The New Advent Loudspeaker Review (Vintage Speaker)

[JDiSilverstein]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the "The New Advent Loudspeaker" vintage speaker, circa 1977. The sample under test was kindly provided by our own @Dennis Murphy. He has looked it over and replaced a crossover capacitor to make sure it has the value it originally had. The woofer has been professionally reconed. Dennis can add more information here.

This speaker is in reasonably good shape seeing how it is made out of fragile particle board:

View attachment 141358

I didn't take a picture of the back side but there is a 3-way switch to adjust the high frequencies. Story is that this was to adjust for lack of uniformity of the recordings of the era and not to tune the speaker. I measured the difference as you will see later.

There is a site with a copy of the manual which I highly recommend to check out: https://www.theprojectasylum.com/el...adventspkrbrochure/adventspkrbrochurepg1.html

The manual is not just a manual. It is written as if it is an article for a hi-fi magazine! It is very boastful of its design approach without appearing too arrogant. There is also this bit of advertising about it:

View attachment 141361

As a woodworker, I detest particle board. It is horrible material and seemingly falls apart by just looking at it. Interesting that it didn't have this negative stigma then.

Fascinating that its max power rating was just 15 watts! I fed it a lot more than that.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of about 1%.

Reference axis was the tweeter center or as best I could determine through the grill. I think I was a bit to the right of the tweeter. The grill was left on.

I picked the middle position (red below) in the switch that is marked as "decrease" for high frequencies based on my setup measurements (and later confirmed by Dennis):

View attachment 141363

The New Advent Loudspeaker Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 141362

Bass response is deficient and we have good bit of variations but not as bad as I had expected. Near-field response shows a very slow response for the woofer in crossover region:

View attachment 141364

That then screws up some of the tweeter response.

I was pleasantly surprised how smooth the early reflections are:

View attachment 141365

This almost magically transforms the overall response to a flat one in-room:

View attachment 141366

Alas, we know that such a response subjectively sounds bright. Still, one wonders if this is an accident or by design.

Beamwidth shows lack of directivity control as the large woofer becomes directional before tweeter takes over with its wide response:

View attachment 141368

View attachment 141369

Vertical directivity is quite tricky. Stay at or below tweeter axis:

View attachment 141370

There are two minima in impedance graph:

View attachment 141371

Distortion was reasonable at 86 dBSPL but then went to hell at 96:

View attachment 141372

View attachment 141373

This is to be expected of the drivers of the era. The large woofer doesn't have to move much at lower amplitudes so does well. But when asked to moved, it can't do so with the precision of current drivers. Tweeter also falls apart.

The New Advent Loudspeaker Listening Tests
Oh gosh. I always start my listening tests with female vocals and these were unlistenable with the Advent pointed at me. The sound would be Ok and then one part of the vocal would hit a resonant peak (or something like it) and the sound would be so sharp as to attempt to go through you! I had to stop after a couple of tracks. Thinking older music may do better, I played a few Nina Simone tracks. They sounded terrible as well. Lack of bass is a major problem as it accentuates the highs so much.

As a quick experiment, I pointed the speaker straight out and this helped some but by then my mind was so corrupted that I stopped and started to type up this review.

Conclusions
I don't have a lot to offer you. The Advent is not as bad as I thought it would measure. Subjectively it is horrid in my quick l listening tests. Progress in speaker design is real and I am spoiled by that. I let you all discuss the rest.

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

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I grew up with The Original Advent Loudspeaker. As a college student in 1979, I traded a set of brand new, in-the-box New Advents for a pair of used Original Advents and never looked back. The Original Advents are the ones to test, Amir!

 

[amirm]

Well, someone needs to send me one without asking for it back as was the case here.

 

[Holmz]

• Does Klippel also do Impulse response or step function response?
  • Which could be useful for a few things… including how much Dirac style of correction may help.
• And is there a master list (spreadsheet) of speakers with the ”preference score”
  • I didn’t see a place yet, but maybe I didn’t look hard enough?

 

[Putter]

AR-4, 18" v 9" x 9", Dynaco A-25 20" x 11" 1/2 x 10", Large Advent, 14" x 11 1/2" x 26"

Since I can't look at dimensions and imagine sizes;

AR4 - 1458 cu. in.
Dynaco A-25 - 2300 cu. in.
Large Advent - 4186 cu. in.
and just for fun Smaller Advent - 20 1/8" H by 11 5/8" W by 9 3/8"
2193 cu. in. slightly smaller than the Dynaco

Volume are approximate since they include the box, but give a sense of the relative sizes.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I grew up with The Original Advent Loudspeaker. As a college student in 1979, I traded a set of brand new, in-the-box New Advents for a pair of used Original Advents and never looked back. The Original Advents are the ones to test, Amir!

I think you'll find that the original (which I owned ) sounds pretty much like the "New" version except for a less elevated response starting at 9 kHz. The real vintage speaker of interest would be the AR3 or AR3a. They have a religious following that swears they are superior to modern speakers. I think they would be pretty shocked by the actual measurements. I've been hunting for a beat-up but functional pair, but their resale value is extremely high right now, and the only semi-affordable units have been for local pickup only. I'm still looking.

 

[Robin L]

I think you'll find that the original (which I owned ) sounds pretty much like the "New" version except for a less elevated response starting at 9 kHz. The real vintage speaker of interest would be the AR3 or AR3a. They have a religious following that swears they are superior to modern speakers. I think they would be pretty shocked by the actual measurements. I've been hunting for a beat-up but functional pair, but their resale value is extremely high right now, and the only semi-affordable units have been for local pickup only. I'm still looking.

My first "real" speakers were AR-3s and the music room at the College I went to had a surround system with 4 AR-3as. The AR-3 had a depression in the treble between 4k to 8k, was useful in that it tended to suck out surface noise from LPs. The AR-3as had downward sloping treble, smooth, polite but not really quite enough. The amazing quality in both is the deep bass, but I have good reason to believe that modern designs would be better. Note: these speakers are among the most demanding of amps.

 

[mhardy6647]

Well, someone needs to send me one without asking for it back as was the case here.

That can be arranged...

Big, heavy box, though

 

[SKBubba]

Well, someone needs to send me one without asking for it back as was the case here.

I will never part with mine.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

My first "real" speakers were AR-3s and the music room at the College I went to had a surround system with 4 AR-3as. The AR-3 had a depression in the treble between 4k to 8k, was useful in that it tended to suck out surface noise from LPs. The AR-3as had downward sloping treble, smooth, polite but not really quite enough. The amazing quality in both is the deep bass, but I have good reason to believe that modern designs would be better. Note: these speakers are among the most demanding of amps.

All of the AR models from that period had what can be described as a "velvet curtain" sound signature that I hated. In the 3-way designs, that was due to a combination of destructive interference between the midrange and tweeter drivers, and a boosted midrange response that the text book crossover circuits couldn't deal with. You can see the on-axis response of the AR3a here (I couldn't get the plot to to paste here:
http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=AR3a.html Tjhe big hump at around 800 Hz is in the lower-end response of the midrange unit. It would take some kind of trap circuit to suppress it. I don't believe it was present in the prior AR3. The canyon in the highs is due to interference. The response changes off-axis, but is never really right. I would love to see Klippel spin measurements that would reveal the overall power response. My first speakers, the 2-way AR-4x, had a very similar sound, but that was caused only by a huge hump in the lower end of the tweeter response that obscured detail. The high frequencies themselves were fairly flat, albeit fairly beamy. http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=AR4x.html

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Well, someone needs to send me one without asking for it back as was the case here.

I'm not sure which way people will read that. For the record, I sent Amir a really tacky looking Advent that I told him to trash.

 

[Flak]

The New Advent Loudspeaker Listening Tests
Oh gosh. I always start my listening tests with female vocals and these were unlistenable with the Advent pointed at me. The sound would be Ok and then one part of the vocal would hit a resonant peak (or something like it) and the sound would be so sharp as to attempt to go through you! I had to stop after a couple of tracks. Thinking older music may do better, I played a few Nina Simone tracks. They sounded terrible as well. Lack of bass is a major problem as it accentuates the highs so much.

As a quick experiment, I pointed the speaker straight out and this helped some but by then my mind was so corrupted that I stopped and started to type up this review.

Thanks for this excellent and detailed review of the Advent loudspeaker that reminds me of the times when I was really very young and I was the Advent distributor for Italy (which was an important market at that time)
These listening test conclusions somehow come unexpectedly as we used to run comparison tests vs. the competition and female voices were one of the main aspects.
I'm admittedly biased but is it possible that the ferrofluid of the fried egg tweeter got gummy or dried up?
What about the woofer suspension?
We used to install speaker comparators at our Dealers in order to align the output levels:

and we suggested the following for comparisons... female vocals first, male vocals, low-frequency content, and applause (often quite revealing)

Thanks again for these fond memories!
Flavio

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Thanks for this excellent and detailed review of the Advent loudspeaker that reminds me of the times when I was really very young and I was the Advent distributor for Italy (which was an important market at that time)
These listening test conclusions somehow come unexpectedly as we used to run comparison tests vs. the competition and female voices were one of the main aspects.
I'm admittedly biased but is it possible that the ferrofluid of the fried egg tweeter got gummy or dried up?
What about the woofer suspension?
We used to install speaker comparators at our Dealers in order to align the output levels:

View attachment 174095

and we suggested the following for comparisons... female vocals first, male vocals, low-frequency content, and applause (often quite revealing)

Thanks again for these fond memories!
Flavio

I guess that's possible, but I checked the impedance measurement with some I found on line for both the woofer and tweeter, and they matched. The New Advent was certainly hotter than the original Large Advent--that was the purpose of the modifications to the tweeter and crossover.

 

[Jim Shaw]

I have a pair of Advent (somethings) in the bedroom. Perhaps somebody can help identify them with a description:
Enclosure: 20" h x 12" w x 8" d. -or- 50 cm x 30 cm x 20 cm.
Bass driver: 8 in (20 cm) dia. (screw to opposite screw / ~6" (15 cm) actual paper cone and then the foam surround, coming to 8".
Treble driver, as pictured, centered above the woofer (not offset like many Advents).

There is no other ID on them, anywhere, except what you see in the photo.

How do they sound? Well, they're fine for the bedroom, where I never do any serious listening. The bass is musical, not what you'll want for HT or electric bassheads. Treble is not annoying, even on old recordings, so I'd describe it as rolled off. How can I stand to live with such ancient speakers? It's pretty easy because I don't take them seriously.

AND I FOLLOW THIS RULE: Any speaker that doesn't annoy me is far better than a very snobby one that does.

But please, if you can help put a model ID to these, I'd be grateful.

 

[dasdoing]

if you can help put a model ID to these, I'd be grateful

Advent 3002 loudspeakers

Advent Bookshelf 2-way loudspeakers

stereonomono.blogspot.com

 

[mhardy6647]

I have a pair of Advent (somethings) in the bedroom. Perhaps somebody can help identify them with a description:
Enclosure: 20" h x 12" w x 8" d. -or- 50 cm x 30 cm x 20 cm.
Bass driver: 8 in (20 cm) dia. (screw to opposite screw / ~6" (15 cm) actual paper cone and then the foam surround, coming to 8".
Treble driver, as pictured, centered above the woofer (not offset like many Advents).

There is no other ID on them, anywhere, except what you see in the photo.

How do they sound? Well, they're fine for the bedroom, where I never do any serious listening. The bass is musical, not what you'll want for HT or electric bassheads. Treble is not annoying, even on old recordings, so I'd describe it as rolled off. How can I stand to live with such ancient speakers? It's pretty easy because I don't take them seriously.

AND I FOLLOW THIS RULE: Any speaker that doesn't annoy me is far better than a very snobby one that does.

But please, if you can help put a model ID to these, I'd be grateful.

there's a fairly good "Advent ID" thread @ AK. It's quite old and some of the image links are broken, but it's still a good one-stop shopping site for photos and a little info on many generations of loudspeakers branded "Advent".
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/identifying-your-advent-loudspeakers.126376/

There's also of course the forums at www.classicspeakerpages.net (although more biased towards the "real", Kloss-era Adven).

 

[GeorgeWalk]

I still have a pair of these. I used them for the back channels of my home theater system.

 

[Flak]

On selling a lot, the manual says at the time they had sold more than a million speakers! Wow, had no idea they did so much business back then.

Yes, at that time hi-fi was the only tech-oriented interest/hobby... then came video, computers, and on and on

 

[mhardy6647]

Yes, at that time hi-fi was the only tech-oriented interest/hobby... then came video, computers, and on and on

Well... I mean... photography, too.

 

[Flak]

Well... I mean... photography, too.

I stand corrected
but not to the same extent I'd say... everybody had a hi-fi!

 

[Tom C]

Well... I mean... photography, too.

Ahh…the smell of acetic acid in the morning.