Old Large Advent Speakers?

Yeah I can't say enough about how nice the vintage pieces play together. Individually I've tried the Marantz and the Thorens 145 in my main rig and it just wasn't a good fit. But those two with the Advents is a whole different story. Lovely sound.

 

The link mentions Utility cabinets, but those are definitely New Large Advents in the beautiful walnut bullnose cabinets.



I picked up a pair last week. Unfortunately, the cabinets are pretty trashed. Not sure if I can save them, but I'm going to try. Of course, they also need recapped, refoamed and have mismatched tweeters. So, lots of sorting to do. One more project in my queue.

 

Back in college in 1973 we showed off our stereo systems as a badge of honor.

I had Dynaco A-35 speakers, which I still own, that played plenty loud and sounded great but there was a fellow student who ran 2 pairs of Advents that would just blow you out of his room and sounded fantastic. I am pretty sure hanging out in his room contributed to my now diminished hearing.

He was definately the stereo king of our dorm.

 

Sometimes I really remember the '70s.

 

Ah those are the Smaller Advents. I couldn't tell from the first picture. They may have just had a simpler bezel surround because they were a lower priced model. My brother had new Smaller Advents all over his house and they had great sound just like their brothers. Thanks for the reply.

 

Guys (and it was always guys, of course) with really good systems liked to put the speakers in their windows and see how far the sound projected. For a lot of those guys, it was more about volume than sound quality.

 

As the wise philospher Dave Peverret of Foghat once said while introducing the next song "If you can remember the 70's you weren't really there"

 

Yeah I did not know any women at my small college who were into stereos as that was a guy thing back in the early 70's.

We never had any "whose stereo would play the loudest" contests but we did play them loud. Must have had something to do with the intoxicants we were consuming while partying in smoky dorm rooms.

The popular affordable speakers of the day were Dynaco, KLH, and of course Advents which were extremely popular on campus. I remember I loved the sound of the Advents and would not hesitate to pick up a pair if properly reconed.

One student, an ex marine who was older than the rest of us, had JBL's which we all envied as they were expensive speakers back then.

Those were fun days just getting into stereo's

 

Freshman year of college, Friday afternoon after our last classes, we'd all return to the dorm and start to spin some tunes. It wasn't so much a war as it was leading the lambs to slaughter. We all knew who was going to "win" before it started. My little Marantz 1030 and Infinity Qbs were no match for the sophomore's Soundcraftsmen MA 5002 (250 WPC) and Elecctro Voice Interface D speakers across the hall. His speakers actually had a warning label on the back:



And he had these in a small college dorm room.

I still remember his favorite albums were Derringer Live (Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo) and Pat Travers - Live! Go for What You Know (Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)). Montrose (Bad Motor Scooter) and Ted Nugent (Stanglehold) were also part of his regular rotation.

 

I had a pair and they got me started on a life long hobby. If you are ready to put a little time and money into them you will have a great set of speakers.

Not the most revealing and somewhat dark by current standards, but a good all-rounder. Their faults are generally sins of omission which makes them easy to live with over the long haul.

Once they are set up right the sound is involving and will draw you in. The beautiful thing about those Advents is they let you enjoy the music instead of thinking about your gear. I didn’t realize how important that was when I owned a pair.

 

These are the same ones I found at GW a few years ago, 15% off on senior discount day made them less than $30 IIRC. The cabs had moderate wear but cleaned up pretty nice,refoam had already been done. They were plug and play and I still have them in my upstairs rig with a Pioneer-PL-540 turntable and Marantz 2252B receiver...vintage/retro bliss...all in for under $450.

 

I lucked out and got a full scholarship to college and my parents let me use some of the money I had saved for college for other equally "sound investments". At least I thought so. I had the killer stereo on my floor for several years. A Sherwood 7310 for the first two years then it was replaced with a Sansui 9090 110w receiver to get ready for my double Advents. I also had a Thorens TD160 with a Micro Acoustics 3002 MC cart, Teac 2300S 1/4" open reel recorder with a Teac AN-180 outboard Dolby Noise reduction unit, a Nakamichi BX-2 cassette deck, Phase Linear Auto Corrector noise reduction device and of course making it all sound great one or two pairs of Larger Advents. I had 800LP's, about 150 open real tapes of mixes I had made and 50 Cassettes recorded for use in the car. While I was working on my drafting table I often had 2-4 squatters on my bed sharing the tunes I was listening too. I was able to get my work done because they were more interested in listening to the music as opposed to talking to me. I was responsible for 4 friends get Advents. Two pairs of Larger Advents and 2 pairs of Smaller Advents.

I had a timer for my stereo and I remember falling asleep to the blue glow of the Sansui and the great sound of the Advents. I loved that system. It was the last thing to get packed when going home and the first thing to be setup up when I got home. The 12-14 hour ride to Detroit couldn't go fast enough for me.

My other recollection of this time was that you always knew who had some good pot and was using it, when you heard the In the Court of the Crimson King blasting out of someone's room.

 

Yet another thread about Advent Speakers......

LOVED mine. Stacked bi-amped New Large Advents. SS on the bottom, Tubes on top. Dynaco. (Worked at a Stereo Store for awhile and learned the trading game. )

Sigh. Very fond memories. Had them through my College years. I remember them well and probably wax poetic in my recollection, but nonetheless......

 

Just buy them! Refoam and recap, good to go. Did this with my double vents about 18 months ago that i have owned since 1978. Have always loved the vintage sound and have enjoyed with a pair of Marantz 240’s and a Marantz 3600 preamp. As previously mentioned, a single pair of large Vents has an actual rating of 6 ohms across the spectrum... thus doubles approach 3 ohms and actually < 2 ohms at certain frequencies therefor the tendency to frye tweeters back in the day. That’s why I have my stacked powered by separate power amps for each pair. Delightful! If you’re so inclined, you can alter the grill cloth to black for a different look.

 

The relatively low impedance of the OLA's was what got me into the Sansui 9090 receiver. I went to college with a Sherwood 7310 and some Radio Shack Optimus something-or -another speakers. The Sherwood ran slightly hot on those speakers, it was just the nature of that receiver. But when I got my first OLA's the Sherwood ran wicked hot. I started seeing reviews of the 9090 in Audio, High Fidelity and Stereo Review. They all liked the phono stage, the FM tuner and most importantly it could run 4 ohm loads without breaking a sweat. A couple of them tested it for short periods with 2 ohm loads and it could even do those. Since I knew double Advents was my next goal, I got the Sansui to future proof that upgrade. The Advents sounded great no matter what receiver I heard them through, but they always seemed to appreciate more power coming their way. Mine gave me 40 years of pleasure, in 2016 it was just time to move on but I miss them.

 

I have a pair of the OLAs. I enjoy them very much. The fried egg tweeter is a pretty neat HF driver that can deliver crystal clear high end. Woofer has been refoamed. I have the gen II cross-overs. The only mod I did to these was to fashion some banana connectors to the existing screw connectors for speaker wire connections.

 

I think IIRC I have about 5 different pair of NLA's of various iterations, in storage. LOL

While they are not bad speakers even by today's standards, 50 or so years on in speaker technology.
They just never did anything for me mid-range wise.
The bass however is legendary and really great! If you are 'bass-head' you'll love 'em.

If you're lucky you can sometimes pick up a pair or 2 for free these days, as they sold so so many, back in the '70s.

 

Do the later manufactured Larger Advents in the darker wood and darker grills sound different than the earlier models? This is the best photo I could find.

 

Listening right now to a pair of OLA's, un-recapped and with unsealed woofers (using a NLA woofer from an orphaned NLA speaker). Haven't heard the KLH Model 5's, but these OLA's reminds me of my pair of early edition (and un-recapped) KLH Model 6's I had last year, but with a bigger bass. Like the 6's, sound is a little dry, but nothing's been recapped and of course the woofers probably aren't air-tight. Bass still pretty much kicks butt, and hoping the recap makes for a warmer sound (will be my first recap attempt).

 

I have 2 pairs of large advents, one pr is walnut rounded cabs and one pr is square cornered vinyl cabs. Always loved that orange tweeter. I've always heard that double advents was the way to go and would blow you away. How would you configure them, side by side or sitting on top of each other? I'll hook them up to my Sansui 9090 and my harmon kardon ST- 7 table.

 

When I worked at Tech HiFi in the 70s we sold Advents. We set up our double Advents vertically with the tweeters together, that is, the top Advent was upside down in relation to the bottom one. We drove them with a Phase Linear 700B to splendid results.

 

Every dorm had one

 

I have two pairs of the bullnose Large Advents and always just set one on top of the other, I may have tried that at one time, do you feel they sound better tweeter to tweeter? I run mine with a Marantz 2385 which puts out 240 watts RMS @ 4 ohms, rocks the house, I really don't think they like all that power though so I'm careful. But 100 bucks for a pair is a bargain, I think I paid more than that for mine 20 years ago. they're not really hard to refoam either. I recommend a kit with strips to center the voice coil exactly, they're available on ebay.
Did the OP ever say whether he bought them or not?

 

You cannot lose for $100. Send mid-bass drivers out for a re-foam.

 

If they need refoaming, I can highly recommend this guy. I wasn't comfortable trying to do them myself (original large Advents), and he did an excellent job for a reasonable price.

Nashville Speaker Repair LLC. by geoaliwil