Doug G.

By "all-metal woofer", I mean without the Masonite ring of the earlier ones. Doug

OK, if they are New Advents, they would normally have the all-metal woofers. Doug

Frank, did/do your Advents look like the picture in this thread, other than the woofers being all-metal ones - no Masonite? In other words, are they original Advents and not New Advents? I ask because, if you bought them in 1978 and they are original Advents and have all metal woofers, that reinforces the theory that Advent used the all-metal woofers on the very late original Advents, since 1977-78 is when they started selling the new Advents. Original Advents have tweeters like those in the picture, whereas New Advents have tweeters that have no Masonite square and mount flush to the speaker board (baffle). Doug

Both the original Advents and New Advents were available in wood veneer and vinyl "utility" versions. The original Advent wood veneer cabinets had beveled trim on the front and the New Advent wood veneer cabinets had rounded trim, called "bullnose" trim on the front. The vinyl cabinets were pretty much identical between the two models with minor dimension variation. The grille cloth on the new Advents was a slightly "browner" color. The ones in your picture are original Advent Utility versions. BTW, it's hard to tell from the picture whether the tweeter cones are orange or green. If they are green, they are from sometime in later 1975. On closer viewing, they appear that they are probably orange but still not really clear. The shades of orange varied from a rather bright, reddish orange to an almost brownish orange. In any case, that pair is from 1975 or later because the black tape across the front of the Masonite on the tweeters only goes part way across. Doug

I thought the woofers are always the same but they changed the tweeter to use the same, larger magnet version and made a crossover change to match the efficiencies of the tweeter and woofer in the Smaller Advents. Doug

Is the foam covering the baffle closed cell or open? I assume closed but you never know. Doug

Hi Roy, When I reread some of my posts, I realize they come off as maybe being disparaging to other methods which is not my intention. I'm just relating my experiences. I agree that if there IS doubt, it is better to shim. I just have a tendency to want to maintain originality when possible. I do want to mention I have been at speaker repair for many years, also. I remember repairing little 4" and 5"X 7" speakers in the sixties when I was a kid when, for one reason or another, the cone warped or tore or whatever. So, I am not writing from a neophyte perspective. Doug

Well, as I have written quite a few times before, the VC is already centered at the spider in the typical driver unless there is a problem with the spider which is rare. The only thing that needs to be done is to ensure the VC stays parallel to the magnet/pole piece, all along its length, during the refoam and this is easily accomplished by pushing down along the perimeter of the cone all the way around as the glue sets. This guarantees the cone is parallel to the pole piece because pushing on the perimeter, all the way around, slightly biases the VC into a "slanted" position and it would rub on the pole piece if not parallel/centered. I have done it this way during my whole long-time experience with refoaming drivers and have never had a failure. The procedure doesn't have to way more complex than it need be. The tone thing is even unnecessary. Doug

Nope. Take them out and see what it says on the back of the magnets, if anything. Somebody made those black adapters to make them fit in the openings. Hopefully, they didn't alter the original openings so genuine replacements can be dropped in. I would estimate those to have been made in late 1974 or early 1975. Any dates on the tweeters? Doug

I have never heard any real difference between my Advents with fiberglass and my Advents with foam and I just don't think Advent would have made a change which resulted in such a drastic difference in their sound. Doug

Over many refoams, I have never shimmed the VC. Recones, yes, you have to but refoams, no. Doug

The foam does actually seal the tweeter to the board to keep the cabinet air tight. Is there a Hobby Lobby or similar store near you? I bet they would have something like that foam. It is different from the typical foam used for cushions and the like, as you found. Any kind of 1/8", or so, foam or other flexible material would work, although I understand wanting to keep the appearance original. I know I have seen that foam elsewhere but who knows where it was. On the very early Advents, they used Mortite to seal the tweeters, just like the woofers. but it wasn't long before they switched to the foam. Doug

As far as the lighter grille fabric, Advents were originally quite a bit lighter than the examples we see today which have darkened, some of them badly, depending on the environment. My very early pair I bought from a guy originally from Cambridge whose parents bought them from the factory, had grilles beyond redemption, as badly as I wanted to resurrect them. They were actually yellow. Doug

If you get tweeters other than originals, you will most likely have to dink around with a crossover change. Of course, if you like doing that kind of thing... Doug

They look great. Doug

The thin gasket may not be enough to seal adequately. When the all-metal woofers were installed at the factory, they were fine because the woofer frames were nice and straight and so was the front of the speaker board. After use and the screws being tightened and loosened, the frames and board are not as nice and closely mating and the thin gasket can leak. I have always used Mortite, as was used on the original Advents when resealing any Advent woofer. It assures a tight seal. After they are back together, push gently in on the woofer cones and they should return to rest fairly slowly. The actual time ,may vary but they shouldn't return immediately. That indicates a large air leak which ruins the frequency response/performance of any acoustic suspension speaker. Doug

You should try to clean the grilles with the cloth on the frame because if you take the cloth off and get it wet, it will shrink, which is bad. I cleaned mine by laying them in the bathtub, spraying them with the shower head, gently scrubbing them with detergent and letting them dry. I worked with the frames while they were drying to stop/correct any warping of the Masonite. The thing to do is work fairly quickly to minimize soaking of the frame. Doug

They are original "The Advent Loudspeaker"'s from the early seventies and the original Masonite woofers have been replaced by Jensen-era round magnet woofers, which is OK unless you want them to be authentically original. Both colors of fiberglass are correct with the yellow being slightly earlier. The fried egg tweeter is probably original with the black tape going all the way across the Masonite square which indicates pre 1975. The Realistic tweeter should be replaced by one just like the other and wired in the same, to the crossover. Wiring a tweeter directly to the woofer is a good way to ruin it by it receiving the full-frequency signal from the amplifier. EDIT: Looking again I see there is a capacitor, presumably in line with the tweeter ,so it will block lower frequencies from the tweeter but it should still be replaced with an original because it won't sound the same. Don't use a "New Advent" tweeter as they are not the same. Using any tweeter other than an original will require a crossover change. You can try to clean the grille cloth with upholstery cleaner but cloth very close to the original is available if you can't get them satisfactorily clean. Doug

I hope everybody understands I have absolutely nothing against configuring each speaker to the latest revision Advent used, as advocated by Pete, I'm just kind of funny about keeping things original and, if I don't really hear any difference,,, Doug

The original Advent Masonite and New Advent all-metal woofers were manufactured with fabric (gauze) dustcaps. Later ones, paper dustcaps. Doug

Well, we had a discussion about this on this very forum over nine years ago: Doug

At one time, I knew the changes they made in the Smaller Advents to accommodate the large magnet tweeters and they have been discussed in various threads on forums but I never made note of the changes. Smart, huh? Doug

Aha! the dichotomy is revealed! The green tweeter thing is this: the green cones were originally for The Smaller Advent speaker, most likely for easy identification because the Smaller Advent had a 2.5" square magnet instead of the 3" magnet of the original Advents and it was much easier for factory people to just look at the cone color to determine which was which instead of judging or measuring the magnet size. In 1975, Advent decided to make all the tweeters the same with 3" magnets and use a crossover change to match the tweeter/woofer efficiencies in the smaller Advent. So, from then on, all the tweeters were the same but Advent had a bunch of green cones left over and they just used them up. So, for a while, both Smaller and original Advents got green tweeters until the green cones were used up and then they both got orange/red tweeters and this may have been random so you could probably get red or green tweeters in both models during this time period As far as performance, the two are the same. Only the earlier smaller magnet tweeters are different because of the smaller magnet. The green.large magnet tweeters are certainly more rare but as far as value, probably not much difference. The only real determinant as to what tweeters to put in what speakers would just depend on your level of desire for originality. Doug

I have examples of both versions and to me, there really isn't much difference in sound between the two. I believe Advent switched to the 8uF cap. more to make it easier on the tweeter than to affect the sound. I don't know if Pete agrees with this or not. BTW, the example you show with the green tweeter, assuming that's original, it was made during a relatively narrow window from the middle of 1975 to ,late 1975. The all-metal woofer would be replacements. Nope, see next paragraph. Actually, looking at the photos again and assuming they are of the same example, it's kind of a hybrid with a very early crossover and replacement drivers including the green tweeter. Doug

My policy is to always restore any given Advent to its original configuration. Doug