Power requirement for ADS L-1290?

I had the slightly smaller L-1090. I got by with 60 wpc for awhile, but when I fed 'em a high current 200 wpc amp they really came alive. They're not 90 dB efficient, not even in-room. They're more like 86. How much power you need partially depends on the room size, and current delivery is *at least* as important as final wattage. I strongly suggest a minimum *high current* 150 wpc. Even better would be to biamp at 150 to 200 for the woofers and 100-150 for the mid/tweet.

And get some outriggers and spikes for them as well. Back when I had mine I was able to get a pair of pedestals that ADS made for them. Then I set some spikes into them as well. Since those pedestals are pretty scarce these days and the L1290s are tall with a small footprint, the outriggers are a good idea to stabilize the setting of the speaker.

I owned a pair of these for quite a while and liked them. I had a stash of new/old replacement drivers just in case espcially since the fluid in the tweeter can go bad with time.

To answer your question, they do like power, and bi-wiring if possbile, but also an amp capable of driving low impedances/ohms.

I used a Rotel RB-1090 with them and then a Spectron MKII all of which exceeded the power max recommendations and both sounded good with the better sonics going to the Spectron.

They will 'play' with less power etc but not up to the capabilities of the speaker and low power inexpensive amp may not be able to handle the low impedences and thereby produce clipping.

I am running these with a McIntosh MC-275 amp and they seem to do fine. DO NOT BIWIRE these speakers. They can only be actively bi-amped (with an external crossover). The bi-amp switch in the back disables the crossover network between the woofers and the mids/highs. The passive network will remain intact on the mid/high. If you try and bi-wire, you will be sending the full frequency to the woofers and it will not sound good. The passive protection remains on the mids. If you want to attempt to bi-amp, you need to get an electronic crossover (DBX, Rane, Bryston, Marchand, etc.) and set the slope to 12db/octave. The highpass and lowpass cutoff is 350hz. The results will be some better bass extension. I didnt care for it to be honest. The extra noise of adding a crossover between my pre-amp and amp wasnt worth the bass upgrade. They are powerful enough as is.

JohnnyB53,

What improvements were brought about with the spikes? I have been thinking about adding these as mine are just sitting on the floor.

Also,

90db @ 8ohms is actually quite efficient. But I agree that they would do better with at least 100wpc or more. I dont know about the impedance dips as I have never seen them measured. Perhaps someone else can comment.

I can answer this pretty well since I have the same speakers and I started out powering them with a 60 wpc Denon receiver. They were OK, but then I purchased a separate Denon Power Amp POA-5200 (125 wpc) and the sound difference was very significant. Much deeper and richer bass and mids. Much more dynamic in terms of the clarity and volume of different instruments in the music. I think you'd be much better off with more power for those great speakers.