Advent Model 300 Vintage Receiver Review

[raindance]

I have a Fisher 500C that'll smoke that thing.

I'm talking about measurements...

 

[ta240]

Too bad there isn't someone nearby that could replace the power supply capacitors so we could see if it is a design issue or just worn out parts causing the ripple. If new capacitors fixed that it would land near the middle of the chart.

At nearly 50 years it really needs a recap job. It is a shame that the vintage equipment that gets tested here tends to be untouched and worn out or modified beyond just a basic capacitor replacement.

It seems a bit pointless to test and judge equipment that is in need of work. I know vintage amps get recommended quite often as a bargain way to get into hifi so I could see doing a comparison of before and after having all the electrolytic capacitors replaced to show people that they need to have the vintage amps serviced. However, just testing ones where they have definitely exceeded their components lifespan doesn't make sense.

 

[Robin L]

I'm talking about measurements...

Ya ever own one? The Fisher 500C receiver is one of those "measurements, shemeasurements" pieces of gear. It'll make for a more consistantly pleasant listening experience than an Advent 300. I've used both. Yes, the 500C has mush on top and bottom, old tube gear is not so good at frequency extremes. Probably measured higher for low-order distortion than the Advent 300. But everything else was better.

 

[Deleted member 2944]

Too bad there isn't someone nearby that could replace the power supply capacitors so we could see if it is a design issue or just worn out parts causing the ripple. If new capacitors fixed that it would land near the middle of the chart.

At nearly 50 years it really needs a recap job. It is a shame that the vintage equipment that gets tested here tends to be untouched and worn out or modified beyond just a basic capacitor replacement.

It seems a bit pointless to test and judge equipment that is in need of work. I know vintage amps get recommended quite often as a bargain way to get into hifi so I could see doing a comparison of before and after having all the electrolytic capacitors replaced to show people that they need to have the vintage amps serviced. However, just testing ones where they have definitely exceeded their components lifespan doesn't make sense.

Yeah, a fair point me thinks.
I hadn't noticed this website until now, but David Reaton has a few pages regarding repairs/improvements:
https://davidreaton.com/advent/model_300_receiver_main_page/model_300_repair-experiences/

Dave.

 

[ferrellms]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Advent Model 300 Vintage Receiver. It is on kind loan from a member. I believe it came out in 1970s. The original cost was US $270. That would be $1,300 if adjusted for inflation.

I love the tuner knob on the 300, reminding me of what you would find in a HAM radio:

View attachment 75329

There is no detent on various tone adjustments and balance. The slide switches are par for the era but don't feel nearly as nice of Japanese gear of the time.

The back side is decidedly cheap:

View attachment 75330

Those tiny speaker screw terminals were on the cheapest 8-track tape/receivers, not on serious hi-fi. The RCA terminals all look tired but work.

Receiver Audio Measurements
I opted to use the Aux input for my testing. I used an RCA cable to feed the pre-amp to power amp. Not sure if they came with a special shorting connector or not. Let's feed a 1 kHz tone to the 300 and see what comes out:

View attachment 75332

Distortion is below 80 dB but because we have a lot of power supply harmonics, it degrades SIAND to just 68 dB which places the unit pretty low in our amplifier rankings:

View attachment 75333

Signal to noise ratio is poor due to aforementioned power supply noise:

View attachment 75334

These are yesterday's amplifiers so don't look for hundreds of watts into 4 ohm load:

View attachment 75335

Yes, just 23 watts! No wonder the unit runs so cool in use. If we allow distortion to peak higher, we still don't get much output:

View attachment 75336

Switching to 8 ohm load reduces available power even more as it normally does:

View attachment 75337

Ironic though that it has less noise than a modern AVR, albeit, not a very good one (NAD T758).

Pre-amplifier Performance
I disconnected the power amp and measured the output of the preamplifier using our 1 kHz tone and got this:
View attachment 75338

Distortion is similar to when we were driving the power amp but noise is much lower so SINAD improves 10 dB.

Conclusions
The inefficient speakers of today won't be kind to the Model 300 due to lack of power. With non-competitive noise and distortion, there is not much of a reason to use this amplifier. It does have a vintage look though so perhaps someone would be interested in that aspect of it.

And yes, it is possible that the power supply noise is higher due to age. I can only test what I am given.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

if I had a day job, I could just do this review and get paid. But no, this being the Internet age, I have to be measuring a speaker while I am doing this test. Surely this qualifies for overtime. So please donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

The phono preamp was the killer feature. It was specifically designed (by Tom Holman, no less) to not interact with the particular phono cartridge being used, which could cause frequency response coloration. I used mine as a preamp (with the trusty modified Dyna ST70 as the amp). My Shure V15 cartridge sounded smoother - nice! The low end filter also helped with turntable rumble. A sweet phono section.

 

[Ron Texas]

Hmmmm, and this is the stuff we used to love.

 

[JeffS7444]

Too bad there isn't someone nearby that could replace the power supply capacitors so we could see if it is a design issue or just worn out parts causing the ripple.

I replaced all electrolytic and tantalum capacitors in mine, cleaned all switches and connectors and still saw what looked like some power supply ripple, and waveforms which looked a bit "fuzzy". Sounded fine, so I figured it was just the design of the thing showing it's age. If I still owned it, I'd also replace 1 microfarad electolytic coupling capacitors in phono stage with film types.

 

[rexracer]

Perhaps they used to spec these things out to meet dynamic range of vinyl, FM and cassette tapes.

 

[gvl]

Seems reasonable as it likely matches or exceeds the typical source performance of the time and speaker efficiency. I suggest using a separate set of grey haired panthers to rank vintage gear.

 

[mhardy6647]

The cachet of the Advent 300 was (is) the Thomlinson Holman designed phono preamp.
The tuner section was held in moderate regard, too, and is obviously part of the Henry Kloss lineage from his first, vacuum tube KLH table radio to his last Tivoli Audio products.

Interestingly, although the 300 was/is held in remarkably high esteem in certain circles, the Boston Audio Society kind of sniffed haughtily at it when they tested it.

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/pdf/bass/BASS-05-10-7707.pdf

 

[Wes]

I have a Fisher 500C that'll smoke that thing.

send it in for testing

 

[Racheski]

So bad even the panthers hand was guillotined.

 

[Robin L]

The cachet of the Advent 300 was (is) the Thomlinson Holman designed phono preamp.
The tuner section was held in moderate regard, too, and is obviously part of the Henry Kloss lineage from his first, vacuum tube KLH table radio to his last Tivoli Audio products.

Interestingly, although the 300 was/is held in remarkably high esteem in certain circles, the Boston Audio Society kind of sniffed haughtily at it when they tested it.

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/pdf/bass/BASS-05-10-7707.pdf

I've owned multiple Harman Kardon 330C receivers, agree that they're better than the Advent.

 

[dtaylo1066]

I had one in the day, when it was known for its preamp/phono amp function, and I had a few hi-fi buddies who output that to a different power amp. Thanks to advancements in electronics, it's nice to know something that was a bargain and highly-regarded in its day (late 1970s/early /80s) cannot compete on today's stage. And who knows what shape the caps, transformers and resistors are in. Send to the dump.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

This unit would have been just fine for amplifying the 62 db theoretical maximum Sinad format of vinyl records.

 

[EJ3]

From Audio Critic 1977: "...we discovered in the lab that when the tone controls were set for dead-flat response on the right channel, there was a 2 dB bass boost on the left channel. Furthermore, the dead flat position of the treble control was a few minutes past the 12 o'clock position. (Of course we mustn't forget that we're dealing with a $260 stereo receiver here... next thing you know, we'll complain that the controls didn't have that expensive feel. They don't..."

FWIW, I was a little surprised to see it assembled in Mexico. I didn't think outsourcing was common back then, but I didn't notice those things back then, either.

The very earliest ones (I don't have the numbers but they had white face plates instead of black [there was also a 12 volt model presumably for people with RV's & people who live on boat's {think commercial boats large enough that crews stayed aboard]]): were assembled in Massachusetts. When you open one up you will likely find that it was assembled in Mexico of Korean components.

 

[Jimbob54]

Wot, you didn't test the headamp?

 

[jeffbook]

I had one that replaced a Crown IC-150. I used the Advent for phono and tuner use only. It was fed by a Sonus Blue cartridge in a Mayware Formula 4 arm mounted on a Kenwood KD-500 turntable. It fed a GAS Son of Ampzilla that ran my Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers. Ultimately it was replaced by an Adcom GFP-555 preamp. The Son of Ampzilla was replaced by an Adcom GFA-555.

I still have the Kenwood TT, the Mayware arm, and the Adcom preamp. The tonearm now has an Ortofon Red cartridge mounted. The only use for this stuff is to rip the odd vinyl disc to a Focusrite 2i2 3rd gen USB interface and then into Audacity on my laptop for post processing.

 

[riker1384]

My dad had one of these when I was a kid. Power wasn't an issue because he used it as a preamp into a monster Dynaco Stereo 300 power amp and JBL L166's.

I'd like to have one for the aesthetics and nostalgia, but they all seem to have problems and I don't want to spend a bunch of money trying to get one fixed. So I make do with a Tivoli radio, which, perhaps appropriately, is also cheaply made and develops problems. My current one had a very scratchy volume pot that needed to be cleaned, and a bad power-supply hum that I'm going to try to solve by bypassing the internal supply with an external AC adapter.

 

[mhardy6647]

I've owned multiple Harman Kardon 330C receivers, agree that they're better than the Advent.

The hk 330C is a nice little receiver -- with (IMO, of course) timeless and elegant aesthetics. They were quite popular when & where I came of age (mid-Atlantic).

Scan0012 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
GMMgreatbeginnings by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

WARNING WARNING DANGER WILL ROBINSON -- a typical mrh digression lies dead ahead!

I would really like to find an affordable example of the 330C's contemporary integrated amplifier cousin, the hk A401.
One of the most simply elegant little components I've ever seen.
I've always believed/assumed that the innards of this (physically) little integrated are more or less identical to the audio part of the 330C (based solely on the "FTC" power output spec of 20 wpc).

('borrowed' photo from the internet)

The A402 was also pretty nice (arguably better, in fact) -- basically, I think, the AF sections of the hk A730 receiver, dual power supplies and all. It shared the basic look of its little sibling, but added fashionably high-tech LED power meters that kind of spoil the party for me. That said, thanks to the swap pile at the good old Harvard, MA town dump, I do have an hk A402

hkA402 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr