AR vs. Advent

[shacky]

For pure opinion:

I love my AR 2AX (old version), 3a's, and 5's.

I had a pair of OLA for short time before the AR's and thought they were nice. Later recapped two cherry pair of NLA and didn't care for them. Too bright for me.

Look forward to your opinion should you decide to get them. :yes:

 

[johnda]

I had the Original walnut Deluxe Advents, there was something in the high end that I didn't care for, the bass was excellent. I felt the AR3a was the speaker I wanted to have, but alas it never happened.

 

[tubed]

My AR 2ax's got the nod:yes: ahead of a lovely and very competent pair of NLA's and still are in residence

 

[rich121]

Generally speaking, in my experience I've found that when comparing Advents to Acoustic Research, the Advents were: more lively (brighter with punchier bass); required less power for the same volume level; and many ARs have 4 ohm (or lower!) impedance ratings which can be an issue for less-powerful amps. Yes the Smaller Advent is rated at 4 ohms - actually the only Advent I personally know of with that rating - but I don't see nearly as many complaints about amp issues with the S.A. than I do with the ARs w/lower impedance ratings (there is more to an impedance rating than just 8,6,4 etc. so some low-impedance speakers are much easier to drive than others).

When Stereophile tested that pair of Smaller Advents, the same pair with the sloppily repaired woofer (the pics show this clearly), unless my memory is really screwed up there was no mention of the crossover being recapped...and seeing that woofer makes me believe it wasn't .....so the tweeters' output may have not been what it should have been.

Btw that tweeter design, in other words, the donut shape, has been making a bit of a comeback lately (it was also used in the first 3-way Advent, the 6003, in the form of a 5" ferrofluid cooled polypropylene midrange driver). Pioneer for example is using it in some of their better automotive speakers and more and more tweeters are using a "mild" form of it like this new Vifa 1" dome design. And not while not exactly a donut , ring radiator tweeters seem to share some attributes of it, like these.

Looking at the pictures in the May 2010 Stereophile Advent article, you can also see that these are the second series of large Advents (A4's) and that Art Dudley wrongly repaired the Advent woofers with the new surrounds for the Original Advents (12" cage + Insert, instead of 10" cage) with the rolled edge on the inside of the cabinet instead of the outside.
I'm quite sure this had an effect on the sound of the speakers.

Rick

 

[trluser]

Great to read there is still interest in Advents and Kloss designs. He was a true under-rated genius. Look at all his inventions; first Acoustic Suspension Speakers, first Dolby Tape (KLH) & cassette (Advent) decks, first HiFi Desktop radio (before Bose), first Projection TV (Advent), etc.

I had the original Large Advents which I gave to my brother. Still have a pair of Small Advents and Advents/3 that I was using in my surround media. Just recently replaced them with Cambridge T300 (rumored to be his last designs) that brought back Powered Subwoofers. I could not afford the original Powered Advents when they first came out and never found a pair later. They were incredible sounding if I recall.

I still have the original Advent cassette recorder and have been trying to find the Advent Receiver. They were all true American Classics.

 

[rich121]

I have 2 pairs of large advents...a pair of the A-4's with the nicer wood, and a pair of the U-4's with the vinyl cabinets.
I'm thinking about re-foaming the surrounds and re-building the x-overs.

Rick

 

[Nat]

Not to carp, but it was Ed Vilcher who invented the acoustic suspension speaker (unless you think Olson had formulated it earlier), Kloss was brought in because he was already building enclosures on an a production scale when he became one of Vilchur's students. He turned out to be a very quick study and became a partner in AR. Vilcher and Kloss had different ideas of where the company should go, so Kloss left and helped found KLH. There he came across Ray Dolby's work and applied it to RtR tape recorders, but at that point Singer bought the company and Kloss went off to found Advent, with the idea of producing a large screen TV, funding the R&D with a popular loudspeaker. He also applied Dolby to the cassette deck, but the first attempt was with a mechanism build by Nakamichi, which, in the rare moment of it working sounded great, but almost all of them failed fairly quickly. The American Wollensak mechanism was the second attempt.
I believe the powered Advent was an Andy Petite (now back to the original greek name which I forget), now of Boston Acoustics, design, and the Advent Reciever was a Tomlinson Holman design. Certainly Kloss was the source of the design philosophy, but he wasn't omnipotent.

 

[trluser]

Thanks for the clarification

Regarding design philosophy, I did own a pair of AR-LSTs for awhile. Despite impressive freq. range when driven with Phase Linear, I never cared for the imaging. The only other speakers from Advents that lasted across the years with me has been Maggies which are still my main audio speakers. If my history is correct, KLH also introduced the KLH-9 electrostatic speakers that were dipolar panels. I never had the pleasure of hearing them, tho' their reputation was stellar.

Regarding Ed vs Henry; when the student excels beyond the master, recognize the new master.

Cheers!

 

[tiga]

[Henry had a secret.... :tongue: ]

Care to share?

 

[Nat]

I don't think that Kloss would claim that he excelled compared to Vilchur -- they had different interests and visions, which lead to different paths. Both clearly listened carefully and were skilled at bringing ideas to practical fruition, and both were enlightened employers (Kloss to the point where his generous benefits (and the large screen TV's problems) lead to him loosing control of Advent to the bean counters). But Ed Vilchur got interested in hearing and started working on hearing aids, whereas Henry Kloss was really interested in something like home theater, and so went after the projection TV, the speakers simply being a cash cow to fund it.
Incidentally, Advent, with its on site day care and various other employee benefits had amazingly low absentee rates, and surprisingly high quality production. But the guys who took over got rid of that stuff and ran the company into the ground. Obviously they were right and Kloss was wrong...

 

[Zilch]

Care to share?

Did already. Measured the bass response of Advent and AR3a; it's in my KLH 6 thread, comparison of a selection of vintage acoustic speakers.

1970, L100, underdamped alignments, what Carl said. Foam damping gave large Advent the requisite "boom."

[That's my thesis.... :yes: ]

 

[tiga]

Did already. Measured the bass response of Advent and AR3a; it's in my KLH 6 thread, comparison of a selection of vintage acoustic speakers.

1970, L100, underdamped alignments, what Carl said. Foam damping gave large Advent the requisite "boom."

[That's my thesis.... :yes: ]

I'll check out that thread. Very interesting thank you.

 

[ymarko]

What is the link to this thread?

 

[Zilch]

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=247274

 

[trluser]

Thanks for the info. about Advent as a company. I was a teenager when Kloss was running Advent. I really enjoyed their no-nonsense Ads and design/market objectives of their products. Could not afford much then but later tried to pick up what I missed.

Glad to hear their philosophy mirrored the original HP way which also went by the way of bean counters. Sad to say that is a lost cause now. Corporations that cared about their customers and employees are losing to the fund/stock managers who want CEOs that only care about Quarterly profits at any long term cost.

Look at Mark Hurd, Carly Fionna is my neck of woods in CA. In running HP, both have use head-count reduction in the US and boosted the stock and their own personal bonuses.

 

[Nat]

Your comment about ads reminds me that both Vilchur and Kloss presided over first rate ad campaigns. The AR ads were educational and very appealling looking in classical way. The KLH ads were quirkier and often very funny. Both had consistent looks and approaches, so they were identifiable at first glance.

 

[Nat]

Zilch: have you tried measuring any of these speakers at a greater distance? It seems to me that your results look bumpier than any others I have seen, but the other response graphs are made at greater distances or in anechoic or quasi anechoic conditions (Warfedale used a cherry picker to hoist the speaker high in the air, and AR buried the speaker face up in the ground).
I think your results are informative, but they are referenced to a standard speaker at a close distance, so what the results mean need to be understood as near field response, which isn't a common mode of use, and are compared to a speaker that not everyone remembers well.
I don't mean this as Monday morning quaterbacking, but as a question about how you interpret your results in actual use.

 

[rromeo]

Thread revival... I have owned OLA, NLA, The Smaller Advent, KLH 6, KLH 17 and now most recently AR3A's. All I can say is that the AR3A is in a different league. I am a big fan of Advents and KLH but the AR's are something special for sure..

 

[ra.ra]

..the AR3A is in a different league...

Agreed. All excellent speakers you've mentioned, IMO, but the AR-3a stands out (and had highest original price) for several reasons - - three-way speaker, dome midrange and tweeter, nicer cabinet and grille/badge, 12-inch woofer, more elaborate crossover.