Jump to content

The New Advent and ADC 303ax


ToastedAlmond

Recommended Posts

Tom,

You're like having a library on hand. Thanks for the amount of time you devote to this site.

The Advent I'm going after sounds like the mid to late 70's Advent you referenced. It indeed does have the "rounded" plastic grommet or strip, as opposed to a squared off one. The shop where they are located didn't have enough speaker cable attached to properly turn them 180 degrees, so all I saw was ...Advent Loudspeaker. Enough cable would've allowed me to see the placard in its entirety. I knew it wasn't The Smaller Advent Loudspeakler, as I picked up ONE of those in a thrift shop. Woofer trashed but tweet intact, bought it for $5 for the heck of it. Just WHAT they did with the other one is anybody's guess. I didn't realize Andy Pettit (Oops Kostados, hey my Papou, Greek for grandfather did the same thing. How he ever reduced Kraniotakis to Grand, I'll never figure out! Glad to see Andy "found" himself again.) had something to do with those. I was under the impression he served out his "apprenticeship" at AR. Now I have the hots to add those to my collection. Probably worth the $150 the gentleman is asking, it's a little game between us. I can't let him think he "won", so I'll bring him in some basket case electronics from my garage, and offer him those AND $100. He'll go, I know it!

The ADC 303ax is pretty nice. Unbelievable the way paper cones can hold up and sound after a couple and a half decades. To my ears, they may not have the mids and highs of the 2ax or the KLH 6, but the bottom is pretty robust. I think it exceeds the 6, and I don't have a pair of 2ax's for a good comparison. I WOULD appreciate any tech stuff you might be able to dig up. Don't kill yourself looking for it, and don't set any land speed records in the process either. At your leisure, please.

May I ask what part of the country you make your home in?

George Le Almonde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Tom,

You're like having a library on hand. Thanks for the amount of time you devote to this site."

It's my pleasure to share any pertinent information I have with this discussion group. I think that the historical interest that people express in these great old products and contributions is the driving force. I want to preserve the memory of those contributions where possible.

"The Advent I'm going after sounds like the mid to late 70's Advent you referenced..."

From what you've said, it would be The New Advent Loudspeaker, and in many ways I think it was an improvement over The Advent Loudspeaker. I don't know for sure, but I think it was possibly a better loudspeaker. For one thing, it had ferrofluid in the tweeter voice coil, and this would have enhanced its power-handling capability and damping. It's nevertheless very collectible, and a fine device.

"The ADC 303ax is pretty nice. Unbelievable the way paper cones can hold up and sound after a couple and a half decades. To my ears, they may not have the mids and highs of the 2ax or the KLH 6, but the bottom is pretty robust. I think it exceeds the 6, and I don't have a pair of 2ax's for a good comparison. I WOULD appreciate any tech stuff you might be able to dig up. Don't kill yourself looking for it, and don't set any land speed records in the process either. At your leisure, please...."

The ADC 303AX was a good two-way loudspeaker. It was tested in the May 1970 issue of CU that reviewed loudspeakers, and it was in the "Acceptible -- High Accuracy" and one of two check-rated speakers (the other was the Dynaco A25) to be a "Best Buy." That rating implied that it was on a par with the other check-rated speakers, such as the AR-2ax, KLH Model 6, and Scott S15 tested in that series, but its lower price warranted the "Best-Buy" status.

Specs on the speaker, according to my files, say that the speaker was an 8-ohm 2-way design. It's rated frequency response was 37Hz. to 20kHz. +/- 3dB in average listening room. The high-frequency driver was a 2-1/2" viscous impregnated cone with 1-1/2" dia. effective radiating surface; the low-frequency driver was a 10-inch viscous-coated cone with a high-compliance suspension and long voice coil. The crossover frequency was 1500Hz. There were mid-range and treble switches, and the cabinet (oiled walnut finish) was 23-3/4" x 13" x 11-3/4", and weighed 37 lbs.

That is the extent of my knowledge of the ADC 303AX.

--Tom Tyson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tom,

Sure we're interested in those classic speakers. Takes a lot of money today to find things comparable. It's also fun helping others find outstanding performance on the used speaker market, for what really amounts to little expenditure.

Thanks for all the info on the New Advents and the ADC 303ax. Those 303ax's are going to stay in Stephie's bedroom. KLH 17's look like they will be displaced as a result.

I've started to stock up on a few basket cases to use as leverage for the Advents. $100 and a few clunkers and I think I'm in there. The man can fix those clunkers and turn them into a lot more cash than the extra $50 that I refuse to give him. Like I said, it's a game between us.

North Carolina was what I figured. Am I "special"? No. I think I asked you the same question at the 40th birthday bash. You might recall giving me some pointers on cleaning up the mid & high switches on the back of my AR-5's. I wa so disgusted with them, I had mentioned to you that I was thinking of bypassing them and running the 5's wide open. Sure you remember! It was only oh...8 yrs ago. Lots of moustache, swarthy, vertically challenged type. That was me.

Toasted Almond

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I didn't realize Andy

>Pettit (Oops Kostados, hey my Papou, Greek for grandfather

>did the same thing. How he ever reduced Kraniotakis to

>Grand, I'll never figure out! Glad to see Andy "found"

>himself again.) had something to do with those. I was under

>the impression he served out his "apprenticeship" at AR.

Dear Toasted--

As the story goes, Andy's dad worked in the kitchen of a famous NY hotel as a busboy and helper. He was also "vertically challenged, and the kitchen staff, mostly French-speaking, called him Le Petite. That name stuck until 1994, when Andy had had enough and went back to his Greek roots, re-assuming his original family name of Kotsatos (not Kotsados).

Andy worked retail at a Harvard-square (Cambridge MA) hi-fi store in the early 60's that featured KLH. He then went to work at KLH as a product manager, where he met Henry Kloss. He went with Henry to Advent in the late 60's and helped Henry voice the original Advent and Smaller Advent. Andy was totally responsible for the design of the New Advent loudspeaker, which was a very nice product.

When Advent ran into financial trouble in the mid to late 70's (remember, Henry founded Advent as a vehicle to develop and market big-screen TVs; the speaker end of Advent was just supposed to supply the cash flow), it changed ownership, and things went downhill very fast. Andy and Advent's credit manager, Frank Reed, saw the handwriting on the wall, and they left Advent to start Boston Acoustics in 1979.

Their timing was perfect. Frank was a business genius who carefully guided a bunch of engineer/hobbyist store owners in the proper ways to merchandise and run their businesses profitably; Andy was the product designer, and came up with several great products in the classic Advent tradition. Very shortly after the company's founding, Moses Gabbay, a top AR engineer, joined BA. Today Andy is Chairman of the Board and Moses is CEO. Frank passed away in November 1996, but was actively involved right up until his death.

Andy never worked at AR. He has always considered them to be the "enemy," like a Red Sox-Yankees or Ali-Frazier rivalry. If you run into him at a CES show, a BAS meeting, or some other industry gathering, his passions and memories of the heated days of the 60's-70's speaker business are easily--and fascinatingly-- elicited.

Steve F.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

> Steve,

>

> Thanks. Great story. I myself, am not fond of the Yankees.

>Brooklyn rules.

>

> George

George,

A good friend of mine is a die-hard Dodgers fan, and took great pleasure in the Giants' World Series loss this year. I assume you did too.

I grew up and still live in New England, so I follow the Red Sox, but I'm actually a Tigers fan. Don't ask. It's too complicated. (It has to do with the Pratt and Whitney aircraft engine factory in East Hartford CT, a local kid made good in the majors, and other seemingly unrelated factors.)

To change the subject, have you ever heard the ADC 450? How did it compare to the AR's and Advents of that era? There were not many local ADC dealers in my area at that time.

Steve F.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>

>To change the subject, have you ever heard the ADC 450? How

>did it compare to the AR's and Advents of that era? There

>were not many local ADC dealers in my area at that time.

>

>Steve F.

Steve,

The ADC 450A was an up-scale speaker designed to compete with the AR-3a and Advent. It was a two-way (all ADC speakers were 2-way I believe), two-cubic-foot acoustic-suspension speaker with a 12-inch woofer and 3/4-inch dome tweeter. This smacks a little of the AR-1x. The claimed specs were 25 Hz. to 30 kHz., +/- 3 dB. Heaven knows how they arrived at that spec. The speaker was claimed to give clean response down to 25 Hz. with "fundamental resonance critically damped." I'm thinking that the speaker, 25" x 14" x 12-2/8," probably had a system resonance of 48-50 Hz., with a "Q" of .7 most likely. I looked at the anechoic woofer response, and it shows roll-off beginning at around 60 Hz. and the predictable 12-dB/octave downward slope hard at 50 Hz. It is about 17-dB down at 20 Hz., vs. about 12-13 dB for the AR-12-inch woofer system. ADC measured its speakers in the AR tradition of flush-mounting the speaker in the ground ("God's anechoic chamber," as Villchur used to call it), and this would give the 2-Pi-steradians measurement technique that is repeatable and highly predictable. Corner-mounting or floor-mounting the speaker would give strong output down in the low 30s or even upper 20s, taking room affects into account, and this may be where they got their response +/- 3 dB. The ADC 450A's shipping weight was 50 lbs., about the same as an AR-1W or AR-1x.

How did it compare? I really can't recall, although I saw a few of them through the years. I think they acquitted themselves fairly well, but likely suffered in the lower-midrange, upper-bass range due to the large woofer and tiny tweeter. Bass response closer to the big ARs than the large Advent. It never was a big success to my knowledge.

--Tom Tyson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steve,

I'm not familiar with the 450, and even if I was, I don't think I could add anything to what Tom offered. The only other ADC I was exposed to for awhile, was a tiny little brick type affair. Built like one at least. Deeper than they were tall, I guess they could've had a six inch woofer in them. Model 404 or 44 comes to mind. 1974-76 time frame. Great little boxes! Sounded just fine too.

Nice to meet a Sox fan. I could never figure out why more people don't find it remarkably easy to dislike the Yankees. I don't follow baseball anymore, but I STILL don't like the Yankees. If Jack the Ripper, and Charles Manson, and some other real bad guys fielded a team and were playing the Yankees, I would root for Jack the Ripper. Like riding a bike you know, you never forget.

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...