Frequency response. You feel the bass. Sparkling highs. Female voices sound excellent(midrange). Imaging is wonderful.

Cabinet density at high volume cannot handle the low frequency signal these speakers produce.

Smaller Advents are one of the best values in audio. Like their big brother, they produce excellent bass. Acoustic suspension speakers really get those lower fundimentals. The Smaller Advent, IMHO, beats the Large in the midrange area. Frequency response, dynamics, and imaging are excellent. I have been down the "hi-end" modern speaker road and the Smaller Advent beats all I have heard. They are truely musical. I have owned some great speakers and these are my favorite.

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JBL-century 100,Klipsch Kg4,Paradigm studio 20 v2, Dynaudio countour 1, Large Advent.

Tonal quality, detail.

At their price point, none.

Price is for the pair, purchased new in 1973. I've owned this pair of speakers for more than 30 years, and I love them now as much as I did the day I brought them home. Their sound is clean and balanced, with enough detail to sound realistic, but not so much as to sound articial. The speakers add some color in the mid range, but as a whole, their sound is right for a lot of different types of music. If you can find a working pair of these classics, I highly recommend them. They require a moderately powerful amp to drive them to room-filling sound levels. I've refoamed them myself twice, and there is no appreciable difference between the original and replacment foams. The key to the job is careful removal of the old foam, keeping the speaker coil in alignment while doing the job, and carefully gluing the new surround in place. Not including glue drying time, the job took about 20 minutes for each speaker.

Double (or Triple) Large Advents are the last word in speakers. choose your criteria...musicality, detail, imaging, soundstaging, emotion, analytic ability, dynamic contrast, articulation, depth, ambience, throughout the whole audible frequency range. the Advents do not cause listening fatigue at all, regardless of volume (within reason, of course) i lose track of time. they are affordable to purchase, easy to maintain. what more can you ask?

after having said all that, do you really think Advents have any? oh yeah, they don't have snob appeal cos they're within reach of every man's budget, and as well, they look crude compared to modern speakers. happy now?

long time reader, first time reviewer. i bought my first advent speaker by accident...i thought i won (on ebay for $30) an AR (acoustic research). turned out to be advent/2. it played badly at first, turned out the surrounds were almost completely gone. ordered a refoam kit from "simply speakers"...great guys. i was amazed at the performance of the refoamed speakers...clarity, naturalness, detail, imaging, power handling...and these were bookshelf speakers! did due diligence and decided to look for Large Advents. found a pair of decent looking, refoamed utility cabs in the local used market. they were every bit as good as expected. then i read about Double Advents. found two pairs on ebay, re-foamed and re-varnished by the seller. btw, thanks again george, your advents are working great. i've heard some pretty high performance speakers in the past (celestion, jbl L100, B&W, Infinity, Altec, AR, Cerwin vega) but none are better, for any reasonable amount of cash, than double advents for my type of music (jazz/pop). since discovering the amazing Large Advent, i have hoarded a total of 7 pairs with both utility and walnut cabs, with round and beveled front moulding, masonite and all-steel basket woofers, masonite and non-masonite orange tweeters. i must admit they don't all sound the same, but they all sound great and i love them all. i've even played as many as four pairs at one time. best cure for cabin fever. got carried away and bought 4 pairs of Advent/1 models as well. very similar, sonically, to the Large but i'll stick to the big ones. i also stocked up on several pairs of tweeters, crossovers and woofers, foam surrounds (got more than a dozen pairs stashed away). i figured more people will re-discover these wonderful speakers and prices of complete cabs and spare drivers will eventually rise, or worse, you may not find them anymore. remember the factory closed doors more than 20 years ago. i've refoamed 4 woofer pairs and they get neater everytime. i've tried different vintage amps like luxman, sansui, pioneer, marantz from 35 to 140 watts/channel and the Advents just work so well with all of them. i want to listen to my advents for a long time or until my ears don't work anymore, so to protect my speakers and amps and my ears, i fitted all my speaker cables with 1 ampere fast blow fuses. thank you Mr. Kloss. well done!

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cerwin vega at-15, jbl nd310II, infinity Qe, AR-25

Clean true Bass. No distortion at high volume. Handles High-watt receivers with no problems.

None

Paid $110 total for 2 pairs + $55 for the foam surround kits. $165 total for 4 Advents! I have a pair of New Advent's model 4002 and a pair of Large Advent's from 1974 hooked to the same receiver. I refoamed all four speakers myself for less than $55 total. These are the BEST sounding speakers PERIOD. These four together kick the crap out of the Technics 3-ways and KLH 4-way towers I also own. If anyone finds a pair of them with the Woofer surrounds blown; buy them anyway! Here is the site I bought my Foam Surround Kit from: www.simplyspeakers.com It only took me less than 90 minutes to refoam all four of my Advents. They sound great!

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KLH 300watt 4-ways Technics 150watt 3-ways

Clean heavy bass, beautiful crisp highs

Demand power

I have the Advent Utitlitys and they are a remarkable speaker. Tight and heavy bass and beautiful highs that give you the chills. They can take a beating and it would take a lot of power to blow them out. The grills are a blast into the past and refoaming these timeless classics is worth it despite which version you own. Its quite sad that Henry Kloss can't be here with us today to make other great audio revolutions. And for Henry Kloss I am proud to own the Advent Large speaker system. All in all this is a great speaker for any music fan or anyone really into their stereo. This is a must have as are Acoustic Research among many other great audio speakers.

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Avid speakers

Well balanced design, nice imaging, clean bass

vinyl finish - should have held out for wood

I've had mine since 1982 (bought used for $75.00/pair). Had to had the woofer surrounds replaced in 1995.

Nothing can touch these for the price (eBay has them for between $160 and $220) and probably not for a whole lot more.

They can seem to disappear when listened to, where you aren't listening to the speakers, you're listening to the music. You can actually "place" instruments from the music in the room. Well balanced, able to handle lots of power.

The only weakness I can think of is that they need room. Placing them near or against a wall or up against an entertainment center can cause the bass to become boomy.

The foam surround replacement did not degrade the sound of mine at all. Sell them before you think about replacing the speakers with a different brand/design or poking holes in the cabinets. They will NOT sound the same if modified and thats what they are known for...their sound!

If you can find a good pair, buy them and know that you have one of the best sounding speakers around and money left over in your pocket. You will upgrade your other components before you upgrade these.

Note: It seems to me that discussions/opinions about the merits of modifying these speaker would be better suited for posting elsewhere, like the news groups (rec.audio.opinion or rec.audio.tech).

Cabinet construction, neutral sound

Too directional, power-hungry

Bought my Advents new in '77... Was part of my first, and current, music system. Unfortunately I bought the utility cabinet version.. (D-Oh! What was I thinking?)

The cabinets and grilles are in near-perfect shape. The woofer surrounds eventually crumbled, but at that time (about 6 years ago), I didn't know they could be refoamed. I looked for more modern replacements, but the odd size (10" driver in a 12" frame) made that tough. Then there was the crossover issue, so, I took the safe route and just bought replacements direct from Jensen for about $50 apiece. Like someone else here mentioned, the frame of the original woofers is stamped steel, but I don't recall the Jensen replacements being any sturdier. I've seen better.

One thing I liked in '77 (and still do) is the sound quality for the buck spent. Back then, EPI's were brighter, JBL's had louder bass, and a few others had better dispersion and brighter mids than the Advent, but none in its' price-range had a better overall sound. I do think modern tweeters have MUCH better dispersion than the one's Advent used: I find in my listening room that the soundstage varies too much. But for the price I paid, I don't expect perfection. I'm interested in learning if other folks here place their Advents directly on the floor, or use stands.

If the bass is up to par, the Advents will remain in my future HT setup. Otherwise, they'll be retired for music-only use.

Ironic, I think, how well old quality analog gear sounds in today's digital world.

Other equipment in system:
Advent 300 receiver (FM tuner/preamp)
Hafler DH-220 amp
Technics SL-23 semi-auto turntable
JVC KD-65 cassette tape deck
Philips/Magnavox 210 CD-i player (audio & video CD's)

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None

ORIGINALLY: Low price, relatively small size, excellent bass

Weak midrange, very low efficiency

Wonder where audio buffs are getting their replacement foam surrounds. Anything without the same compliance as the original will change the low-frequency resonance, upon which the speaker cabinet design is based, and therefore will result in different performance than the original.

I got a couple of spare bass drivers from Jensen (who bought the original Advent line) a few years back when the old foam rotted; it would seem replacement of the whole driver is warranted when the foam rots.

Otherwise, my Advents are great, and for even better price/performance try hooking two up in parallel for each channel, and driving with a 100W/channel amplifier. (Make sure the amplifier can drive a low impedance: 4 ohms or less). It would be nice to be able to tune up the midrange, though.

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AR-2

neutrality

none

Overall,I find the Advents still leaves an impression of serving the music well in a wide variety listening rooms and just about any type of music rock,dance,orchestral,organ etc. It reproduces the full frequency range smoothly and linearly. I'm still indecisive which driver is the star here, for the woofer is capable of prodiguos sub bass, the tweeter disperses beautiful highs through-out the listening area. For a good test of the Advent design try the CD of Holst, The Planets with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony. I'm not going to mince words,but the Advents are classics. In my opinion,if these speakers were sold today they would easily cost two grand or more.If you can find any used, snap them up asap. And used them with the best equpment you can afford. You'll be one happy camper!
Equipment: Power Amps: Lazarus H1A Hybrid Power Amp. Onix Dual Mono Power Amp A2150 Preamps: Audio Reseaech SP-4, Superphon Revelation Dual Mono, Turntables: Thorens TD166 Super and a Mitsubishi LT5v Linear tracking turntable, Phono cartridges: Benz-Micro Silver,Ortofon XMC-3, ADC Astrion, and a Pickering XSV5000. CD player: JVC-XLZ1050TN, Sanyo Plus Series T55 Tuner, Record Doctor record cleaning machine, Advent SoundSpace Control with the Baby Advents in rear,SAE 5000 Impulse Noise Reduction, Aiwa ADF-850 cassette deck. Interconnects: Ixos 1004, LAT International IC100D, MIT Terminator2 three pairs ea. brand. Speaker Cable: Carol Command silver, and Phoenix Gold

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listened to many of today's designs

Wide range, natural (almost "invisible") sound

Physically large

I have been using stacked pairs of the "New Advent"
since around 1979 and have no intention of replacing
them. I have listened to recent (and very fine)
two-way speakers in the $500/pair range by Boston Acoustics and Cambridge, but these old Advents still hold
their own, and are even superior in some respects
(especially deep bass). I replaced the foam surrounds in 1996 and was delighted by the results.

These speakers were an upgrade from the original
"Large Advent". I would strongly recommend the
"New Advent", since it has a much better tweeter.

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Original "Large Advents"