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Advent Speaker Documentation

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I just came across some advent loudspeakers that are pretty old and haven’t been used for a while (20-30+ years). Should I be doing a tuneup on them? They work okay, but there’s a little static and the bass kind of weak. I don’t know if it’s the receiver or the speakers since the entire system is pretty old. I want to try and repair everything myself but I’ve never worked with audio equipment before so I’m just looking for some advice.
 
Danigod said:
I just came across some advent loudspeakers that are pretty old and haven’t been used for a while (20-30+ years). Should I be doing a tuneup on them? They work okay, but there’s a little static and the bass kind of weak. I don’t know if it’s the receiver or the speakers since the entire system is pretty old. I want to try and repair everything myself but I’ve never worked with audio equipment before so I’m just looking for some advice.
Click to expand...

refoam, new caps. enjoy.
 
baco99 said:
refoam, new caps. enjoy.
Click to expand...
Any recommendation for the caps? I’ve also never soldered before (almost positive I will need to), is it as difficult as it looks? I’ve been using contact cleaner for now to avoid having to solder anything.
 
Soldering is best but I have seen speakers in my past that had wire nut connections. Just be sure the wires or leads are twisted together before twisting on the wire nut. Maybe not the best but would save you from getting a soldering iron and all that goes with it.
John
 
@Danigod

This thread was initially about Advent speaker documentation.

You might get more traction if you create your own thread with the model of Advents you have, if you're not sure post some pics.

On top of that note that you're seeking guidance on speaker restoration. Something like "Advent speaker restoration help" or similar.
 
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By snhirsch, I'm posting this here in case CSP ever goes down for any reason, don't want it to be lost:
Memories: Working at Advent - Summer 1970 This was written by snhirsch at the Classic Speaker Pages:
I interned at Advent (Putnam Ave facility) after my freshman year at college in 1970. My nominal assignment was to work out and document the mechanical and electrical alignment procedure for the Model 100 cassette deck (original unit w/ Nakamichi transport). During lunch, the techs and I would sit in the 4-channel demo room and fire up the tunes.

Henry was doing a lot of R&D into 4-channel sound based on a 4:2 encoding scheme invented by Peter Scheiber. The listening room was equipped with a pair of Advent speakers (wired parallel for 4-ohm load) in each corner, driven from a pair of Crown DC-300 power amps (first I'd ever seen and awesome for that period). Program source was a Crown discrete 4-channel tape deck that likely requred the floor underneath it to be reinforced to carry its weight :). One could sit on a stool in the middle of the 20' x 20' room and switch between direct 4-channel and a path that did 4:2:4 through the Scheiber encoder and decoder using a hand-held button. My personal favorite was the first Chicago album, remixed to 4-ch from the original masters. You cannot imagine what it sounded like when cranked through all that gear. Still makes me smile (sorry for the pun, Chicago fans).

At trade shows, the speakers were demoed with more modest amounts of power (in deference to the other booths). Unless I have this scrambled after all these years, Andy Petite (marketing and sales director) used the first Pentangle album as the primary demo source, but it had to the be the UK version (uncompressed master and far better vinyl - we had an entire steel cabinet full). There's a drum solo on the tune "Pentangling" that's so nicely recorded that you can hear the air "whooshing" around the brushes. Great way to show off the tweeters.

I really loved the production jig they used to form the tweeter domes. Only Henry could start with plastic pipe, a water tank and a vacuum cleaner and have such musical devices emerge.

https://community.classicspeakerpages.net/topic/8513-memories-working-at-advent-summer-1970/

Please keep this thread to Advent documentation and historical info - thanks.
 
I'm working on restoring a pair of Original Large Advent "A3". New foam surrounds and some veneer repair. So I found this thread digging. In the interest of science I hooked up my DATS V3 to measure the Free Air Parameters of the woofers and tweeters. Attached here. Only posting the results of one since both woofers and tweets measured close to one another. This woofer measured Fs just over 31 Htz and the other 28.6.

Since both sets measured fairly close to one another, I'm going to presume this is a fairly good representation of the numbers other people should get with a good woofer and a good tweeter. So use these to determine if you have an issue when working on yours.

I'll take a full cabinet reading and post it (no new crossover caps) after the poly dries on the cabinet.
 

Attachments

I've measured many >10 Large Advent woofers and with the correct foam, and an original
spider Fs measures around 18 Hz so those are way off. We are measuring Fs but you can
also use DATS to measure Fc by putting the woofer in the sealed box and measuring again.
The correct Fc is about 42 Hz, say 40-44 Hz.
 
I simply figured they were within spec because they were reading so close to one another, and have read that those woofers Fs ratings can be anywhere from 16-35 Htz. They're a sequential set of serial #'s as well so they'd have the same manufacture date

For measuring the Fc, do you need to bypass the crossover, or could I just run it off the back terminals without the tweeter connected?
 
In the sealed box with the tweeter disconnected running an impedance sweep through the x-over I get the peak at 48.7 Htz, so it's a little higher than your spec of 42.
 
You can measure through the crossover, should work fine.
Yes, and Qtc will be higher also. Do you know if the spiders were ever replaced?
If not you can just refoam them with the correct foam, also check for spider sag.
 
The foam was a kit from ebay, Don't know if it's worth it for me to order new foam, these were ROUGH barn finds, I've re-done some of the oak veneer that had a lot of water damage on the top of one.

Just got them running and they sound great! The spiders should be OG, by the look these have never been touched before I opened them up, re-foamed and re-poly'd the cabinets.
 
Sure that's fine for a rough pair.
I'm finding that some of the stiffer foam lasts longer.

This was the wrong width, but still came in at the correct Fc:

Large Advent Measurement with Wrong Foam

I have a pair of NLA (Advent) woofers that were refoamed by a friend with the cheap foam that has the smaller .5" wide roll and the very wide outside edge. I read for years that in addition to these issues the compliance is far stiffer. Decided to mount one in a NLA box with standard...
audiokarma.org
 
Nice, I didn’t want to veer off topic. Hopefully this information still helps anyone wanting to work on theirs
 
Hi - Newbie here -
Working on restoring a beat up pair of Large Advent 1974's. Both speakers back panel literature that they glue and staple on are torn / missing basically not salvageable.
Anyway to source both "warranty" and "using the Advent loudspeaker " copies or scans? Any guidance is appreciated - Thx SDH
 
I don't know how I possibly missed this thread, originally and then at its resurrection last year, but I did,

Coincidently, my quad system is based on a pair of original Advents in each corner, stacked vertically. The difference is, I have separate Heathkit amplifiers, sometimes AA-29 stereo amplifiers and sometimes AA-2010 quadraphonic amplifiers, driving each pair instead of wiring them in parallel. The power output amplifiers in these are identical except for output transistor types.

One of the pairs is a very early pair from 1970 I bought from a guy whose parents bought them directly from the factory in Cambridge. The other three pairs are later, mid-seventies units.

It sounds fantastic!

Doug
 
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