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Advent Laureate for free

Adam.Holroyd

Adam.Holroyd

New Member
Picked up a set of AV's for free. Definitely need some repair work. A couple of questions.
A.) Are they worth repairing?
B.) Any website recommendations for purchasing foam and parts?
C.) Anything else I should replace/repair beyond the obvious while I have them apart?
Pictures attached

Thanks!
 

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Nice pick up. For free, they definitely are worth restoring.

First, they need to be refoamed. Simply Speakers, Springfield Speaker Repair, the ebay guy Cobb. I would use the 30 Hz tone method instead of shimming. Lots of videos and AK posts on how to do it.

Then I would recap them. I generally use Parts Express metalized poly film caps of the same capacitance value. The voltage rating does not matter as long as the new caps have equal or greater voltage rating. You can buy new speaker grill cloth from Parts Express, too.

After refoaming and recapping, they are ready for use. Enjoy them.

As for cosmetics, the split top can be repaired if you like woodworking. Need some clamps and wood glue. After gluing, sand them and refinish. I like to use Danish Oil. Others like to use a poly finish.
 
Adam.Holroyd said:
Thanks so much for the advice. I do a lot of woodworking and was just going to make new tops that don't have a seam...solid piece :)
Click to expand...

I do not know about the Laureat specifically, but based on the pics and other Advents, that top may be solid pecan. Two of my Advents (Legacy II and Baby III) had solid pecan tops and front pieces. The pecan restores beautifully and is much easier to work with than walnut veneer.
 
I actually have some solid walnut I would replace it with, not veneer. I've never looked this up, but is there a preferred wood for resonance in speakers?
 
Adam.Holroyd said:
I actually have some solid walnut I would replace it with, not veneer. I've never looked this up, but is there a preferred wood for resonance in speakers?
Click to expand...

I believe Advent uses solid wood for accent, not cabinet construction. I believe that the top piece is attached to the top of the cabinet. I remember reading a post here on AK about someone removing that top piece. Good luck finding it. Maybe try searching for fixing cracked Advent cabinet.

Solid wood is not a good material for building cabinets for several reasons: the material is not consistent between samples, internal imperfections, and different characteristics depending upon moisture content, among others. No serious speaker builder uses solid wood if they are concerned about good sound.

Although the top part is solid wood, I am sure the rest of the cabinet is veneer. If you like the combination of walnut with the veneer, go for it. If you are going to redo the veneer in walnut, do it because you love the speakers, not because you plan on selling them and recouping your time and costs. In my area, Advents are not worth much, particularly the Jensen era like yours. I've tried to sell my restored and refinished Legacy II and I have not been able to get $100 for them. So I have them doing garage duty.
 
After looking at it, definitely just accents. It will be a little bit of a burden taking them off. They are held with staples to the veneer.
I took some pics of the capacitors. New to this so I'm not sure what I'm looking for to purchase. Any help would be appreciated.
 

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Adam.Holroyd said:
After looking at it, definitely just accents. It will be a little bit of a burden taking them off. They are held with staples to the veneer.
I took some pics of the capacitors. New to this so I'm not sure what I'm looking for to purchase. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

The green components are non-polarized electrolytic caps. I see 16 uF, 22.5 uF, and the third, smallest one does not have the capacitance value visible. I generally use metallized polypropylene caps to recap speakers.
https://www.parts-express.com/Solen-16uF-400V-Polypropylene-Capacitor-027-578
You could also use 7.5 uF and 8.2 uF, wired in parallel, and save a buck or two.

This one is close enough to 22.5 uF:
https://www.parts-express.com/Audyn-Cap-Q4-22uF-400V-MKP-Foil-Capacitor-027-120

The voltage rating does not matter as long as it is equal to or greater than what is installed. The capacitance value should be as close as possible, if not exact. If I cannot get exact, a 5% variance will generally give acceptable performance.

The poly caps will be much larger, so you need to be creative in placing them on the PCB. You can use jumpers to extend the leads and stack them on the PCB. Tie-wrapping them in place is best, but you can use hot glue, but work quickly because heat is the enemy of caps.
 
While you have the drivers out, brace up the enclosure. Most are 1/2" particle board. Besides the crossover redo, the best possible improvement would be to rebuild the enclosure out of 3/4" MDF. Even 5/8" would be a notable improvement. Then stuff the enclosures.
 
Adam.Holroyd said:
After looking at it, definitely just accents. It will be a little bit of a burden taking them off. They are held with staples to the veneer.
Click to expand...

I think clamping the caps together with Titebond Blue will make the repaired area stronger than the original wood. If it was me, I'd clamp them together to repair, and then stain the caps a darker color that intentionally contrasts with the rest of the cabinet.

They are great looking speakers as they came from the factory. Everyone's taste is different, obviously, but I suspect they would look even better with a darker contrasting wood on top (balancing the black base at the bottom).
 
hopeless said:
While you have the drivers out, brace up the enclosure. Most are 1/2" particle board. Besides the crossover redo, the best possible improvement would be to rebuild the enclosure out of 3/4" MDF. Even 5/8" would be a notable improvement. Then stuff the enclosures.
Click to expand...

Fairly sure these used about 5/8" particle board. But still they could use some bracing.
 
Thanks for all the advice everyone. Cabinets are a bit worn out. I'll take a better look at them and either rebuild or brace. Ordered all new caps today as well. 22uf, 16uf and 8uf. The 22 and 16 only came with 5% tolerance unless I wanted to pay 55/piece for 2%. The 8uf came with 1%. Hope that works well enough.
 
hopeless said:
While you have the drivers out, brace up the enclosure. Most are 1/2" particle board. Besides the crossover redo, the best possible improvement would be to rebuild the enclosure out of 3/4" MDF. Even 5/8" would be a notable improvement. Then stuff the enclosures.
Click to expand...
MDF??? Do you paint the MDF or place a veneer over the top?
 
Adam.Holroyd said:
MDF??? Do you paint the MDF or place a veneer over the top?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you like. If you like the modern black look, paint them. If you like the classic wood look, veneer them.

In your original post, you asked if it was worth repairing these speakers. Refoaming and recapping them will result in a speaker that is serviceable, but worth only a little bit more than you spend on foam and caps. Considering you got the speakers for free, you can pass them on without suffering a loss when you tire of them. After recapping and refoaming, listen to them to decide if they are keepers.

These are not great speakers. They can be easily be bettered by many other speakers for not much money. If you want to make new cabinets, do it because you like to mess with building things. Don't do it because you think you can ever get your investment out of them.
 
RTally said:
Depends on what you like. If you like the modern black look, paint them. If you like the classic wood look, veneer them.

In your original post, you asked if it was worth repairing these speakers. Refoaming and recapping them will result in a speaker that is serviceable, but worth only a little bit more than you spend on foam and caps. Considering you got the speakers for free, you can pass them on without suffering a loss when you tire of them. After recapping and refoaming, listen to them to decide if they are keepers.

These are not great speakers. They can be easily be bettered by many other speakers for not much money. If you want to make new cabinets, do it because you like to mess with building things. Don't do it because you think you can ever get your investment out of them.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I'll get them recapped and foamed this weekend. Now that I'm diving in a little bit, I imagine a person could build pretty great speakers for much less than purchasing top end equipment. Is this correct thinking?
 
Adam.Holroyd said:
Now that I'm diving in a little bit, I imagine a person could build pretty great speakers for much less than purchasing top end equipment. Is this correct thinking?
Click to expand...

Ha, Ha. Nope.

At least, if you consider that your time has value. There is a lot more to building a great speaker than just throwing some drivers and a crossover in a cabinet. If it was easy, then there would be lots of great speakers out there at a reasonable price. There is a very active DIY speaker community, but most will admit that it takes multiple efforts to learn how to make a good speaker, let alone a great one. There are many reasons to build your own speakers, but I don't believe low cost is one of them, at least after you factor in the learning curve to be able to build that good speaker.

A middle road is to build a speaker from a kit. It is often less expensive than comparative quality assembled speakers, and someone else has taken care of the engineering and testing to ensure that that the kit produces good results.
 
RTally said:
Ha, Ha. Nope.

At least, if you consider that your time has value. There is a lot more to building a great speaker than just throwing some drivers and a crossover in a cabinet. If it was easy, then there would be lots of great speakers out there at a reasonable price. There is a very active DIY speaker community, but most will admit that it takes multiple efforts to learn how to make a good speaker, let alone a great one. There are many reasons to build your own speakers, but I don't believe low cost is one of them, at least after you factor in the learning curve to be able to build that good speaker.

A middle road is to build a speaker from a kit. It is often less expensive than comparative quality assembled speakers, and someone else has taken care of the engineering and testing to ensure that that the kit produces good results.
Click to expand...

LOL...Worth a shot ;)
 
Great speakers! Easy refoam and paired with my rebuilt HK 330B were a little bit of magic.
 
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