What happened to Advent? (the one designed by Henry Kloss :^)

Their "Large" model used to be highly sought after in the late 70's. Even in the early 80s they still sold pretty well. I'm pretty sure that Jensen bought them around then and they introduced their very first 3-way model, the semi-triangular "Maestro". I owned a pair of their "Baby" models for 14 years myself. I still see these walnut-veneered speakers in old record shops. And back in1994, Advent sold a limited-production, anniversary edition of the Large's (though with a modern dome tweeter) with numbered plates. They sold quickly even at @$550/pair--I know, because I worked at Best Buy at the time and sold a pair to a young twenty-ish couple! . How I wish I had the money at the time to buy ME a pair.

Here's pictures of the newer version:
http://fisherdoctor.com/nadvent.html

And the self-powered versions! (from around 1981 I think):
http://fisherdoctor.com/advents.html

[T]

 

Those look pretty The cabinets sure look sweet. I seem to recall seeing a couple of sets of these in the 80's but I had no knowledge of sound like I do now. Back in those days I wouldn't have known a good amp, nevermind speakers, if you had hit me with it.

 

I've got a pair of Kloss-designed 'Number Six' bookshelves from Cambridge Soundworks that are inspired by the classic Advents and they sound very nice. He was an excellent designer of sealed speakers.

 

I bought a pair of vintage Small Advents back in 1995...the bass from those little things is amazing. Not a primary speaker here at home now, but actually used for the small "home theater" system in our den. No need for subwoofage. The woofers were refoamed, and in fact, refoam kits for all those thousands of rotted-out Advents are readily available. Not like I have room, but I'm very tempted to troll eBay in a few months to get a pair of the Large Advents.

I did get rid of the Advent tweeters, though--they were way too muffled sounding. For all I know, they could have been abused and partly blown. The mylar dome tweeters I used are a very nice match, though.

I never heard that Cambridge #6 other than at Best Buy, and it sounded like crap. Just shows you that they had no clue at Best Buy how to sell speakers...lined up on shelves, forced to listen to the trashy music they used as demo material, through some cheap-a$$ed low-rent receiver.

I've taken a liking to "vintage" speakers, though. Not OLD vintage, but I have a few different Boston Acoustics pairs I like. Three A40 pairs (GREAT for remote locations), A60's on the computer with a 100wpc amp (YEAH, baby!!) and some A150's I'm repairing, which I bought for $36. They're all sealed systems, BTW. I'm also thinking about getting a pair of Polk Monitor 10's, the ones that had the two 7" drivers and the passive radiator, since those were *just* out of reach when I bought my first pair of Grafyx SP10's.

One modification I'm thinking of doing to those A150's is installing what were (or are) called VarioVents. It's not so much like turning it into a vented speaker as it is controlling resonance and reducing the impedance peak that's inherent in sealed speaker systems. These A150s have refoamed woofers, but the foam has a "roll" that is way too small. I think with the new woofers I'm getting, plus the variovents, it will really help free up the bass. Then if I could work on that slight upper midrange glare, they'd really sound nice. As it stands, they image VERY nicely...and like all of these early Boston speakers, they all owe a debt to Henry Kloss's original sealed designs.

 

My pair of Advent/2 speakers with the white plastic enclosures are still playing sweetly after about 25 years of hard use. Years ago I even took them on a camping trip hooking them up to a car stereo in an old Cadillac. They were left outside all night in a light rain but still played great.
A year ago, I thought I would have to say goodbye to them as the foam around one of the woofers had disintegrated.
I started to shop around for new inexpensive speakers remembering that I had paid $155 Canadian (although at the time the Canuck dollar was worth much more than now) but was dissuaded by my local stereo retailer. It cost about $100 to repair them but he said I couldn't get anywhere near their quality anywhere near their price range.

And I've always lusted after the large Advents but could never scrape the money together for them. I had read that they were back in a production run not long ago. So maybe I'll be able to finally get some!

John

 

Large Advents are plentiful on eBay; GOOD Large Advents on eBay are harder to find, but they do turn up. You're looking at immaculate cabinets, refoamed woofers, fully up and running. If the cabinets are good and the foams are shots, I'd buy a pair myself in a heartbeat. Shipping is a killer on these heavy old beasts. There are also different eras of Large Advents, depending on which woofer or tweeter was used. (Some woofers had a fiberboard ring within the frame--to get the excursion, they were using a 10" cone inside a 12" frame.)

I just see some that look like they've been dragged behind your old Cadillac for about 50 miles. But hey, if someone has used and enjoyed them for all these years, all the more power to 'em.

 

I use small Advents as my rear surround speakers. They sound very good for this purpose.
I've owned them for over 10 years now.

JohnG

 

I spent a summer many years ago working in a Tech Hi Fi store. We had double advents hooked up. They sounded wonderful, better than anything we had other than Ohm F's.

 

My brother has a set of the Advent Loudspeakers. Nice sound. Unfortunately, some of his students were at his house for a party and played them too loud. He says they only make a buzzing noise now. I told him not to throw them away: I will take them. I am sure that the can be repaired, somehow. The woofer may be gone, but the cabinets are still beautiful and I bet they would look good in my house

 

Occasionally some components get listed on eBay, or there may be some speaker repair shops that have refoamed original Advent woofers, ready to go. Advent used a couple of different woofer styles over the years, though, so you should keep the bad ones or at least have a year or serial # to work with.

Have to be careful, though--some speaker shops looking to make a fast buck will just try to sell you any type of speaker to fit the cabinet, which is totally wrong. And for that matter, there are plenty of clueless eBay sellers who may unknowingly have Advents that have the wrong woofers in them, or some who just blindly replaced the woofer with any piece of junk from a local Radio Shack. Advents need a specific high-excursion woofer to get that well-known bass. I have watched the Advent, Boston and Polk ads quite closely on eBay for some steals, and every now and then I'll see a photo of a speaker where it is obvious the woofer has been replaced with junk.

I wish Grafyx had stayed in business longer. Grafyx was one of those inexpensive speakers that got high ratings from the audio press--$ensible $ound gave it top marks. It was out around the same time as the original Polk series. For the money, I could only afford a Polk Monitor 7 or the Grafyx SP-10. I've had the SP-10s for almost 25 years now, I think, and they're still running strong. I've tried other speakers but keep coming back to these. Bought a 2nd pair (demos) from Absolute Sound in 1982, replaced the tweeters, and have either used the pairs in separate rooms or stacked.

They're similar to an Advent (2-way w/ 10" woofer--even the cabinets are similarly sized), but are vented. Just a hair bright at times, but the bass goes deep and is very clean, and has a smooth midrange. Even with 250WPC, I've never bottomed these cones out. They're capable of some serious wall rattling when both pairs are hooked up. In the past couple of years on eBay, I've only seen two pair listed. And one had some cheap replacement speakers in it.

I wish I'd purchased some spare tweeters, though--Philips quit selling speaker components. These came with AD0162-8 mylar-domed tweeters, and I'd wanted to try the AD0163-8, which was a fabric-dome but in the exact same housing.

I still want to get a nice pair of Large Advents, as well as a pair of Polk Monitor 10. Mainly to hear how they'd sound in my setup.

 

Just out of curiosity, has anybody heard that Maestro model? (this 3-way model caused some controversy among Advent fans because it WAS a three way speaker!). It's midrange looked like that orange "fried egg" tweeter in those Advent photos, but it was much bigger, about 6" across and was grey colored. These came out when I was at college in a small town and I never heard them. Actually, I did SEE them in person once (the cabinets are trapezoidal-shaped & quite nice looking) but were disconnected at the time.

[T]

 

Gary: Cash Converters must be a pawn shop?? $95 cdn for a pair of Large Advents? Hell, I'd take a four hour drive for that! Ummmm...well, with customs being so uptight, maybe not.

I keep hearing of good deals at pawn shops, but to me it seems like stepping into the low-rent district. Afraid I'll run into one of Charlie Parker's old saxes or something...

 

I don't know of any such used dealers around us. Sounds interesting, though. Odd choice of name if you think about it.

Unfortunately, any pawn shop I know of is in a seedy strip mall next to a liquor store or a motorcycle club. There is a chain of stores, though, that deals in used musical instruments. Tempted to take a couple of old horns over and trade 'em in for something else to noodle around on.

 

Last month while running around vinyl hunting, I came across a pair of large Advents at a garage sale. I asked the guy how much and he said I could have them at no charge because they were "blown". Well I took them home, ordered a pair of new surrounds for $23, and now have a sweet new pair to stack on top of my original pair I purchased back in the mid-seventies. Haven't found a better sounding speaker since in it's price range!

 

I know a few Advent owners who stack them up. I've done that occasionally with my own pairs.

Looks like I need to scout the thrift shops and garage sales...

 

Hey, I bought my system from Absolute Sound in 1979. I got the Polk Monitor 7s, which I still have. I still have the NAD amp and tuner as well as the Rega P2 Turntable that they told me to buy instead of the Polk 10s or 12s that I was considering. They talked me down on everything I bought except that turntable. I'm glad they did becakuse I enjoyed that system until last year when I took the amp and turntable to the computer room. My AV receiver doesn't have a TT input.

I have no idea what this has to do with Advent, though.

 

I really miss Absolute Sound. The speakers were the first thing I bought...the rest of my system was crap, but they figured I'd be back to upgrade. It was a tough call--the Polk 10's were just out of reach for my budget, and the 7's sounded nice, but didn't have quite the same depth that my speakers ended up having. I eventually got a Hafler preamp, Grado cartridge (F3E+, for which they had to grind part of my headshell away to mount it properly), the 2nd pair of speakers, Grace G707II tonearm, and a couple other accessories (like the Dennesen Soundtractor, a cartridge alignment protractor). I remember they started carrying Boston Acoustics and Onkyo a couple years later--I kept recommending everyone go there, and must have been responsible for at least four pairs of Boston speakers and at least two complete systems (with Dual turntables).

Can't remember my salesman's last name, but his first name was Jerry. He may have been manager for awhile, too. Used to make trips up Woodward on a Saturday. I remember stopping in one day and he was beside himself--they'd just gotten in the Martin-Logan CLS, and wanted me to hear it. I came *very* close to getting a pair!

I haven't been up Woodward in years, but I remember Almas took over their building. That ultra-tweaky place up in Birmingham also moved down Woodward a bit. Gramophone is still there, far as I know. The east side used to have an Absolute Sound, and when we still lived in Detroit, Pecar's was within walking distance of our house.

I've been out of the loop WAY too long.

Those Polk 7's and 10's fetch a nice price on eBay these days. I've been looking to find a pair of 10's, but they're usually pricey. I've been using Polk car speakers for years, though.

 

Jerry was Jerry Gunther.

A dozen of my friends went into that store. Eleven of them bought something. Six bought whole systems. You didn't say what brand of turntable you got, but if it came from Absolute Sound and didn't have its own arm, my guess would be that it was a Linn.

The tweaky place, Audio Dimensions, is still there.

The Almas Store is still where the Absolute Sound store used to be

There is another store where the Tech Hifi store was. I think it's called Video Alternatives.

My sister lives off 13 Mile & Woodward, so I get out there occasionally, but I don't bother with the stores much any more. I have the 'net now.

 

Jerry Gunther--that's it! Wonder where he's wound up?

Not much has changed in the corridor, then. No, I didn't get a TT from Absolute Sound--definitely wasn't on a Linn budget. I only got the tonearm because they had a very good sale price on it. There was a little local high-end mail order place I got a turntable from. The guy who sold it to me ended up losing money on it, since they sent a Linn tonearm board and I needed a Grace. The Shure V15V came from Lyle Cartridges.

There used to be a video store next door to Absolute Sound. I remember Monk working there, who used to work at the east-side Detroit Absolute Sound (a few blocks down from Pecar's), went to the Royal Oak store, then ended up working next door. Heard the place got busted and shut down because they were pirating videotapes.

 

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! While out on my Saturday morning jazz record hunt, I came across another set of large Advents at a garage sale. Same story; the guy said they were "blown" and that I could have them. Again, all they need are new surrounds. I acquired two sets of large Advents for free in the past month. What are the odds?

 

Hey Joe sounds like a serious case of deja vu! Are you sure they aren't the same set?