thedelihaus
Nocturnal transmissions
More info culled on the 'net about the Powered Large Advent.
Sorry I can't give credit to who had written it- I don't remember where I got it.
So the text has been re-written, rearranged.
Here it is-
The Powered Advent Loudspeaker was manufactured around '77/'78, at a cost of approx. $450 each. Few were sold, as they were expensive, and did not seem to the public to be a good bargain/value/investment.
This loudspeaker had internal custom equalization and filtering, utilizing an electronic crossover vs. a standard passive crossover. It featured a subsonic filter and a variable equalizer to adjust the deep bass from a point approx. 30 Hz-up. There were potentiometer controls on the front of each speaker permitting/allowing adjustments to be made in both input and the frequency output from each speaker.
Due to it being a bi-amped configuration, and with the EQ/amp/drivers optimized, it is capable of playing extremely loud, and extremely clean, much more than the internal amp power would suggest, and much louder/cleaner than one could with a non-powered Advent run with an external receiver of similar power. But it wasn't really designed to play loud- it was designed for sound quality.
The Powered Advent was a speaker that was able to produce a very smooth, flat sound throughout much of the audio range, with a very transparent sound, hearty dynamic range, and delightful imaging. The true virtues were a very clean sounding speaker, with low-distortion and great sound quality.
This is contributed to the fact that the system, since it is basically an inclosed speaker/amp/pre-amp unit, can all be controlled very neatly and succinct, leading to an extremely well-behaved system.
Downfalls of the speaker were that at times they could sound bright at times, making some instruments sound harsh. A crossover transient-rersponse issue produced a ringing at 3 kHz. This ringing, though most likely inaudible, was capable of blurring the sound in that region. Harmonic distortion below 40 Hz was not as low as some similar speaker offerings at the time, but surely not blatant,obvious or even remotely noticeable.
Overall, an excellent speaker system. ??CBS Labs had tested the speakers and rated the system very well, with very high marks.
The failure of this speaker wasn't its sound- it was public concern over price, and the inability to embrace the idea of a speaker self-powered, and not needing external amp power. It was also overkill if you were looking to replace speakers in your system, owning a powerful amplifier or receiver you were not interested in getting rid of.
Also, sales reps for Advent sold the speakers incorrectly at most dealers- sales reps touted how loud they could go over their true strength, how smooth they sounded loud. In reality, although they would go very loud, there were much louder, more efficient speakers. And if these Advents were driven to the brink of their full power, they would start to distort a bit. So, although very loud, they were not by any means the loudest you could get- a ported speaker with a robust amplifier made more "noise", but as the refined know, maybe not much more music.??
Sorry I can't give credit to who had written it- I don't remember where I got it.
So the text has been re-written, rearranged.
Here it is-
The Powered Advent Loudspeaker was manufactured around '77/'78, at a cost of approx. $450 each. Few were sold, as they were expensive, and did not seem to the public to be a good bargain/value/investment.
This loudspeaker had internal custom equalization and filtering, utilizing an electronic crossover vs. a standard passive crossover. It featured a subsonic filter and a variable equalizer to adjust the deep bass from a point approx. 30 Hz-up. There were potentiometer controls on the front of each speaker permitting/allowing adjustments to be made in both input and the frequency output from each speaker.
Due to it being a bi-amped configuration, and with the EQ/amp/drivers optimized, it is capable of playing extremely loud, and extremely clean, much more than the internal amp power would suggest, and much louder/cleaner than one could with a non-powered Advent run with an external receiver of similar power. But it wasn't really designed to play loud- it was designed for sound quality.
The Powered Advent was a speaker that was able to produce a very smooth, flat sound throughout much of the audio range, with a very transparent sound, hearty dynamic range, and delightful imaging. The true virtues were a very clean sounding speaker, with low-distortion and great sound quality.
This is contributed to the fact that the system, since it is basically an inclosed speaker/amp/pre-amp unit, can all be controlled very neatly and succinct, leading to an extremely well-behaved system.
Downfalls of the speaker were that at times they could sound bright at times, making some instruments sound harsh. A crossover transient-rersponse issue produced a ringing at 3 kHz. This ringing, though most likely inaudible, was capable of blurring the sound in that region. Harmonic distortion below 40 Hz was not as low as some similar speaker offerings at the time, but surely not blatant,obvious or even remotely noticeable.
Overall, an excellent speaker system. ??CBS Labs had tested the speakers and rated the system very well, with very high marks.
The failure of this speaker wasn't its sound- it was public concern over price, and the inability to embrace the idea of a speaker self-powered, and not needing external amp power. It was also overkill if you were looking to replace speakers in your system, owning a powerful amplifier or receiver you were not interested in getting rid of.
Also, sales reps for Advent sold the speakers incorrectly at most dealers- sales reps touted how loud they could go over their true strength, how smooth they sounded loud. In reality, although they would go very loud, there were much louder, more efficient speakers. And if these Advents were driven to the brink of their full power, they would start to distort a bit. So, although very loud, they were not by any means the loudest you could get- a ported speaker with a robust amplifier made more "noise", but as the refined know, maybe not much more music.??
