The Obscure and Sublime.... At Least In My World

I have a pair of these, and if you've been around audio for a while, you'll probably recognize them as a/d/s/ L***. ......and you'd be wrong...... kind of! They're NAD 20. So, here's the story.

In the late 70's and 80's when a/d/s/, otherwise known as Analog and Digital Systems was at the peak of their influence in the audio industry, they were tied in one way or another with Braun, the iconic German electronics company more known on this side of the Atlantic for their coffee makers and shavers. NAD, which was also a highly thought of company at this time went to them with a proposal to design and build some speakers. But for reasons unknown, a/d/s/ turned them down, but redirected NAD to Braun. This part is clear as muddy waters because, somehow around this time, a/d/s/ which had previously been a subsidiary of Braun bought out the parent company or at least the audio end of it. This ended up not going well because of some economics issues vis-a-vis doller vs. Deutschemarks. In any case, Braun did in fact build the two speaker offerings of NAD at this time, the 20 and the 30.

The 20 which is the subject of this post was a relatively small floor-standing cabinet 2-way with a dome tweeter and an 8" cone woofer. The 30 was a larger floor-standing 3-way speaker. 

My personal history with a/d/s/ speakers mostly center around a pair of L1290s I found in dilapidated cosmetic condition which I refinished and used for quite a while a few years. Along with them, I also had pairs of L200s and L300s which are the last of my collection of a/d/s/ speakers from that time. When my son inherited an old Yamaha receiver from my collection, I also passed along the L300s as well.

So, other than from a historic sense, how does the NAD 20s enter the picture? Some years back, I came across a pair listed on the local Craigs List for something like $75-80. I met the man and found them without grills and a badly scratched up woofer cone courtesy of his cat. I ended up paying about $50 for them. When I finally got around to hooking them up, they actually didn't sound half bad even with the bum woofer! When I started researching, I found virtually no information and certainly no sources for spare parts! But I went ahead and dismantled them anyway and found, not surprisingly, Braun parts numbers on the drivers since they looked just like the ones on my a/d/s/ speakers. Unfortunately, these numbers didn't match up with anything I could find here in the U.S. so I had to take a leap of faith and just find a similar Braun driver with a/d/s/ part number. I ordered it and it looked identical to the original but the speaker refused to work when I connected it to test using my office system Advent Response 420S receiver. So I decided I had done something wrong and set them aside.

After sitting for about 3-4 years, last week, as part of an effort to clean up, I decided to take another shot at them. However, I had also, reorganized my office sound system as well, now connected to an old Onkyo TX-82 receiver which is rated for a mere 45 watts per channel, but these 45 real 80s watts, not the "amp-on-a-chip" kind! Much to my surprise, those speakers fired up and sounded just fine!

As much as I'd like to tell you that I'm that good and those speakers were healed by me; that's just not the case. I'm pretty sure the issue was that I was too stupid to realize that those speakers were 4 ohms (pretty common for Braun) and my little vintage baby receiver couldn't drive the load! So yeah, my bad! The nice outcome is that my son's hulking older Yamaha receiver drives them just fine and he's been happily holed up in his room listening to them constantly for the last week.

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!