Avent/3

[Guest mjasilli]

I found a pair of Advent/3's in the basement of a buddy's house, and he gave them to me for the price of getting them out of his cluttered life. I would like to know the the general specs, and any suggestions people have for modifications. I am particularly interested in the impedances and frequency resonses of the mid-woofer and tweeter, so I can build a higher-quality crossover; and I am looking for the wattage rating. A schematic of the original crossover would be nice as well.

Also, it seems that the posts for connection to an amp are loose -- what can I do to solve the problem.

Also, there is some serious cosmetic damage to one of the units. It appears to have been dropped and the fiberboard that creates the overhang under which the grillclothe velcros is smashed in a little. The break does not appear go through to the inside of the box, but it's ugly. Any suggestions.

[dynaco_dan]

>I found a pair of Advent/3's in the basement of a buddy's

>house, and he gave them to me for the price of getting them

>out of his cluttered life. I would like to know the the

>general specs, and any suggestions people have for

>modifications. I am particularly interested in the impedances

>and frequency resonses of the mid-woofer and tweeter, so I can

>build a higher-quality crossover; and I am looking for the

>wattage rating. A schematic of the original crossover would

>be nice as well.

>

>Also, it seems that the posts for connection to an amp are

>loose -- what can I do to solve the problem.

>

>Also, there is some serious cosmetic damage to one of the

>units. It appears to have been dropped and the fiberboard

>that creates the overhang under which the grillclothe velcros

>is smashed in a little. The break does not appear go through

>to the inside of the box, but it's ugly. Any suggestions.

Hi there;

Ugly is my department.

First I am not familiar with the Advent/3 model.

If the enclosure has two round finger nuts, then remove the large nuts which are used to attach the speaker leads.

Below there should be maybe a 10-32 nut on each machine screw.

Use a nutdriver to gently tighten the nut.

Slightly put off axis pressure on the machine screw, to put some pressure on it until the threads start to tighten.

This is if you are using a nutdriver or open end wrench.

If this is tight now all is well.

There may be more feedback coming from others soon.

As far as changing the crossover to a higher quality, unless you are having dropouts, I would just leave everything stock.

If you can take a digital photo and post the damage here, we may be better able to help.

Re-foaming the woofers is probably an issue you will receive advice on if you do post a photo.

Good luck.

[Guest mjasilli]

Thanks for the advice. On the speaker posts. While I'm not totally sure that the speaker posts I have are what you are talking about, I was able to use your advice to figure out a way to tighten things up -- everything is fine now.

As for the crossovers, I have another question -- but it comes after a longish story. I was always under the impression that replacing them is a good way to improve speaker sound. I had a pair of Infinity Qa's (once again from a buddy's basement), and discovered that Infinity really made a crappy crossover for them. If you can even call what they did a crossover. The 10" woofer in them has an amazing response (up to 2500 htz), so the crossover frequency was supposed to be at or around 2500 htz. The value of the cap they put in made the "crossover" happen way down 2092 htz, which was much too low for the tweeter, and ultimately in my opinion after playing around with the crossover point, too low for the woofer-mid as well. I found that the response and imaging were fine way up at 2500 htz even though some warn that the "real" reposnse of a woofer or mid is often signifiacntly lower than what a manufacturer claims. Furthermore, the low frequency roll-off for the tweeter was not nearly high enough with the first-order style "crossover" used -- the highs suffered from lack of definition there was too much lower frequency happening where it shouldn't especially at average (I don't tend to listen to blaring music) listening level. Moreover, there was no low-pass in their "crossover" -- the midwoofer got the entire frequency range resulting in muddled response. And to finish things off, the cap that was used is a piece of junk, in terms of audio quality, not worth its weight in used tissues. Beyond the cross-over issues, the internal wiring was aweful: 36 gauge junk. Needless to say, I replaced all the wires with 16 gauge loveliness and put in my own crossovers, and the speakers really came to life. Not that they were bad before hand, in fact I quite liked them, but their new found soundstage, presence and depth were worth the effort and money.

So now I have a quetion: are Advents made with higher quality parts than the Infinity stuff I encountered, or is it going to be the same cheap imitations of audio components worth replacing?

[dynaco_dan]

>Thanks for the advice. On the speaker posts. While I'm not

>totally sure that the speaker posts I have are what you are

>talking about, I was able to use your advice to figure out a

>way to tighten things up -- everything is fine now.

>

>As for the crossovers, I have another question -- but it comes

>after a longish story. I was always under the impression that

>replacing them is a good way to improve speaker sound. I had

>a pair of Infinity Qa's (once again from a buddy's basement),

>and discovered that Infinity really made a crappy crossover

>for them. If you can even call what they did a crossover.

>The 10" woofer in them has an amazing response (up to 2500

>htz), so the crossover frequency was supposed to be at or

>around 2500 htz. The value of the cap they put in made the

>"crossover" happen way down 2092 htz, which was much too low

>for the tweeter, and ultimately in my opinion after playing

>around with the crossover point, too low for the woofer-mid as

>well. I found that the response and imaging were fine way up

>at 2500 htz even though some warn that the "real" reposnse of

>a woofer or mid is often signifiacntly lower than what a

>manufacturer claims. Furthermore, the low frequency roll-off

>for the tweeter was not nearly high enough with the

>first-order style "crossover" used -- the highs suffered from

>lack of definition there was too much lower frequency

>happening where it shouldn't especially at average (I don't

>tend to listen to blaring music) listening level. Moreover,

>there was no low-pass in their "crossover" -- the midwoofer

>got the entire frequency range resulting in muddled response.

>And to finish things off, the cap that was used is a piece of

>junk, in terms of audio quality, not worth its weight in used

>tissues. Beyond the cross-over issues, the internal wiring

>was aweful: 36 gauge junk. Needless to say, I replaced all

>the wires with 16 gauge loveliness and put in my own

>crossovers, and the speakers really came to life. Not that

>they were bad before hand, in fact I quite liked them, but

>their new found soundstage, presence and depth were worth the

>effort and money.

>

>So now I have a quetion: are Advents made with higher quality

>parts than the Infinity stuff I encountered, or is it going to

>be the same cheap imitations of audio components worth

>replacing?

Hi there;

Unfortunately everything is made to sell for as much as possible, and cost as little as possible to manufacture.

Because I am not familiar with your particular model, I can only pass on some of the advise I have read from others.

The coils should not be an issue, nor the tweeters.

The woofers usually require re-foaming every 10 - 20 years.

The capacitors are sometimes replaced with NP Solen or other higher quality caps.

You may read somewhere, that a 5uf - 250 volt Solen cap may sound better or worse than a 5uf - 600 volt Solen cap.

There probably is 5 - 10 brands or more to consider, but really, if yours are working just live with them.

There would be a sonic change, depending on which brand sounds best to you.

Some also change the wires to a high end oxy-free wire.

I am sure one could spend $25 - $50.00 per speaker and a few hours of pleasure in minor mods, after which they should sound better.

These are not high end speakers, sometimes a hobby can be used to change and improve their sound quality.