Advent/1 vs Advent 1, not just symantecs...

I'm used to RS Mach One speakers, 4024, 4024a, 4029, but this Advent thing has me baffled somewhat. With the Mach One the model number change had corresponding, and in the case of the 4029, notable driver/network changes.

I own a pair of the Advent/1 speakers, which after cleaning and refoaming turned out to be nice speakers. Mine have vinyl finish.

I came upon a pair of Advent 1 (no slash) and while the drivers appear to be the same the cabinets are nice walnut and nicer looking grills. Appear same size.

What exactly were the differences? Where there any discernible sonic differences? I haven't picked them up yet, have a bid in on them.

At least with speakers like L100 you had changes in the model number that distinguished changes or notable revisions. I'm wondering if, with the Advents, the changes were primarily cosmetic?

They be mine!

Got the call this afternoon, had the "high offer". Got them for $40. Have the nice real wood finish. One has minor scuffing on one side, the other a little more serious but pretty sure correctable. All remaining sides are gorgeous, including bottoms.

More images

Doing from phone for the first time.

Correction they be Advent/1 also...

Honestly thought they were "Advent 1". However, they are real wood which begs the question "why would the same model be available in wood or vinyl?"

Uploading one last image, for now.

Can't wait to get foams in and fix these up. I'll have to pull the drivers to see if there is any difference with my vinyl pair. Just happy to get these.

I have the Advent/1s in my garage gathering dust since I have way too many speakers.
My grilles are different...they are recessed. Maybe you have a later edition but your drivers are original and are the same exact drivers for the NLA. Mine say Advent/1.

Does yours say Jensen anywhere?
curious


I know you love Radio Shack I have this big ass Optima STS-1500 that needs an orphan lol



sorry I guess you know about the Advent/1 already since you had a pair.

Advent reference thread:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126376

Maybe someone veneered them? From your pictures it looks like one corner on the front has a butt joint, others are mitered? That would be a owner veneer job. They look nice.

Not a butt joint. Been a working with wood for over 40 years. It's either a scratch or blemish (just did a quick look). All corners are perfect miters. The veneer does not appear, at all, to be added after the fact. Given the clean "upscale" design of the grill it wouldn't surprise me if this "later" model had real wood.

That link is pretty cool. I'll have to check it out tomorrow, too late now.

As for the "other" Advent/1 speakers I still have them. Doubt I'll keep them now that I have these beauties. Can't wait to fix them up. Wish My AR3a speakers were in as nice a condition. Geez, just realized I have multiple Advents, multiple AR3a, a pair of KLH Six and a pair of Allison speakers. Talk about lineage eh?

I too have the vinyl version of these speakers...refoamed and recapped. By far my favorite set. I have 5 sets of speakers wired to my stereo ( using a speaker selector box ) , whenever i give somebody a 'tour' they always choose the Advents.

I recommend you take the best components and put them all in the veneered cabinet...why wait ? Get those puppies up and running. They look great.

I had a pair of OLA's back in the day...mismatched cabinets. Not knowing any better, i threw them away in the late 80's after the foam wore out.
I just found a pair in vinyl cabs last week...need foam , rough cabs, 1 working tweeter. I'm gonna keep collecting them till i can make 1 good set.

Enjoy...

BillyTheKid said:

I too have the vinyl version of these speakers...refoamed and recapped. By far my favorite set. I have 5 sets of speakers wired to my stereo ( using a speaker selector box ) , whenever i give somebody a 'tour' they always choose the Advents.

I recommend you take the best components and put them all in the veneered cabinet...why wait ? Get those puppies up and running. They look great.

I had a pair of OLA's back in the day...mismatched cabinets. Not knowing any better, i threw them away in the late 80's after the foam wore out.
I just found a pair in vinyl cabs last week...need foam , rough cabs, 1 working tweeter. I'm gonna keep collecting them till i can make 1 good set.

Enjoy...

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Thankfully my first set cleaned up nice. Work perfectly. The newer ones work, but of course need foam. I can't hang onto all these speakers so I'll keep the nice wood veneer ones. They look beautiful. I'm sure they'll sound great after fixing up. All my favorite speakers are acoustic suspension.

Copa1934 said:

Not a butt joint. Been a working with wood for over 40 years. It's either a scratch or blemish (just did a quick look). All corners are perfect miters. The veneer does not appear, at all, to be added after the fact. Given the clean "upscale" design of the grill it wouldn't surprise me if this "later" model had real wood.

That link is pretty cool. I'll have to check it out tomorrow, too late now.

As for the "other" Advent/1 speakers I still have them. Doubt I'll keep them now that I have these beauties. Can't wait to fix them up. Wish My AR3a speakers were in as nice a condition. Geez, just realized I have multiple Advents, multiple AR3a, a pair of KLH Six and a pair of Allison speakers. Talk about lineage eh?

Click to expand...

I'm sort of with you along the same lineage lines, though no Advents, yet
Wood veneer vs. Vinyl in my head was a cost cutting measure. My KLH Six's from 1963 are wood, the 1972 version, vinyl.

Nice line up you have Copa!

GD70 said:

I'm sort of with you along the same lineage lines, though no Advents, yet
Wood veneer vs. Vinyl in my head was a cost cutting measure. My KLH Six's from 1963 are wood, the 1972 version, vinyl.

Nice line up you have Copa!

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Thanks. My Six's are wood. One has a large stain which I'm working on with "Bar Keeps Friend", which I have to say is working well. Nice thing is no elbow grease.

Question, who else followed in Vulcher's footsteps? I could swear there were others.

Copa1934 said:

I'm used to RS Mach One speakers, 4024, 4024a, 4029, but this Advent thing has me baffled somewhat. With the Mach One the model number change had corresponding, and in the case of the 4029, notable driver/network changes.

I own a pair of the Advent/1 speakers, which after cleaning and refoaming turned out to be nice speakers. Mine have vinyl finish.

I came upon a pair of Advent 1 (no slash) and while the drivers appear to be the same the cabinets are nice walnut and nicer looking grills. Appear same size.

What exactly were the differences? Where there any discernible sonic differences? I haven't picked them up yet, have a bid in on them.

At least with speakers like L100 you had changes in the model number that distinguished changes or notable revisions. I'm wondering if, with the Advents, the changes were primarily cosmetic?

Click to expand...

OK, I've been collecting T/S info for the drivers and "systems". When complete I'll post detailed comparisons of the variations of the speakers. One issue I'm having is dating. Some of the drivers dates are barely visible. Serial numbers, of course, aren't an issue.

This weekend I'll be doing a sound check, or A/B if you will. The early versions I've tested all the drivers and they all check out fine. I was shocked, to say the least, at the Fs of the woofers. Came in at 20hz! Plugging the T/S info into a cabinet calc. and they call for larger cabinets, even larger than the Large Advent cabs.

Copa, have you tried stacking your two pair of 1s?

Also, your finding that the cabinet calcs call for a larger cabinet than even the full size models is why Advent put the fiberglass (and later, foam) stuffing in them. It makes the woofer "think" it's in a larger cabinet.

Based on the low frequencies available from Advents, I would say their idea works.

They also modified the woofer in the original Smaller Advent to preserve the lowest octave, at the cost of efficiency, by adding mass to the cone (the "spitball" dust cap).

The later Advent/1 just used the same drivers as the New Advent full size model and thus, sacrificed a bit of the lowest frequencies but they still sound really good.

Doug

Doug G. said:

Copa, have you tried stacking your two pair of 1s?

Also, your finding that the cabinet calcs call for a larger cabinet than even the full size models is why Advent put the fiberglass (and later, foam) stuffing in them. It makes the woofer "think" it's in a larger cabinet.

Based on the low frequencies available from Advents, I would say their idea works.

They also modified the woofer in the original Smaller Advent to preserve the lowest octave, at the cost of efficiency, by adding mass to the cone (the "spitball" dust cap).

The later Advent/1 just used the same drivers as the New Advent full size model and thus, sacrificed a bit of the lowest frequencies but they still sound really good.

Doug

Click to expand...

Got them home, but haven't hooked them up yet. I'm going to put together some wires with round lugs for easier hookup and better contact.

There has been quite the discussion over "stuffing" on many threads and it would seem that foam would be the best method for accomplishing the task. By what I've read of these many posts it would seem that the smaller the volume you have to work with, the "denser" the insulation needs to be for best results. I'm sure there comes a tradeoff when foam may be overkill and fiberglass (or polyfill) would suffice.

I can't wait to test them, though given space limitations and all I'll likely sell off the vinyl versions. They were my first Advent. Purchased at a yard sale, stuffed in the rafters of a barn. There are images in my profile, before and after. These later models were stuffed in a "wall unit", up around 6'. Totally out of harms way, and if it hadn't been for nail heads in the "pocket" they would have been 10/10 for looks. The damage isn't terrible. I should be able to clean them up. They are otherwise beautiful. I love the styling and the grill.

They certainly are attractive speakers. It's almost as if Advent made them kind of match the New Advents with the rounded grille corners. They just didn't put the "bull nose" trim on them.

Doug

Doug G. said:

They certainly are attractive speakers. It's almost as if Advent made them kind of match the New Advents with the rounded grille corners. They just didn't put the "bull nose" trim on them.

Doug

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I think the biggest thrill, besides the listening of course, is when you find a "vintage" model that has been well kept. I have a set of JBL L88 Nova speakers that were well kept. They look so much better than the advertisements and brochures I've seen. Going off those brochures I'd never own a pair. But having them, they look so much nicer.

Most all my other speakers show the typical signs of age, wear and tear, etc. So It's nice to have a couple pairs of "new" looking vintage speakers.

First listening session in.

First and foremost the tweeter must be ear leve or pointed at your ears by way of tilting back the speakers. Imaging when placed at the correct height is impressive. I started with the older vinyl pair inverted and atop my HPM-100 and slightly toed in. No other adjustments were made or warranted for that matter. Instrument or vocals that appeared off-center likely were meant to be, otherwise most vocals and some instruments were clearly centered. The fact that little effort was made to get such nice imaging, to me, says a lot. Was it all good, well no. In spite of amazing T/S specs, particularly bottom end, I'm afraid the smallish cabinet ultimately "physically" restricted the bottom end. Don't get me wrong, and certainly don't be fooled. Bottom end is present, and with some bass attenuation or Loudness kicked in brings them solidly into play with other speakers. Moving them to the floor finished the imaging and mildly helped the bottom end. It seemed to me the bottom end was more present without attenuation. Switching to the later Wood finished speakers gained me a little stronger mid bass and bass. Not a lot, but it was evident.

I only listened to on cd so far Inxs "Kick". Switching to my HPM-60 speakers there was a notable improvement in bottom end. Not exactly a fair comparison, given the latter are slightly larger and ported. With the 60's on the ground imaging was not as solid as the Advents.

I'll have to try some other sources, maybe some LPs.

Additional images

Optical illusion as the later model appear to be larger. Strictly speaking the vinyl are actually a hair large, like maybe 1/32".

Having owned NLAs and currently having the Advent 1s in the garage I have come to the conclusion that to ME (subjective) they are good speakers but I do not think they are as good as some others. I think the KLH Model Six is better, and I have heard an orphan KLH Model Five....the Five has a much better low end than the Advent/1

In fact the Five really reminds me of a West Coast speaker...sort of sounded like my RSL 3600s, which supposedly is a clone of the JBL100.


Now is the Advent/1 just a newer version of the Smaller Advent ? Who has a heard both? Which is better? Just in case I come upon the Smaller Advent.

Based on the link posted earlier the Advent/1 replaced the Small Advent. But the latter is actually a bigger speaker. Advertised specs are better as well, and likely correct.

I certainly own better, or more rounded speakers, but that certainly doesn't make these bad speakers. I have roughly $60 total invested in both pairs.

If I keep the latter, it will be more to do with nostalgia than performance. For anyone who doesn't put a whole lot of faith bass response, these are really nice imaging speakers. They produce vocals really well, have a very nice midrange and high end in general. With a sub I think many people would be quite pleased.

Started to check out Elton John "Funeral for a Friend" but got interrupted. Doing BBQ tonight. Nice to have good weather again.