The Allen ADC-1140 will be my choice!

[Dewey643]

Well,..I'm in NO HURRY to aquire another organ at the moment,..but I THINK I have finally decided on the exact model I would like to have. I have decided on an ADC-1140! Yes,..I know it will be older tech,but it may be all I can afford to go with! It will be a GREAT practice instrument as well as an organ to learn to play on,..and most importantly,..it SHOULD fit in my small living room without any problem! If one happens to be gifted to me,..that would be even better,..but I don't count on that happening any time soon!:-) I seen an ADC-1140 on youtube,and fell in love with it right away! I thought "Yep,..that's it,..that's the one I want!"

[jbird604]

Good choice. I wish we had a way of bringing more of the best ADC models into the store, but these days we aren't getting any trade-ins due to the dealers' not being able to sell any new organs. There must have been a great many of these built and sold, so keep your eyes and ears open and you just might run across one. Don't pass up an 1160, if one comes up, as it is even better. All the same features plus a complete set of pistons. (The 1140 is certainly fine, of course, with its set of seven moving-tab generals. The 1160 just has more -- 10 generals plus 6 divisionals per division.)

[Dewey643]

Does this organ have MIDI? Also,...would this organ accept Allen's HR-50 Presence projection speakers? If an 1160 comes up before the 1140,..and the price is right,..I'll grab on to it! However,I PREFER to buy from a reputable dealer who has the customer's best interest at heart,and will take care of them! NO ebay purchases!

[jbird604]

MIDI was available as an option on all ADC models. I think it may have been standard during the last year of ADC/MADC production, but you would have to check any given used organ to see if it's there. It is a single board added in series in the data stream, along with stop tabs or other controls to turn MIDI on and off.

The HR-50 speakers can be used with any Allen organ to augment the tone quality and dispersion.

[organman95]

John, how does the 1140 compare to the 1100? I always hear of the x160 models being of better tone than the x100 models, and I've seen 1140 and 2140, but never a 3140?

[toodles]

The 1000 and 1100 were, I believe, "half-cage" fully ADC organs, but of the original ADC series The standard console was the Contemporary Console, like the first MOS small organs, the T console (like the 1140) was optional.

Tone should have been as good as the larger first series of ADC organs (like the ADC-4000 or your ADC-5000) but not as many voices, so more borrowing and a smaller stoplist, and might have even been better than the later MADC organs (like the 1140) but only for the base organ voicing--articulation got really good in the late MADC organs (like the 1140, 1160, 2160, and 3160).

The 1140 was an odd-ball organ in that it only had 7 general pistons and no divisional pistons; the 1160 was a much better combination action with 10 general pistons and 6 division pistons for each division. In that sense, the 1140 was a "cost-reduced" model. Usually the lowest cost organs of these series had blind programmable presets, so the 1140 was better in that regard.

There never was a 2140 nor a 3140; it was either 2100 (MADC-2) or 2160 (MADC-3); and 3100/3160; these used external speakers and had full combination actions (10 general pistons, 6 Divisional pistons). The 3100 and 3160 had drawknobs, and 4 external channels; the 2100 and 2160 had 2 external channels but could be expanded to 4. Note that all of the MADC-2 organs (1100, 2100, 3100) had the same stoplist. Likewise the MADC-3 organs (1130, 1140, 1160, 2160, 3160) all had the same stoplist, though a bit different than the MADC stoplist.

The MADC-3 voicing quality was better than the MADC-2, not dramatically except in the area of articulation (chiff) where it was much improved to my ears.