack. What is this weird thing and what does it do? It's in fact an AV source selector and Pre-Amp all in one box. It's a relic of the of the old days when audio companies were trying to come up with ways to keep up with the rapidly expanding video market. In the mid-to-late 80's there were just a ridiculous number of sources both audio and video, so here-ya-go in one box. This one is my second, having let the first one go years ago when I got out of the Laserdisc and SuperBetas (feeling old yet?)! I got this one to send signals to my computer with thoughts of archiving old VHS and MiniDV tapes. In any case, I'm going to be using it to do two things that have increasingly been left off of even high-end receivers (such as the RSX-1057), that's the Phono input and of all things,.... the switched outlet! Yup, you remember, people would plugged their other rack components into the main receiver and it would turn all your stuff on and off. In the last 10-15 years, people have increasingly used power-strips. Why do I need this? I have and still us AC "line enhancers" (aka fancy power-strips) and in order for it to turn on the components connected to it, you plugged a control cord into the "switched" outlet of your receiver, so when you turned it on, it in turn, turns on everything else..... slick. This slim little component will do both of these critical things (Phono, switched outlet) for me!

And if you don't think that'll keep me busy enough; this afternoon, I decided to see if I could get an old pair of NAD 20 speakers to work (long story which might get its own post). And as it turns out, they're now working fine and my son is enjoying them in place of the pair of a/d/s/ L300s that I gave him last year.

So, what do you guys think? Successfully keeping myself occupied stuck here at the house!?!