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Post-Kloss Advents: what are the differences?


Stormy2021

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I noticed most of the discussion here centers around Advents that were sold when Henry Kloss worked at Advent. Then after that point, it's almost as if Advent ceased to exist for some members.

I heard my first set of Advents at a local audio store around 1982 and from that point on enjoyed their sound. My first pair of Advents were 1st generation Babys. But during college and subsequently afterwards I hit some lean years & I couldn't afford any of the larger models. Then when I finally could afford a larger set, Advent/International Jensen were bought out by Recoton and we all know what happened after *that* unfortunate acquisition. :^(

So my question basically is: what is it about Advent speakers made after Mr. Kloss left that bothers some people?

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Guest russwollman

One thing that is not widely known is that Henry used to visit the end of the assembly line for a couple of hours each day, and would, with his own hands, pat each speaker gently on the backside before it went into its shipping carton.

I have a pair of 5102Ws (built when Jensen owned Advent) that sound just like Advents to me. They have beautiful cabinets. The assembly shows care. And the woofer has a raised backplate for longer excursions, so someone was doing some engineering, hopefully for the better.

But try to sell a pair on eBay, for example, and you'll find out they have no cache as Advent loudspeakers.

Yours is a good question. Henry's mystique is large and well-deserved. I think the man had a ton of practical intelligence. He and Advent loudspeakers are probably more synonymous now than when they were in their heyday, so today's aficionado is likely to scorn the products which appeared on the market after the Big Sale.

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Thanks Russ for your thoughts.

I've always really admired Henry Kloss for what he accomplished but tried to keep an open mind with regard to Advent and what they accomplished even after his departure.

When Tivoli Audio came out with Model One table radio designed by him, I was so excited and bought one of them as soon as I could (the cherry/cobalt version). It is sitting 2 feet away in fact, playing a CD via a portable player. I wanted to buy a pair of the Model Six bookshelf speakers for the rear channels in my surround music rig, but CSW stopped making them before i could do that (my particular college degree is no longer viable......in this country at least :^( ).

This is a good 3 page(!) overview of what HK was about:

http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO-rgb...enry_kloss.html

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Hi there;

I bought a Tivoli One radio a few years ago because it was labeled, Henry Kloss, no other reason, just confidance in Henry.

A little trivia regarding his Video Beam 6' diagonal projection TV design.

Present technology for the projection screen was not adequate and so Kodack developed a special whiter brightness screen material.

His monitor for checking his prototype for image quality, etc, was a Heathkit television set, spoke well of that quality unit.

I had one opprtunity to see a unit operating in a pub lounge here, very impressive at that time, also $5 - 6000.00 CDN retail.

The projector console sat on the floor like a coffee table betweeen the viewers.

I also had one rare opportunity to do a service call at the local warehouse where there was dozens of Videobeams read to ship, this was when Electrohome was the distibutor here in Canada.

Because I knew about the Videobeam units, I sure smiled that day, I couldn't afford to buy one, just smile, like a Cheshire cat, I'm sure.

We on this site are very privileged to have a contributor who I believe will be our next, Henry, Mr Ken Kantor.

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Hi there;

I wanted to add this totally non-topic related tid-bit.

When Mr and Mrs DraftingMonkey, James and Linda, were having a recent dinner here, James was facing the old, Advent NovaBeam/Electrohome distribution warehouse, about two hundred yards in front of him.

Nothing exciting but it's only Wednesday.

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Guest russwollman

Somewhere I read that Henry even wrote the ad copy for the Advent Loudspeaker campaign.

The ads were wonderfully honest, low-key, and quite straightforward. When you read them, you feel that someone is speaking directly to you, not down to you, not pleading at you or blasting you with any of today's silly hype, just quietly laying out a few statements for your careful evaluation.

Such a down-to-earth approach reveals a rare intelligence and certain quality of respect.

He had an intuitive sense which led him to good, workable answers. Creativity was lively in his life.

Considering that there must somewhere out there be other people like Kloss, it's enormously strange who we tolerate and accept in the field of politics. But the less said about that, the better. ;-)

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