I Lucked Into Some Very Early Ones

[Doug G.]

I posted this in a thread on Audio Karma too but it just didn't seem right not having it on THE Advent site.

I came upon these looking for speakers for a bedroom/trainroom system.

They were listed in Craigslist here and the asking price was two hundred bucks.

The woofers were obviously not original (they had translucent plastic cones) and so I sent an email offering 50 dollars because of the woofers. He countered with 75 bucks and I said 60 - deal.

It turns out the woofers are basically original. He just had them reconed a while back. The baskets are the original ones but whoever reconed them removed the masonite rings and installed 12" plastic cones.

Serial numbers are 7282 and 7907 without any prefix! I don't know the significance of that.

Woofers are both dated Jun 22 1970. The tweeter in the 7282 is dated Jul 2 1970 and the one in 7907 is dated Aug 3 1970. The tweeters are, indeed, the grilleless ones and the terminal plate is chrome instead of the later masonite.

Some interesting things I noticed:

The crossovers are a lot different than the later ones mounted on the masonite terminal boards as far as layout. Everything is mounted on a small board except for the large woofer inductor which is mounted on the back of the speaker. The two smaller inductors appear to be wound on a rod instead of being the small button types of later Advents. The two 16uF caps are the black ones with red ends. They all measured OK.

The gray trim pieces are painted wood and now I'm not so sure the ones in my 1975 walnuts aren't either. I thought they were plastic. I don't want to try to scrape any paint off to find out.

For now, I put a pair of New Advent woofers in them and they sound fabulous!

The cabinets need work but for now, I just rubbed some tung oil varnish on the tops and they look pretty good. No gouges or chips. Just normal finish deterioration from being owned for 40 years.

Which reminds me, the gentleman who sold them to me said his parents were married in 1970 and bought these speakers then. He was born in 1971 (the year I graduated!) and he eventually got these speakers from his parents.

He was a very nice guy and said music is his world. I said that makes two of us.

Doug

[Pete B]

Hi Doug,

Is the back of the woofer back plate flat or is something pressed into it?

Does the woofer frame have ridges as I showed some time back for early woofers?

[Doug G.]

Hi Pete,

The woofer back plate is flat except for the little rise on which the magnet is mounted.

These woofers just have the ridges on the angled parts of the frame and they don't carry up into the backplate. So, the other type must have just been some Advent found at some point in time but not necessarily at the start of production.

These look just like the later original Advent woofers.

Doug

[Doug G.]

Pete, I just realized that you probably meant the back of the magnet in your first question.

The back of the magnet is flat and doesn't have the round piece that looks like it's pressed in.

Doug

[Pete B]

Pete, I just realized that you probably meant the back of the magnet in your first question.

The back of the magnet is flat and doesn't have the round piece that looks like it's pressed in.

Doug

Hi Doug,

The pressed in pole piece might have just been the

earliest run or perhaps a prototype run - I'm not

sure but it is an interesting difference.

Here's a picture of the difference in the ribs:

http://baselaudiolab.com/ADVENT_ODD_WFR.jpg