Advent Love or no Love?

[classic carl]

The low end with the OLA's just sound thin and lack presence.

I've never heard that from anyone while describing Large Advents. Did you ever check the polarity of the wires inside of the cabinet?

 

[Lavane]

Not yet, but I did try swapping polarity at the speaker terminals. It could be the room also. New house, diffferent size room, ect. The more I mess with positioning the better they are sounding though. The speakers I have been using seem to be more forgiving when it comes to placement. Anyone know the sensitivity of the OLA's offhand? The others I've used in my main system are in the 93 to 95db range.

 

[WaynerN]

So, I may have found the problems with mine. Toed in, tilted back a little and they sound better. I was listening to David Bowie's Black Star album and these speakers sounded totally different. After playing verious other music repositioning them has helped. I'll have to get or make some stands to get the tweeters at ear level next.
The low end still isn't where I like it, but it is better. I guess I really am just used to ported speakers. I'm not a bass head, but these so far are the most relaxed set of speakers I've had when it comes to bass. I'm happy with the midrange and high end though.

Personally, I think the whole concept of having the tweeter at ear level, is pretty debatable. I try to have mine above ear level when ever possible. My point is that when we listen to live music, they are on an elevated stage. When we listen to classical music, they are on a stage. So the speakers should be on a stage.

Tilting a speaker changes the time arrival of various wavelengths.

 

[Doug G.]

I hope you aren't mistaking mid bass hump with true bass. Often, speakers that have true, smooth, low bass response sound bass shy to those who are used to hearing "boomy" type bass from, typically, ported speakers. That happened to me back in the seventies when I first heard Advents.

When deep bass is really there, however, they reproduce it.

Doug

 

[wallacefl]

Which would defeat Henry's concept behind the design - a simple, inexpensive speaker that works pretty well across the range just shy of half an octave missing from either end. I find that the New Advent with the simpler, revised crossover improved the overall balance. I did, however, update the crossover components with mine, soldered the leads and put wool diffusers around the tweeters to minimize diffraction.

I run them in the garage system today driven by a 300 watt / channel Ncore amplifier.

Agree that this was not the original design goal but they are no longer in expensive and I feel even using old school drivers they could become much more/ better with a little modern know how.

 

[Lavane]

I hope you aren't mistaking mid bass hump with true bass. Often, speakers that have true, smooth, low bass response sound bass shy to those who are used to hearing "boomy" type bass from, typically, ported speakers. That happened to me back in the seventies when I first heard Advents.

When deep bass is really there, however, they reproduce it.

Doug

I'm way over boomy speakers. I've been listening to records mostly and decided to try some CD's. The bass is better and while standing next to the speaker I noticed a high pitched sound that's there only through the phono. I may have a problem with that board. A tube loose or going bad. I did just move so I guess I need to open up the preamp. Its not the first time a tube started screaming at me.

 

[DirtFarmer]

This pair has been with me since 1972. I must enjoy them. But they haven't been my primary speakers for 20 years.
View attachment 1038141

Looks like someone "yawned in Technicolor" right on that grille!

 

[Pete B]

I had OLA and Dahlquist DQ-10s at the same time and wish I had the skills needed to make a 3 way out of the Advent using the Philips 5060ad out of the Dahlquist. The Infinity Qb would be a good starting point as an example. Even the double OLA had a less than clear midrange that the 5060ad or modern equivalent might be able to solve...paging Pete Basel! Please.

After seeing the Dahlquist M907 and remembering how well they did in an Audio review
I think that they'd make an excellent basis for a 3-way Advent:

 

[Krosya]

Well, I tell ya, while I liked my Legacys, I did clearly like some other speakers I have better. So, I thought, I'd experiment a bit with them. Being a sceptic , I never really thought much about the whole idea of recaping speakers. While I can understand the concept behind it, I always thought that whatever difference new caps will make, it would not be obvious if even there at all. So, I finally decided to give it a shot with these Legacys. After all, I figured, The worst that can happen - I would lose $30 or so. I found an old thread here with good detailed info on recaping these speakers. Short trip to the PE and I was ready for my project.
Mind you, I have never done this before, this was my very first recap - Ever! After a couple of hours, speakers were back in business, hooked up and playing with new fat Dayton caps in them. And all I can say is WOW! I really didnt expect much of a difference if any at all. But its just crazy how much these speakers improved. Much clearer highs and tighter lows. I own ADS speakers, so I know how clear they can sound. My Legacys now are pretty close . But what really blew me away is improvement in soundstage - in several records I tried, I can feel as if music is playing live in a room, not througn the speakers!
If you have these refoamed and recaped with quality parts - these Advents are superb speakers, much better than I ever expected. Now, I plan to try a recap on some other speakers and see if results will be consistent .

 

[Lavane]

So, I was complainimg about the lack of bass with my OLA's recently in this thread. Since then I have made a few changes to my system. I added the new Nobsound T11 phono preamp running 12AX7 tubes. The new version comes with a metal box, adjustable output and better grounding. Also metal shields for the tubes. I then connected it to a Nobsound passive preamp with a relay activated three input selector. The selector, has two outputs, one through the volume control and one pass through. The pass through is used for my tube hybrid headphone amp. For what ever reason, this made a diffference in the low end for the OLA's. The new phono stage has only a slight hum at high volume with no source playing through it. Its just kind of, strange since I didn't have this problem using other pairs of speakers with the Aikido line stage and PH-10 phono board. Plus I can now, run the gain on my ST-70 amplifier wide open, before it had to be set around 10:00. And I now have a much fuller range of motion with the volume control on the passive preamp. The OLA's soumd pretty damn nice now. I just can't figure this one out.