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All Advent questions answered


Guest gkentsmith

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A reply from the wretched, cursed depths of aitch-e-double toothpicks.

I have used the same brochure as a guide to differentiate between the original Advent and the Smaller also. I have never seen one that stated that the tweeters were identical. Interesting.

It does kind of follow, however, some discussions that have occured about later Smallers having large magnet tweeters. Advent must have changed them somewhere along the line. I maybe be imagining this but I seem to vaguely recall something about they decided that maybe the original alignment resulted in a bit too "reclusive" top end.

A smaller magnet would reduce the sensitivity or efficiency of the driver. It takes more current through the VC to get the same excursion compared to one with a larger magnet. It's the same with electric motors. The stronger the magnet, the less current it takes to rotate the armature.

It would be interesting to find out if they changed the crossover in the Smaller Advent as they did with the original Advent Loudspeaker over the period of manufacture.

If they didn't, it would seem to support my supposition, above, that they decided that the Smaller needed more top end. If they changed the crossover at the same time as using large magnet tweeters, it would indicate that they maybe just wanted to use the same tweeter in both instead of making two separate tweeters.

Does anybody remember the serial number restrictions Advent put on the back of the replacement tweeters? I'll have to see if I can find the info in past correspondence.

Of course, this still doesn't resolve the green/orange issue because there are greenies of both large and small magnet design as Kent said. :^) I can't remember if there are both large and small magnet orangies.

I now retreat into my cursed existence where there are no caregivers to help. :^)

Doug

EDIT: Oh yeah. As Kent indicated, the impedence of the tweeter has little really to do with the impedence of the speaker system as a whole. That is more determined by the woofer and crossover.

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You are correct Bob. The lower efficiency of the Smaller Advent was mostly offset by the ability of SS amps to deliver more power to a 4 ohm load.

It's just that it doesn't appear that we can just go by diaphragm color to tell which is an "Advent Loudspeaker" tweeter or a "Smaller Advent" tweeter.

Doug

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Guest gkentsmith

Doug,

I repeat my previous comment: "Curse you, Doug" (lol). I had extensive emails yesterday with an eBay seller who has refoamed Advent/2s and I need surrounds. The tweeter issue reared its ugly head and he sent me the link to our library article. Needless to say I was immediately taken aback. Sigh, more testing and more crossover analysis to come. He indicated to me that he has supplied crossovers to people over the years and has gotten the occasional comment that they appeared different. I don't know if they were the Large or the Smaller.

Since I have an extreme collection of both sizes and WAY too many tweeters not to mention crossovers of both kinds "parted out", I guess I'll have to start an analysis one day soon. The one thing I THINK I can say with tentative certainty, is that I believe the orange never got made with the smaller magnet. I'd have to (unnecessarily) remove too many pair to be any more certain. I have a lot of spares and they all have the larger magnet.

Now I have to get back to reorganizing my work room. I'll try to attach a pic or 2 of what it looked like after the shelving was installed Saturday

Kent

Curse you, Doug! (again for emphasis)

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1681.txt

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Guest One-Shot Scot

>I made a cool find when stripping the vinyl off one of the

>speakers. I can now say with absolute certainty that the MDF

>used by Advent was "Premium Grade Interior Floor

>Underlayment" (I found a manufacturers stamp on the wood

>of one speaker). A typical Henry Kloss kind of approach.

Kent:

I assume that you are talking about a pair of Advent Utility models here. The internal construction of New Advent cabinets changed periodically, from model to model.

Here are a few interior cabinet pictures that I took of some New Advent speakers. So far, I have found three different types of wood used in the various cabinets.

The website below contains pictures of the interiors of the A3, A4 and U4 speakers:

http://home.comcast.net/~newadvent/NewAdventCabinets.html

One-Shot Scot

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Guest gkentsmith

Ah, I wondered if anyone would notice! That is a 12" AR9 woofer that is part of a personal restoration project of immense scope. Someone should be arrested for what that AR9 pair was like when I rescued it.

And the pic was just of the stuff in my "shop" (aka spare room) that got shoved to the middle. The "House of Advents" is two 5' x 10' storage units crammed full of (mostly walnut and Smaller) Advents waiting for me to do various things to.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Russ,

Interesting comments regarding your comparision of the

5012 to the LA.

Do you happen to know if the 5012 woofer has a raised backplate?

We discussed this in another thread as you might have noticed.

It might be slightly better than the New LA woofer, mainly

when pushed hard.

I'd like to hear those 5012W's I'm curious now.

Best regards,

Pete B.

>Hello, gks.

>

>I have a pair of 5012W's, made during the Jensen years. To me,

>they sound exactly like the Advent Loudspeaker, though the

>x-overs are different and the cabinets are slightly larger in

>every dimension—about 1/2 inch.

>

>They never seem to draw much interest on eBay, and rarely come

>up there. So I have this very nice pair, in very nice

>condition, with new poly caps and pretty fresh woofer

>surrounds, and I'm wondering what to do with them (since I

>already have 4 Advents in a double system and two very lovely

>Smaller Advents I recovered in white birch veneer and

>refurbished with new tweeters and x-over components—AND

>resting securely on beautiful stands I made myself).

>

>If you have the answer to THAT, you most certainly ARE and

>expert, because anyone who knows what action I should take has

>to be an expert. I am expert at many things, but knowing what

>to do is not usually one of them ;-).

>

>Your original post was engaging.

>

>Best wishes.

>

>Russ Wollman

>

>

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Guest russwollman

Pete—you know enough about me to know that I don't know what a backplate is. But if you tell me, I'll take the woofer out and try to find it. If it's big enough, I just might have lunch on it tomorrow, and even outside, if the sun shines.

I have these 5012s just sitting idle. I don't want to put them on eBay because they never bring what they're worth. And they're quite good. The cabinets are just a little larger than the original Advent Loudspeaker, the x-over is different, there's no tweeter level control, and the tweeters haev fuse protection (which I have disabled).

While I'm inside, I'll examine the x-over and note the details for you, so you'll have something else to think about this week ;-)

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I think your joking but, your comment did give me a laugh!

Here's a picture of Ed's 5012 raised or bumped back plate:

http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/dc/user_files/1543.jpg

Here's the thread where we discussed it:

http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/dc/dcbo..._id=&page=#1336

I would be very interested to know the back plate, front plate,

and magnet thickness. 1/4" plates are very common, however the

original and New LA woofers had 3/8" plates. I'm curious about

the 5012 woofer if you happen to take a look.

Thanks very much for the offer about the crossover, but I

bought a pair of 5012 XOs on ebay just for curiosity sake.

There's a 7 uF from the + input to the fuse. Other end of fuse

has an inductor to ground (fairly large air core), also a

32uF to a 3 ohm resistor, other end of resistor to tweeter +.

Woofer has a not so large air core inductor in series with

the + lead, wired with positive polarity.

Best Regards!

Pete B.

>Pete—you know enough about me to know that I don't know what

>a backplate is. But if you tell me, I'll take the woofer out

>and try to find it. If it's big enough, I just might have

>lunch on it tomorrow, and even outside, if the sun shines.

>

>I have these 5012s just sitting idle. I don't want to put them

>on eBay because they never bring what they're worth. And

>they're quite good. The cabinets are just a little larger than

>the original Advent Loudspeaker, the x-over is different,

>there's no tweeter level control, and the tweeters haev fuse

>protection (which I have disabled).

>

>While I'm inside, I'll examine the x-over and note the details

>for you, so you'll have something else to think about this

>week ;-)

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Guest candlemomma

have a pair of advent speakers I was told they are worth money. serial number U108163 I cant find info on them and would like to sell but would like to be able to tell someone about them thank you. jo

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Guest gkentsmith

Advent/1 are a very good speaker. Depending on vinyl or walnut variety they can fetch anywhere from $99 to $159 on eBay. I would rather see you try craigslist or Audiogon first, eBay buyers are idiots. I recently got a pair of Powered Advents (80w per tweeter and 80w per woofer EACH, plus an Advent 300 receiver designed for them for $255. So examine the other options first. If they are walnut in good condition I might be interested also.

Kent

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>have a pair of advent speakers I was told they are worth

>money. serial number U108163 I cant find info on them and

>would like to sell but would like to be able to tell someone

>about them thank you. jo

Jo,

It is generally not a good idea to come to a forum like this, where almost all of us are truly interested in these speakers for more than just their worth, just to find out how much you can get for them. You are likely to be met with silence or indifference.

However, if your utilities are in excellent condition (no cabinet damage, perfect drivers not needing refoam, and no extraneous noises), they are worth about $100. Less if any of the mentioned conditions are not met.

Doug

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Guest russwollman

So here's the scoop, Pete.

The woofers in my 5102s are like Ed's, with a raised backplate.

Front and back plates are 1/4".

Magnet is 5/8" thick.

There's a pair of 5012s on eBay now at $100 + shipping from NY.

What's the big deal about a raised/bumped backplate? Allows longer cone excursion? Is the second question good enough for another laugh?

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Hi Doug;

Well said, Doug, thank you very much.

This site is for those person's, whether male or female.

They come and find or add to interesting hifi write-ups and thoughts of person's from all over the world.

It is as non-commercialized as it can be.

There is a forum here, specifically dedicated to the buying and selling of one's own personnal hifi equipment.

By you posting your personnal hifi items for sale or wanted, you can be better located or we can make suggestions, rather than your items getting lost deep in other forums.

This is a, not for profit site, please do not list sale items, such as an on-going business, as you would on eBay.

There has been some attempts at Spamming here, but, Mark is on top of that issue.

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>So here's the scoop, Pete.

>The woofers in my 5102s are like Ed's, with a raised

>backplate.

>Front and back plates are 1/4".

>Magnet is 5/8" thick.

>There's a pair of 5012s on eBay now at $100 + shipping from

>NY.

>

>What's the big deal about a raised/bumped backplate? Allows

>longer cone excursion? Is the second question good enough for

>another laugh?

Hi Russ,

Oh, Interesting, it is different then.

Original:

3/8" plates

3/4" magnet

5012:

1/4" plates

5/8" magnet

I could enter the numbers in the spread sheet that I have,

but we'd need to know the voice coil length. Don't know

if the kept the 5/8" length, another common one is 3/4" for

these old long throw woofers. But we won't know without

looking at one. Anyone have a blown 5012 woofer?

Yes Russ the raised back plate allows the VC to move further

back before making the loud crack sound as it hits the plate.

We should probably start a new thread about the 5012 woofer.

Thanks Russ,

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Chances are I DO know since I have

>been a close follower of the founder of Advent, Henry E.

>Kloss, for many years.

I came very close to buying a pair of your Advents on Ebay based solely on your description; you appeared to know what you were talking about. In following these threads, I guess you do! Anyway, I ended up with a pair of AR3a's. As a follower of Kloss, do you prefer the Advents over his other efforts? If so, why? Thanks!

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Guest gkentsmith

Hi,

You should have bought those Advents! I'm running out of the really great ones, and the remainder will need a fair amount of work to bring up to my standard of excellence.

As far as why I love the work of the late Henry Kloss, it is simple. His original Advents (utility) were introduced to me by a friend who had a stacked pair. This was my first experience with REAL high fidelity.

I was particulrly taken by the seamless transition from low bass to high treble, the lack of coloration, the feeling of being in the studio and the feeling of staging (Dynaco folks might want to argue some of the above, but they can't compare on the low end). Add to that the fact that these were affordable and I was hooked.

I am a 2-way purist, and no other speaker seemed to be able to do that at any price. In fact, I'm not sure you can today for less than the price of a Mercedes!

I feel the earlier efforts culminated in the Advent product, especially since Tom Holman (THX) and Andy Kotsasis (Boston Acoustics) were part of the team. I think the AR and KLH lines were warm-ups for the peak of the Advent line.

Sadly, I've only briefly heard one of the "Cambridge" speakers and was unable to get a good feel for it. If I listened to FM more, I'd buy a Tivoli and see just how good it is, but that relates more to FM circuitry than to speakers, so I think I'll just be glad for the Advents.

I hope this wasn't boring, but you DID ask (lol). If you'd to know about a specific Advent model(?) please let me know. Feel free to email me directly anytime.

Best Regards,

Kent

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Kent,

I have asked this question before. So now I'll ask you.

I have a pair of the Advent Walnuts with the beveled edge, woofer on bottom and masonite orange tweeter with the 3 way crossover.

My question is : How do I get the harshness out of the tweeter?

Yes this happens at higher SPLs but not really that high.

I really do like Advents and for me this is their only drawback.

I'd love to solve this problem.

Any recommendations?

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Guest gkentsmith

That's a tough problem. You could TRY changing the 13uf capacitor to 16uf. I understand that improves the harshness problem, but I believe it may present some other problems. You probably should try starting a new thread and you'll probably get input from guys like Pete and Doug that may be better than I can give you.

I hope this has been helpful.

Kent

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Silly Kent :^)

If they are the original Advents (with masonite woofer surround) they would not have a 13uF capacitor in them but rather, either 2 16 uFs or 1 16uf and 1 8uF. The first is the series capacitor for the tweeter and the second is the resistor bypass capacitor when the switch is in the extended position (the cap. lets more high frequency energy to the tweeter).

The 2 16 uF version is the earlier one used until about the middle of 1975 and then they switched to the 16/8 uF version. The resistor was also changed along the way from 4 ohms originally to 3 ohms sometime in the early seventies.

The 8uF cap. holds back more of the lower upper frequencies and the tweeter doesn't have to work as hard to reproduce these freqs. thus maybe smoothening out the response or perceived response.

Also, these are 2 way crossovers, not 3 (only 2 drivers).

All of my Advents have the later configuration, having all been built in 1975 or 1976 so I have never heard (except for in the early seventies-too long ago to remember) the earlier ones. I know Jerry (BoldEagle in the forums) likes the later version and has changed his to this config.

This harshness thing seems to be something that some claim bothers them and others don't really experience it. I, myself, don't think they sound harsh (unless the source is harsh).

I would check out the crossovers and make sure everything is OK there. There is a schematic available in the library section of this site and you can get the values of the components from it.

Ask more any time.

Doug

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My mistake. Of course the crossover is a 2 way. What I didn't clearly state (and meant) was that its a 3 way switch.

Anyway, I could say its my hearing but I don't get this harshness with either of the 2 AR3a pair I also own.

I have ordered new caps and resistors for the Advent crossover and will start there.

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Guest gkentsmith

Doug,

I'm certainly silly as you suggest, maybe even over the edge (truly gone fishing, as the song says). However, that does not change the fact that while trading cap info with John C, we both had crossover networks and multimeters in hand. He and I both got identical values for the larger capacitor at 13uF. He changed his to 16uF, didn't like the result, and returned to the original.

It's certainly possible that we both had misread our meters or did something wrong in measuring. I would point out to you, however, that almost all of my Large Advents are of the earlier variety, and there were many changes to the crossovers during the first few years. Your Advents are of the same vintage that saw the foam rubber used internally and most of mine have the fiberglass insulation. Is it not, therefore, possible that the older models had different capacitance?

Just a thought.

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Oops, my faux pas. I didn't realize that you actually measured them. Now who's silly? :^)

But, I don't think Advent actually purposely put 13s in the originals. 'Course, somebody along the line could have changed them like you said. Was there any value printed on the caps?

I suppose they could have drifted down to 13 from 16.

Doug

EDIT: You did NOT say "somebody" could have changed the caps. You said maybe Advent did. Read more carefully Doug. Hehe.

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