Advent 400 replacement spkr. What is it??

[JKent]

I opened up an Advent 400 speaker and found that the driver has been replaced. Sounds fine. The new driver is stamped "Made in Belgium" Here are pics of the back and front. Guess it's a coaxial design. Anyone know what it is? Thanks for any help.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Kent;

The photos show a Philips mid range driver.

It was used in several speaker systems of notariety, as a mid driver.

Now when you watch eBay, you will see the various speakers that did use this driver.

Often available with and without the sub enclosure shell.

In a fullrange enclosure it required it's own sub enclosure, same as AR-1 tweeters.

It could be bought with or without it's own plastic moulded sub enclosure.

I believe it was available as 4 and 8 ohm.

[JKent]

Thanks Vern for the informative reply. Do you suppose this is a suitable full-range radio speaker? The KLH midrange was used as a full-range in KLH radios, so by that logic I'm thinking this should be OK.

Kent

[JKent]

Hi again Vern

Based on your info, I found this page where the Philips AD5061/M8 is described. As follows:

Philips 5" (128mm)* paper cone full range drivers with 2 3/16" (55mm) whizzer cone -- this is terminated with a flat ring which helps reduce whizzer resonances. 8 ohms (DCR=6.9 ohm). Voice Coil is 1" (25mm). It has the trademark octaganol 8-legged stamped basket. Drivers have cloth surrounds. I have brushed away the deteriorated open-cel foam that was used for a rear mount gasket.

http://homepage.mac.com/planet10/vintage-d...allery/philips/

On another site, the author had this to say:

For the rear drivers, I tried full-range Philips AD5061/M8, but they were not of high enough quality, power, or sensitivity. An album of Carmina Burana, with its lush chorus, has so much out-of-phase material I was getting distortion from the amp trying to drive them, and the small speakers were bottoming out. I replaced them with two of the same dome midrange drivers PMT51) I used for the front.

http://www.rawsound.com/articles/MSspeaker/

Finally, these comments:

The new midrange driver mentioned by Carlos Bauza as now being used in the Rectilinear HIis the Philips AD5061/M8, which Rectilinear is selling for $11.75. This unit is a high-compliance version of the earlier AD5060/M8 and may be had for $5.95 plus postage and $0.30 handling feefrom McGee Radio, 1901 McGee Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64108. The 5061/M8 is lessefficient than the old 5060/M8 and sounds worse.

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/pdf/bass...112-760809b.pdf

So not exactly rave reviews. Still, for the radio it seemed fine to me. Didn’t know what a “whizzer cone” was, so I looked that up, too:

Whizzer Cone

A small supplementary cone attached to the voice coil of a speaker for the purpose of producing and radiating high frequency content more effectively than the larger speaker cone. A whizzer cone is attached to the voice coil in the same place as the speaker cone; however, where whizzer cones are used it is necessary for there to be some additional flexibility in the joint between the speaker cone in the voice coil. This allows the speaker cone to become somewhat decoupled from the higher frequency motion of the voice coil so it doesn't dampen the voice coil from being able to move the whizzer cone at those higher rates. Whizzer cones have fallen out of popularity in the last couple of decades, mostly due to the added coloration of the signal produced by the necessary slop in the coupling between the speaker cone and voice coil.

http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/gl.../t--WhizzerCone

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Kent;

If you keep your eyes open on ebay, you will see the great number of older speaker systems that used this Philips driver, tweeters and sometimes even their woofers.

I built a 3-way Philips speaker system for my test bench back in the 1970's, fused of course.

The younger shop techie used an AR 12" woofer to test his amp repairs, it made the amps really work, or not.

Because of the supply and demand, I would replace the Philips with an OEM KLH mid/fullrange driver.

A proven entity.

I only remember that Philips used as a mid, not as a fullrange driver.

[JKent]

Interesting. I see there is a single Advent 400 speaker on ebay now and it appears to have the same driver. Was that a standard replacement? The aluminum adaptor plate appears to be manufactured--not a DIY

Here's the link to the ebay item

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...:MEWA:IT&ih=019

[dynaco_dan]

>Interesting. I see there is a single Advent 400 speaker on

>ebay now and it appears to have the same driver. Was that a

>standard replacement? The aluminum adaptor plate appears to be

>manufactured--not a DIY

>

>Here's the link to the ebay item

>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...:MEWA:IT&ih=019

>

Hi again;

This is a set of recent photo's for an auction for the encased Philips driver.

This was an option used in cases of mid use, rather than fullrange.

They were removed from a well known speaker that was highly praised in it's day.

Manufacturers were faced with the optional case or making one themselves, such as was used in the AR-1 or AR-2 dual tweeters.

The last 2 photo's are from the auction you make reference to.

My best guess is that the Philips driver fit the mounting pattern and was well advertised back then.

Unless one has the correct unit, who can tell what sounds best.

Unless someone comes forward with a photo of an original Advent driver, I do not know what one looks like.

My mind kept thinking about the KLH fullrange driver all along.

Kloss's Advent fullrange may have used a Philips driver all along.

As always, the dimpled dust domes are optional. LOL

[JKent]

Vern, here is an original Advent driver and a comparison of the Advent (top) and Philips (bottom). The Advent had a 4-bolt mounting pattern, the Philips 8. The Philips is mounted on an aluminum adaptor plate.

btw--what was the "well known speaker that was highly praised in it's day"?

Kent

[dynaco_dan]

>Vern, here is an original Advent driver and a comparison of

>the Advent (top) and Philips (bottom). The Advent had a 4-bolt

>mounting pattern, the Philips 8. The Philips is mounted on an

>aluminum adaptor plate.

>btw--what was the "well known speaker that was highly

>praised in it's day"?

>Kent

>

Hi Kent;

Could you please post a front photo of the original Advent driver.

This is the very first time I ever saw one, thank you.

Any thought as to where or whom manufactured them for Advent?

Cloth surround?

Alnico magnet?

Certainly not an amatuer adapter plate.

Any reviews of the driver that you can reveal?

My memory is getting worse, those Philips photos were from a really recent auction, in the past week or so, I believe an Infinity model?, it was stated but I forgot to note it, sorry.

This was not the most noteworthy model speaker I was trying to think of.

Other than my test bench speakers, I was never a Philips speaker driver fan, cheap and accessable, at that time.

I just remember that the driver was not special compared to AR, Advent, etc, but they did show up on occasion, to my surprise.

There was at least 3 or 4 models of different brand speakers that used at least one version of that driver, from the front view.

Philips dome tweeters were used as well.

If I come across other photo examples, I'll post them here.

Looking back now I do not know why I didn't use AR or Dynaco drivers?

Perhaps because we didn't have the coils, caps, etc, and the sturdy, nicely assembled cabinets for one reason.

I built from scratch, plywood cabinets for the Philips drivers I used.

There certainly is a lot more to making a sturdy speaker cabinet than it appears from afar.

[JKent]

AB Tech sells an Advent replacement that resembles the original:

http://www.abtechservices.com/adventspeakers.html

I'll take a photo when I can

Kent

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Kent;

I just ran through the various threads on this topic.

I see I was leaning on the KLH fullrange driver, not an Advent, DUH.

Looking forward to your driver front photo.

I was thinking that it would have an inverted 1/2 roll surround, the same as the KLH 12.5 driver.

The Dahlquist DQ-10 speaker is not something I am familiar with at all.

Here is a front and rear photo with, I believe, a Philips midrange driver.

If so, it will be with it's own plastic casing.

I may be wrong here.

[JKent]

Here it is. Pretty ordinary-looking. No inverted roll surround. I assume the Advent 5.25" Mini from AB Tech is essentially similar.

Kent

[dynaco_dan]

Hi again Kent;

I see that the photo that you took has a whizzer cone on it's Philips driver.

This is another use I believe for the Philips driver, less whizzer cone.

Dahlquist DQ-10.

I may be wrong about the identity of this driver here.

Any chance please of a rear magnet photo of your OEM Advent woofer/ fullrange driver.

It reminds me of a Seas driver in cone appearance only from the front.

Did Henry Kloss design that smaller system himself?

[JKent]

>

>Any chance please of a rear magnet photo of your OEM Advent

>woofer/ fullrange driver.

Look about 6 messages up on this page. I have a shot of the backs of the OEM and the Philips. The OEM is just stamped with the date

Kent

[John Rethorst]

> I believe it [Philips AD5061/M8] was available as 4 and 8 ohm.

Is this right? I hadn't heard this before. Reason I ask is that I have Rectilinear Xa speakers, which are 4 ohm acoustic suspension and use this midrange, and I more recently got Rectilinear XII speakers, 8 ohm bass reflex, partly to have the Philips mids as backups. If Philips made two versions, my backups won't be very useful :-)

[JKent]

> I believe it [Philips AD5061/M8] was available as 4 and 8 ohm.

Is this right? I hadn't heard this before. Reason I ask is that I have Rectilinear Xa speakers, which are 4 ohm acoustic suspension and use this midrange, and I more recently got Rectilinear XII speakers, 8 ohm bass reflex, partly to have the Philips mids as backups. If Philips made two versions, my backups won't be very useful :-)

Hi John

Do a google search on Philips AD5061/M8 and you will find some info on these speakers and on their use in Rectilinear (and Dahlquist) speakers. Then do a search on Philips AD5061/M4. Looks like the "/M4" was a 4 ohm version. Don't know which versions are in your Xa's or XIIs but you could pull them and look for markings on the backs, or measure the DCR of each.

Hope this helps.

FWIW-- back to the original topic, I am now of the opinion that Advent switched to (or from) the Phillips driver at some point in production. I have seen several and they appear to be factory-installed, with a special aluminum adaptor plate.

Kent

[John Rethorst]

Hi John

Do a google search on Philips AD5061/M8 and you will find some info on these speakers and on their use in Rectilinear (and Dahlquist) speakers. Then do a search on Philips AD5061/M4. Looks like the "/M4" was a 4 ohm version. Don't know which versions are in your Xa's or XIIs but you could pull them and look for markings on the backs, or measure the DCR of each.

Hope this helps.

FWIW-- back to the original topic, I am now of the opinion that Advent switched to (or from) the Phillips driver at some point in production. I have seen several and they appear to be factory-installed, with a special aluminum adaptor plate.

Kent

It does. Thank you.

How hard is it to change the resistance on a driver? Could M8's be made into M4's with a change of resistor, say? If so, could a user do it?

[FredsBands]

The Phillips drivers, and the tweeters, in the Rectilinear line, even the 2 4-ohm, acoustic suspension versions, are 8 ohms. I don't know why, other than maybe the crossover points would have a too low impedance. I don't think the addition of a 4 ohm resistor in series with a 4-ohm driver to total 8 ohms or in parallel with an 8-ohm driver to total 4 ohms, would help matters for several reasons I'm aware of. I trust the engineers to judge which is best.