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Suggestions for the right receiver for 2 pair Advents

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Dan Zanes

New Member
Greetings...I'm new here. Grateful for all of the wisdom. Thanks to your encouragement I just refoamed a pair of New Large Advents. I'm using a Technics SA - 202 with these and a pair of small Advents in the next room over from the same receiver. The small ones sound good but the New Large Advents don't seem quite right. The highs and mids are nice and clear but the bass is a little lacking. Maybe the receiver doesn't have enough power to get everything where it needs to be? It's not that it's bad but it just doesn't feel full and alive the way I wished it would....I'm open to all suggestions. And I'm trying not to spend a lot of dough...thank you!
 
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Bass is something an OLA excels at. It was a stongpoint when they were introduced. Assuming you used a foam surround that was complient enough and the correct profile, unless the woofers are out of phase, bass output should be quite good. More prodigeous than Small Advents. .

I have only refoamed woofers in ten or so pairs of speakers but I refoamed a pair of woofers several years ago from speakers I'd never heard before. The woofer surrounds were totally disintegrated when I got them. To save time, I bought new surrounds locally from one of the few shops that sold such things but when the job was done, I felt that bass was sadly lacking. Especially since the enclosures were large.

Turned out, that local vendor sold me surrounds for car subs. Way too stiff and I suspected that at time of purchase. But being impatient and without any original surrounds for comparison, I believed the vendor when he said they were appropriate.

A speaker repair shop I took the woofers to for examination afterwards (but refused to sell parts to DIY'ers) told me the surrounds I used turned my bass drivers into midranges because the surrounds were so stiff. So I had to do the re-foam all over again using foam surrounds purchased online from someplace like Simply Speakers or Parts express.
 
You need more power. A lot more for driving 2 pairs of OLAs.

I'd go with something 100+ WPC. I have a single pair of Advent 5012s (basically the final version of the large Advent) and while I got away with a 38 watt receiver without pushing them too much, they are much happier with 80+ watt stuff.
 
I second the need for more power. If you were only powering the single pair of OLAs in a near field listening environment, you could probably get away with it. And it sounds like you are somewhat...but your ears didn't fail you. If I remember correctly, OLAs aren't overly sensitive. I bet they'd sing with at least 50 watts. But if you're trying to use system A+B together, definitely go 100 watts.
 
Dan Zanes said:
Greetings...I'm new here. Grateful for all of the wisdom. Thanks to your encouragement I just refoamed a pair of New Large Advents. I'm using a Technics SA - 202 with these and a pair of small Advents in the next room over from the same receiver. The small ones sound good but the New Large Advents don't seem quite right. The highs and mids are nice and clear but the bass is a little lacking. Maybe the receiver doesn't have enough power to get everything where it needs to be? It's not that it's bad but it just doesn't feel full and alive the way I wished it would....I'm open to all suggestions. And I'm trying not to spend a lot of dough...thank you!
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1 set of speakers at a time or 2 at a time.

If 1, and no bass with the NLA, I would check polarity. If the woofers are out of phase, bass goes bye-bye and the mids and highs sing along.

If 2, then you need a better amp, possibly in addition of other phase related issues.

Assuming the refoam was right.
 
You guys need to read his post more carefully. He's not driving two pair of OLA's or two pair of NLA's. He's driving one pair of NLA's and one pair of Smaller Advents.

If you are driving them in parallel, that's bad. The smaller Advent is a 4 ohm system and you are taxing your receiver with the combined load. It would be about a 2.6 ohm load which is not good for a typical solid state amplifier.

The 4 ohm pair will get most of the power since it is the lower impedance of the two systems.

Doug
 
FWIW, a pair of 8 ohm speakers and a pair of 4 ohm speakers in parallel will result in a load of 2.7 ohms.
 
Just buy another receiver for the other room. 30 wpc for Advents is just fine for normal listening levels. I think they do better with around 50+ wpc but 30 will work. I used to run my OLAs with my Marantz 1060 with no sweat.

Small Advents can be hard on older units and like everyone above has said, DONT run them at the same time as running your other set of speakers.
 
I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts here! They make a lot of sense. I went and plugged in a 90’s Fischer receiver from a yard sale that has 100wpc and all of a sudden my new large advents sounded more like something…the bass was certainly there, (although the overall sound wasn’t great). I love being able to hear whatever I’m playing in the kitchen and the living room. It sounds like running the small Advents and the New Large Advents at the same time isn’t really going to make sense though. There’s not a single receiver solution?? Thank you all!!
 
Dan Zanes said:
I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts here! They make a lot of sense. I went and plugged in a 90’s Fischer receiver from a yard sale that has 100wpc and all of a sudden my new large advents sounded more like something…the bass was certainly there, (although the overall sound wasn’t great). I love being able to hear whatever I’m playing in the kitchen and the living room. It sounds like running the small Advents and the New Large Advents at the same time isn’t really going to make sense though. There’s not a single receiver solution?? Thank you all!!
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I have 2 other new large Advents that just need to be refoamed. What if I used those instead of the 4 ohm Small Advents? Would that make it easier for a receiver to handle? Thank you!!
 
Maybe you just don't like the sound of the large Advents. Maybe they could use a refresh and some new capacitors... And yes, the Technics could probably handle two 8 ohm speakers running at the same time because that only presents a 4 ohm load to the receiver.
 
coonmanx said:
Maybe you just don't like the sound of the large Advents. Maybe they could use a refresh and some new capacitors... And yes, the Technics could probably handle two 8 ohm speakers running at the same time because that only presents a 4 ohm load to the receiver.
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Thanks for this suggestion….I definitely like the sound of the Advents and when I listened to them with a more powerful receiver they sounded great. I’ll get the small Advents out of the mix and try the 2 pair of 8 ohm NLA with the Technics and see what happens…it sure would be nice to have everything through one unit….
 
SA-202 is probably series A+B so you won't be in trouble driving both, but at 30 W/C or so it's short on power for Advents.

Check the wiring if you removed the woofers, it's easy to swap the leads if they are not unequal size connectors. Verify the connections on your speaker cables, reversing them results in very low bass as the woofers cancel each other.
 
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