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I have a pair of Advent Loudspeakers, with reverse roll foam surround on driver. Tweeter has 1974 stamped on it. Anyone know anything about this speaker. Also have two different colored tweeters (green/red), was one replaced, and if so which one?

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  • 1 month later...

I have a pair of Advent Loudspeakers. Each tweeter is stamped “JAN 13 1976” and is red. I would say your green tweeter is the replacement.

My Advents need the woofers replaced. The reverse roll rubber surrounds on the woofers are shot. Any suggestions as to which speakers would best replace the originals?

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Guest rickcee

Hi check the layne audio site links section of this site - they still list new advent woofers plus refoam jobs and substitute tweeters. History of ADVENT - real sad - seem to have been bought out by about 3 or 4 companies, latest being recotron which has basically ruined the company - reduced to cheezy 'computer speakers ' Advent! I find it kinda amazing that there is no good market for a high quality 'classic' speaker (say a totally updated KLH 17 (10 " two way, 22 ' high, fine quality veneer) but then again, consider - enstink , etc not much high quality music either. Polk and either boston or cambridge is selling new speakers of this type - two way with real veneer . . .anyway, Rick

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Your right the green one is a replacement. I have recently purchased two red ones so I can replace one and keep one for a spare if needed. I had my woofers reconed professionally and don't notice any difference. I have heard that aftermarket foam kits alter the sound, but these speakers were produced when I was born so how am I to know the original sound. I'm happy with these drivers although I find them a little weak in the mid-range so I stack a pair of JBL Decade L-16's on top in parallell. What a difference and much fuller sound.

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Hi;

Keep in mind that the original 2 way Advent were fairly low end speakers. Their claim to fame was bang for the buck. Pricewise they were comparable to the AR18 and AR28, and much less than the 38/48/58 let alone the 92 or 91.

The Advent's performance was great for thier price range, and somewhat above.

Nigel

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have an old pair of Advents which I bought used about 15years ago. I haven't gotten brave enough to peel the grilles off yet, but they are about 26"H x 14"W x 11 1/2" D. The Cabinets are thick (1 1/4" thick) and they are oiled walnut, an "upgraded" cabinet finnish, I believe. On the back they are labelled "The Advent Loudspeaker" and the serial no. starts with "A3" (I assume this stands for 3way). They were farbricated in Massachusetts. Any ideas on what model they are ?

Thanks.

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Guest rickcee

HI Could be wrong about this - the size sounds like either the original (large )Advent or the modified 'second generation' The orig (from about 1970 - 75 ) had an angular front moulding, the 2 nd gen. ( same size ) had a round front moulding. this is for the cabinets with real veneer finish. the 'utility cabinets ' of vinyl had squared off front edges . . .Both had 2 speakers, a 10 " bass and about 1 1/2 " semi dome tweeter, 2 nd gen. was somewhat different but still 'ADVENT'

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Guest rickcee

O.K. good for you. EDITORIAL : I suspect the '2 nd generation ' of 'large Advent" was the last for the original company - sold 3 or 4 times with increased emphasis on profit, less on product . . . my sister has Advents from maybe '98 ( 8" 2 way - 'ruby') which I strongly suspect are just generic parts assembly . . . sound fine, thou. Anyway, if yours are from late '70 's they probably need bass speaker refoam - before they get damaged.

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Yes, I agree with you. All my speakers are at least twenty years old (except for a brand new set of Angstroms)

I have a pair of Infinity's, a pair of AcousticResearch 2ax, and the Advents. The Infinity's have been done, the AR's are blown, and in need of surrounds, and I plan to do the Advents.

(My sound tech tells me that the surrounds need doing every 10 plus years (even if they're not blown), as they lose their elasticity). I think he may be exagerating a bit, but he makes a good point. Something to watch for (and not worry about ....things don't last forever, and need maintenance). It's still cheaper than buying new speakers.

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Some people state that when you refoam it affects the nature of the driver, but if you are like myself (too young to remember the originals), then who cares!!! i had my drivers refoamed and they sound fine to me (for a two way speaker).

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  • 1 month later...

>Hi;

>

>Keep in mind that the original

>2 way Advent were fairly

>low end speakers. Their

>claim to fame was bang

>for the buck. Pricewise

>they were comparable to the

>AR18 and AR28, and much

>less than the 38/48/58 let

>alone the 92 or 91.

>

>

>The Advent's performance was great for

>thier price range, and somewhat

>above.

>

>Nigel

Your comparison is set too late in time. The Advent entered the market in '70 or '71 and was pitted against the AR 3a, 5, and 2aX & KLH 5, 6, & 17 line up at that time. The Advent was more than a match for these, and just about stopped sales of those models. At $125 for the veneer cabinet model, and the AR-3a at $225, it was no contest. The Advent sounded better, and was half the price. The real competitor to the Advent at that time was the EPI 100. It still didn't have the bass extension, but a lot of people thought the overall effect was better. The JBL L-100 and the Marantz 7 also sold very well against the Advents because of their punchier "West Coast" sound.

Later (around 1978) the AR-14 came out and although it didn't have the bass extension of the Advent, it had a very nice midrange and high end. By the tme the 38, 48, and 9, 90, 91, 92 series came out, the 70's were over and Advent was already a different company and a different product. The Advent comtemporary to those AR's was the 5001, which used a parabolic dome tweeter.

As to your comment about the Advent being "lower end", you have to realize the state of the market at that time. Besides, I heard a fair comparison of a pair of New Advent Loudspeakers (second in the series) against the very highly touted Spendor BC-1. It was no contest. The Advents were clearly superior and even the shop owner, who was a Spendor dealer, had to admit defeat. Low price, perhaps, but the sound, at that time, was competitive at several times their price and even beyond. One of the Audiophile publications rated the Double Advent as one of the 5 best speakers available, regardless of size or price. At $500 a set in Walnut.

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Please permit me a few additional comments as an original owner of the larger advents which I bought new in 1975 (walnut). At the time I wanted only quality speakers and thought I'd have to go with the more expensive ARs or KLHs. But upon AB'ing everything I could get the sales people at several of the local Miami stereo stores to hook up, I decided on the Advent. Just couldn't believe the quality of sound even at very loud listening levels. I recall paying $230 for the pair and they still sit in my living room. I've only had to do the surrounds on the woofers once. Tweeters are original. At one time I had a second pair of Advents which I stacked and the sound was unparralleled. These were definitely not bargain speakers. They put many costing twice as much to shame. Thanks for the bandwidth. Long live the advents.

Ray K

Orlando, FL

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  • 1 month later...

Ray,

I bought my Advents around the same time. I still have all 4. Still stacked and wired in parallel. They still sound great. A friend of mine is a Klipsch fanatic and he was amazed when he heard the Advents.

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  • 6 months later...

"Your comparison is set too late in time. The Advent entered the market in '70 or '71 and was pitted against the AR 3a, 5, and 2aX & KLH 5, 6, & 17 line up at that time. The Advent was more than a match for these, and just about stopped sales of those models. At $125 for the veneer cabinet model, and the AR-3a at $225, it was no contest. The Advent sounded better, and was half the price."

The reply to this message is only twenty month's late, but better late than never. The statement above regarding the Advent being more than a match for the AR-3a, etc., is right off the Advent sales floor fresh from the early-1970s. It's totally untrue, and unfounded.

What is true is that the Advent sold for about one-half the list price of the AR-3a, was a superb value, and resembled the AR-3a in having a low 43-45 Hz. resonance. On the other hand, the Advent had a great deal more output in the midrange and treble, relative to bass, than the 3a, and this gave the illusion that it was superior in the midrange and treble. Nothing could be further from the truth. The AR-3a had much better midrange and treble dispersion, which resulted in smoother and fuller acoustic-power response. In the bass, the Advent woofer was no match for the AR-3a woofer once the volumn was cranked up, or if a lot of organ or bass-drum music was present. At high levels, the Advent had much higher harmonic distortion. At moderate levels, the two were similar. The Advent, being a two-way, had to cross the largish woofer well up in the midrange, and this created roughness in the response and poor off-axis response in the lower midrange. The Advent's otherwise excellent tweeter was taxed pretty heavily in the lower midrange as well. It had to be large enough to handle the midrange, yet still be small enough to have decent extension and dispersion -- a difficult task for any tweeter, no matter how good.

No doubt the Advent was a better value than the AR-3a, but it was not a better speaker.

--Tom Tyson

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  • 3 months later...

Hi, I just joined these CSP forum pages and really am impressed with how much Mark Spencer's site has grown! Anyway, I just want to say as an owner of many vintage era AR speakers and also a set of the original Large Advents and the smaller Advents, that I agree with Tom Tyson's remarks. The larger Advents do not blow away the AR-3a's nor the AR-5's when it comes to accurate smooth and natural sound reproduction. The Advent sound is very bright compared to the AR speakers and that is what I believe gave (and still gives) alot of people the impression during an A/B test that the speakers are better. The Advents are not bad at all and do sound good, if that is all I had to listen to. But I have the AR-3a's too and I always keep coming back to the AR-3a's for long term listening when the Advent starts screeching at me with their elevated peak somewhere in the upper midrange or lower treble region. Fatigues my ears on some music program material that is already rich in high freq energy. The AR's never, I repeat never fatigue my ears no matter what program material I play through them. That is one of the main characteristics of the older line (vintage) AR speakers that make them great speakers. To this day, I still use the AR-3a's as a benchmark and reference in comparing any new speaker and when designing and building my own (I do that for a hobby). Anyway I do like both speakers, but feel the AR sound is more accurate and pleasing. I also own Rectilinear III's and III Lowboys which many older folks may remember making a splash on the scene back in the late 1960's early 1970's, but that's another story... I can just tell you they (Rectilinears)don't sound as good as the AR's either.

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>Hi, I just joined these CSP forum pages and really am

>impressed with how much Mark Spencer's site has grown!

>Anyway, I just want to say as an owner of many vintage era

>AR speakers and also a set of the original Large Advents and

>the smaller Advents, that I agree with Tom Tyson's remarks.

>The larger Advents do not blow away the AR-3a's nor the

>AR-5's when it comes to accurate smooth and natural sound

>reproduction. The Advent sound is very bright compared to

>the AR speakers and that is what I believe gave (and still

>gives) alot of people the impression during an A/B test that

>the speakers are better. The Advents are not bad at all and

>do sound good, if that is all I had to listen to. But I

>have the AR-3a's too and I always keep coming back to the

>AR-3a's for long term listening when the Advent starts

>screeching at me with their elevated peak somewhere in the

>upper midrange or lower treble region. Fatigues my ears on

>some music program material that is already rich in high

>freq energy. The AR's never, I repeat never fatigue my ears

>no matter what program material I play through them. That

>is one of the main characteristics of the older line

>(vintage) AR speakers that make them great speakers. To

>this day, I still use the AR-3a's as a benchmark and

>reference in comparing any new speaker and when designing

>and building my own (I do that for a hobby). Anyway I do

>like both speakers, but feel the AR sound is more accurate

>and pleasing. I also own Rectilinear III's and III Lowboys

>which many older folks may remember making a splash on the

>scene back in the late 1960's early 1970's, but that's

>another story... I can just tell you they

>(Rectilinears)don't sound as good as the AR's either.

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You are the first person to mention a peak in the midrange of the Advent. I have two original Utility speakers and became aware of a definite prominence in the middle frequencies. This would show up on female vocalists, in particular. I made some rough measurements and found that the response is up about 6dB at 2800Hz, relative to the range from 5-12kHz. There are other response variations, but 2800Hz is the major peak. The speakers use the orange tweeter. I purchased an additional orange tweeter from a seller on ebay and found the same peak in the same frequency region. The width of the peak was less than an octave. I did not try to check the response too far off-axis, but it was still elevated so it is not an on-axis beaming phenomenon. I don't have any test reports from the time that the speaker was new, so I can't confirm if this is characteristic of this tweeter. It is possible that the tweeter's response has changed over the years. (The diaphragm may have stiffened.) Anybody have any info on this?

Bob

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You know, I had the same exact thoughts. I was wondering if it was the tweeter materials stiffening up through time that could have altered their original sound characteristics to give them that harsh bright sound. I too, have the original orange colored tweeters and I too had bought many Advent orange donut dome replacement tweeters from ebay to try out. No difference, same elevated peak in the upper midrange or lower highs region. I was thinking of modifying the crossovers or at least replacing the capacitors in the tweeter network but I subscribe to the school of thought to keep all my vintage gear as original as possible.

BTW, I also do suspect that the tweeters have not changed that drastically with age. I have some vintage KLH-5's and KLH-6's also designed by the late Henry L. Kloss and they too tend to have that bright region. I think it was Henry's ears, he liked that elevated midrange sound... God rest his sole, I have total respect and admiration for him as well as all the fore-fathers of the great old

AR-Inc. company. They are a very happy, enjoyable, pleasant part and memory of my life! But really I wonder if Henry Kloss had some hearing loss in those midrange to upper highs frequency ranges to produce so many models with that characteristic. Too bad Henry is no longer here to answer for himself... I did write to him or his company a few times not long ago (when he was still alive) but never got a reply. He was probably not feeling well and I never knew it until I read the news. I felt so sad that we lost another great presence and icon in this lifetime! I feel depressed that all of the other audio greats (of my time anyway) are getting old and will soon be gone also. Depressing thoughts but it is a fact of life and inevitable (for all of us). So I do feel bad saying that the Advents and KLH's did not (do not) sound as good as the AR's... but facts is facts. The older vintage AR's sound smooth with no discernable peaky irritating regions that fatigue my ears. For old speaker designed back then and still holding up to this day, that's talent, skill, dedication, engineering at it's best.

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>BTW, I also do suspect that the tweeters have not changed

>that drastically with age. I have some vintage KLH-5's and

>KLH-6's also designed by the late Henry L. Kloss and they

>too tend to have that bright region. I think it was Henry's

>ears, he liked that elevated midrange sound... God rest his

>sole, I have total respect and admiration for him as well as

>all the fore-fathers of the great old

>AR-Inc. company. They are a very happy, enjoyable, pleasant

>part and memory of my life! But really I wonder if Henry

>Kloss had some hearing loss in those midrange to upper highs

>frequency ranges to produce so many models with that

>characteristic. Too bad Henry is no longer here to answer

>for himself... I did write to him or his company a few times

>not long ago (when he was still alive) but never got a

>reply. He was probably not feeling well and I never knew it

>until I read the news. I felt so sad that we lost another

>great presence and icon in this lifetime! I feel depressed

>that all of the other audio greats (of my time anyway) are

>getting old and will soon be gone also. Depressing thoughts

>but it is a fact of life and inevitable (for all of us). So

>I do feel bad saying that the Advents and KLH's did not (do

>not) sound as good as the AR's... but facts is facts. The

>older vintage AR's sound smooth with no discernable peaky

>irritating regions that fatigue my ears. For old speaker

>designed back then and still holding up to this day, that's

>talent, skill, dedication, engineering at it's best.

Bill,

It's good to see your post here, and I think you are correct in your assessment! I'm also glad that you made your statements regarding the sound quality of Advents and KLHs vs. ARs. If you look at how Henry Kloss designed his KLH and Advent speakers, you can understand why they sound the way they do. He did not rely on anechoic chambers and exotic test equipment; he primarily made adjustments based on "voicing" the speakers subjectively, and this was in contrast to Acoustic Research's heavy reliance on objective-test measurements with anechoic chambers, distortion tests, off-axis testing, and so forth, mandated by researcher Edgar Villchur. Villchur felt that loudspeakers could be measured and quantified, just like microphones, amplifiers and other audio devices. He felt that there was no reason (perhaps other than a lack of skill or knowledge in acoustic measurements) that one could not objectively measure loudspeaker performance. Listening tests -- primarily live-vs.-recorded demonstrations -- would then validate the measurements. And the feeling was that if a speaker "measured well," it would also sound good. I think history has proven this, especially in the literally dozens of highly successful AR live-vs.-recorded concerts conducted through the years. Neither KLH nor Advent ever did a public live-vs.-recorded demonstration, and probably for good reason. Kloss' objectives were well-intentioned, of course, and he did design some remarkably fine and successful loudspeakers. In the end, however, the KLH and Advent loudspeakers probably were not as accurate as the AR counterparts. This is my opinion, of course, and some people might strongly disagree.

When Kloss left AR in 1958, he was determined to design his KLH speakers with AR's great low-bass capabilities; but at the same time, he wanted to capitalize on what he perceived as AR's weakness, the reticent midrange and treble. The "reticence" in AR speakers to which Kloss referred was in fact a form of "accuracy" and "smoothness," yet some listeners on a showroom floor might think that AR speakers were lacking in treble capability, when in fact the speakers were truly peak-free. If you put two speakers side-by-side, and one sounds bright and the other sounds reticent, the first impulse is to say the bright one is the better one. Only after you get it home do you begin to realize that accuracy does not mean brightness, and you often develop "listener fatigue." Bill correctly suggests this in his message, above. One of the reasons that audiophiles love AR speakers so much today is that they are simply very accurate reproducers. They add to and subtract from the original source less than most other speakers. They sound like real music. Yet some people think they are dull-sounding or "laid back," or whatever. Villchur used to say that if you went to a live concert, the sound (spectral balance) was always somewhat "dull" compared to reproduced sound by hifi equipment, and he was exactly right on this point. Villchur's goal was simple: to produce the most accurate loudspeaker design that he could within the current state-of-the-art, and within certain budget restraints. The AR-2 series, AR-4 and AR-4x, etc., did represent a compromise due to cost; the AR-3 represented no compromise, and was the best and most accurate loudspeaker AR knew how to build, without respect to cost. This later applied to the AR-3a, and later to other top-of-the-line AR speakers such as the AR-10Pi and AR-9, etc.

--Tom Tyson

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