Advent Sound Space Controller

[MarcusT]

I just bought one of these in an estate sale and wonder if anyone is using one or knows something about them.

 

[Lavane]

Is it an amplifier with built in reverb?

 

[MarcusT]

Is it an amplifier with built in reverb?

It does have reverb, but apparently this was from the 70s and intended to make your stereo “fill the room”. Used some kind of micro-delay for two of the four speakers to make it echo. I think you run it in line with your main amp to add these “effects” to your sound. I can’t imagine it does a better job than the sound processing of a modern surround sound receiver, I quests I will have to hook it up to see.

 

[Lavane]

Take a look inside? Hopefully it isn't a spring reverb. Koss had a similar box.
It had selectors for things like Hall, Night Club, etc., like a modern surround sound, but only in stereo. It had a reverb too I think.

 

[MarcusT]

Take a look inside? Hopefully it isn't a spring reverb. Koss had a similar box.
It had selectors for things like Hall, Night Club, etc., like a modern surround sound, but only in stereo. It had a reverb too I think.

 

[MarcusT]

Take a look inside? Hopefully it isn't a spring reverb. Koss had a similar box.
It had selectors for things like Hall, Night Club, etc., like a modern surround sound, but only in stereo. It had a reverb too I think.

Here is the inside, but that honestly doesn’t tell me a thing

 

[Lavane]

Here is the inside, but that honestly doesn’t tell me a thing

Well, it's much better than a noisy spring reverb. I remember a cousin of mine had a reverb in his car. Everytime he went over a bump it sounded like thunder.

 

[swechsler]

Are those EPROMs in the lower middle of the board? An early digital device, maybe?

 

[sregor]

IIRC not digital, but use CCD devices in what is called a "bucket brigade" delay line. Signal is sampled, and sent through delay line, but not digitized, (similar concept to Class D - Not digital but discrete...)
After looking at board, it may be digital. There were a couple of CCD delays out there at the time, but all the CPUs and chips makes me think digital.

 

[sregor]

Digital - Review here at page 70. Audio-1979-05.pdf (worldradiohistory.com)

 

[swechsler]

4 KB of memory and 10 bit quantization. Measured specs of the surround channels in the review don't show much loss of highs, which is surprising considering the limited memory (remember that media compression algorithms weren't in existence back then, and even if they were, the hardware wouldn't have had the power to compress in real time).