Powered Advent Loudspeakers

mwyeg

New Member
I'm curious what a pair of Powered Advent Loudspeakers would be worth today. I have a pair that need some work, and some cosmetic touch-ups (fairly minor). I couldn't find any for sale currently on any site. I'd like to know what they would be worth in today's market if I had them fully (professionally) restored.
 
I'm curious what a pair of Powered Advent Loudspeakers would be worth today. I have a pair that need some work, and some cosmetic touch-ups (fairly minor). I couldn't find any for sale currently on any site. I'd like to know what they would be worth in today's market if I had them fully (professionally) restored.

Are you referring to The Powered Advent Loudspeakers (circa late 70's/early 80's), or some of the newer lines that had passive mids and highs, but a plate amp for the woofers?

The original ('77-'78) fully powered speakers actually sold for around $450/pr new, and were pretty well-reviewed. This was a fairly new concept for the time, and not too many were sold. I have only seen one pair (fully restored), and that was probably 15-20 years ago, and I have no recollection of what they were asking for them at the time, or even if they were actually for sale. I have no clue as to what they would be worth now, but I would assume a decent amount of money, since they are certainly not "common"--a fully functional/restored pair would be a rarity. Then again, I also have no idea as to what would be involved to repair/restore the amp/preamp/XO used in them.

Sorry--not much help :(, but good luck with the project! If you choose not to proceed with them yourself, I'm sure there is a market for them "as-is" :)
 
I had a pair years and years ago. If you do a proper restoration and tame the noise, they're really great sounding speakers. They pop up once in a long while and if I remember correctly, for $300-400/pair in good working condition I think. If you do a complete professional restoration, obviously worth more, but probably not worth paying for professional restoration if you're planning on selling them. Like I said, they sound very powerful and nice once restored.
 
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@savatage1973 the orion says they were 998/pair and that would be a final price. I don't recall what we sold them for but I know they were expensive. Something that would lead one to buy 2 pair of Large Advents for 500 in utility and a nice amp and have more for the same money. This kept the Powered Advents off any best seller list.
 
Thanks for the comments! I'm not really planning on selling them (depending on how they end up sounding). I bought them to use as I was looking for a regular pair of large advents and these popped up relatively cheap. Right now the fuse assembly on the back of one of them is broken, so I won't really be able to listen to them until I get that figured out. As I've been looking for parts I've been realizing just how rare they seem to be and wondering if that translates into more value than they are worth just keeping (If I sold them I could keep looking for a pair of large advents or two).

It seems like their rarity makes it harder to asses the value since there aren't enough being sold. I'd love to hear more thoughts if anyone else knows more about these.
 
Well, welcome to the posting side of AK to nearly ten month member (long time listener, first time caller).

The Powered Advent has two power amps built in one for each driver, 80 watts or so each and they will power you out of the room. They sound good but to me they can be overpowering compared to Stacked Advents (two per side) which is a great speaker system.

I don't know how hard it is to get the amps repaired. Some here may have addressed that aspect of ownership. The comments made reflect AK where vintage and cheap rule the day. There are some here that insist that this hobby pays them back and well it can so that is valid point and great that it was mentioned. Others are interested in enjoying the music/gear and let be like many hobbies, some times it costs money to play. It is a valid concern to evalute what an item is going to do when putting money into it whether it will be returned through use, flipping or just satisfaction of the owner knowing the unit was saved from the landfill.

Might as well dig to find the manuals, Service Manual especially and see if you can get them working properly and enjoy them while you search for more advents and deicde what to do with them.
 
The manual and some service bulletins can be had here. Need to sign up, but it's free download.

I acquired a set years ago that didn't work well and eventually tracked down an original SM and service bulletins, not sure if my collection matches the link but it might be that my set was the basis of the link; I uploaded it to several sites. I never got around to repairs but still haven't got rid of them. Thought the amps would be really nice to build into a set of Magneplanars I used to have but didn`t do that either.
 
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Remember that the Powered Advents came out at the same time that the Advent 300 receiver did; they were designed to be paired together.
 
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