Vintage Advent HT system

[gyusher]

Thinking about a vintage Advent HT system.

I just found 6 very near mint Advent loudspeakers.
Legacy II (2)
Prodigy (2)
Mini Advent (2)

Refoamed the Legacy IIs last night. Will do the Prodigy's today if I have some 8" surrounds. . .If not today in a few days.

The Minis are OK. . . Tender but OK for now.

these guys look great, sound very nice especially for HT.

Question. . .

Any of you Advent guys know the aprox build dates for this series Advent?? They are all close enough to be consecutive

 

[MarkAnderson]

I don't know much about the "Jensen-era" Advents, which all these would be, but they should all be early/mid '80's, I think.

 

[DaveElton]

As Mark said (HI Mark! ) the Jensen Era Advents are indeed from the early to mid 80's..I just "rescued" a pair of Legacy 2's a few weeks ago, and enjoy them greatly..Jensen I feel remained very true to the sound of the "Orginal-New-Advents" while "upgrading" the tweeter..Many have preferences as to which tweeter they prefer, ME, I like 'em both IMHO you cant go wrong with any of the Advent line from the 70's thru the 80's Enjoy!

 

[thedelihaus]

Congrats.

Just a word of caution however- those minis are 4 ohm loads, in case you didn't know.

My advice is keep an eye out for a pair of Baby Advent IIS ( the Is have a cone tweeter, the IIs a dome) as they are as narrow depth-wise as the minis, but are about twice as wide and maybe 1 and a half times taller, use a 6.5" woofer, and are not as demanding a load (unsure of the rating, but I've been told 6 ohms to low hits of 4 at times- where the minis are 4 and under).

The Baby Advent IIs can be had for $20 to $25 off Craigslist if you're patient, or $40 if impatient.

 

[MarkAnderson]

(HI Mark! )

Hey Dave. What's shakin'?

 

[wajobu]

I have a pair of the Advents in your middle photo...not much of a crossover inside, but they are actually a pretty respectable pair of speakers--they sound quite good. I think that you will be happy with them and the solid pecan-wood accents.

 

[gyusher]

Well I refoamed the Legacy IIs last night and they sound spectacular. . .Crystal clear with gobs of good clean bass. These sound better than any Advents I have owned which may well mean that since they are newer by about 15 years the internals may be closer to design limits. . .

The Minis have a driver that measures close to 5 inches and if indeed they are 4 ohm speakers I have been pushing them hard all day on a receiver that has shut down before driving 4 ohm speakers (Akai AA-1050) along with the Legacy IIs at the same time. No heat just great sounding speakers.

Typically I wont have an amp or receiver in the house that is not stable running a 4ohm load. . .Too many great loudspeakers rated at 4 ohm. OHM for one that I love plus early Paradigms etc. etc.

I have surrounds comming for the Towers (Prodigy) should be here mid week.
My thinking is a total Advent HT system. . . The Legacy IIs cleaned up to MINT in my eyes and it looks like the other 4 will as well.

Come to find out the previous owner bought these along with a Kenwood seperates system in early to mid 90s all brand new. . .His wife said get them big boxes out of her house. I was in the right place at the right time. . .They had been sitting covered up in his heated garage for the past 5 years. . .I guess he needed the room for his new Harley Fat Boy. . . as it is sitting where the speakers were.

Evidently he had been robbed and his KW seperates had been stolen. Of course everything was replaced with smaller componets along with tiny speakers that we know well. . .

Long story short. I never gave this period Advents the time of day until now. . .I like'em. . .Like'em good.

 

[Blackstone]

Well I refoamed the Legacy IIs last night and they sound spectacular. . .Crystal clear with gobs of good clean bass. .

I agree with you on the Legacy IIs. I purchased some from a fellow AK member. I also have some Baby Advent II's. After reading your posts, I'd like to try them for an HT setup....whenever I get around to it.

 

[thedelihaus]

I'm a big fan of the sound of the newer Jensen-era Advents. A pleasant sound to them, they remind me somehow of Polks yet sound enough different to not be confused- I think it's because they just seem to play well with pretty much every type of gear- very flexible. They definately have a charactor all their own though, and aren't sound-similar to the Polks. They just share that easy-going personality and adaptability.

I came close to running Baby Advent IIs with a HT setup. I backed out because I had a glut of Paradigm Titans, Baltek 30s, Minimus 7s and Boston Acoustics A-40s to already play with.

Yank the drivers and crossovers from the Baby Advent IIs and prepare to be unimpressed. The parts look like turd.

But they sound great. I really enjoyed them.

And giving them away to friends as gifts, well, it's worth it as I know the sound will improve over their 90's Awia systems, their boomboxes, and their Bose systems. Really nice sound.

The Minis- nothing at all wrong with them, they are wonderful and they work great for home theater, and they're great for their size, but I dig the Baby Advent IIs very much, for music and if you have the room, for HT. If room is tight or you prefer a smallish speaker, the Minis are a great catch.

 

[gyusher]

I'll use the Legacy II as Fronts
Prodigys as Rear
Mini as Rear Surround (7.1)

Center will stay with my Acoustech center for now until I find a single Legacy II

Sold my gorgeous time capsule CS-99As that I was using as fronts. A buyer made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Seems he bought a pair new while in Japan in the early 70s and mine were so close to his when new plus the fact he had been searching for a mint pair like mine. . . Not to mention the guy doing me a huge favor by helping me out. . . I mean a huge favor. Co-Pays are killing us right now.

This left me with my CS-701As as Fronts now with Fisher XP-60s as rears and for rear surround a 20 dollar pair of Radio Shack 6in 2 ways.

This is the first time I have had 6 speakers that are close enough alike that are nice enough to look at and sound good enough in a long time. . .

May not stay this way but for now I'm excited about trying it. . .

 

[SpruceMoose]

deli: you're right about the looks of the advents. i have a bunch of the pre-jensen ones (see sig) and they are junk to look at them. but the sound.... thats another story. the money went into the sound, not the looks.

and gyusher: my advents do just fine as HT speakers. the only reason i am using minimus 7s as side and rear surrounds is the size factor. and i have had them for decades. they sound very much like the advents, with the exception of deep bass, which is routed to the subs anyway.

 

[gyusher]

I'm looking forward to using "timbre matched" speakers. . . Never really concerned me too much unless there was a gross mismatch.

I guess it goes back to the old Dolby Surround then Prologic where a full bandwidth signal didn't go there anyway. Now DD 5.1-7.1 with all full range signals at each speaker it is more important.

Regardless the rear and rear surround speakers are still more ambiance than anything unless its music. They do get more use today than the earlier forms of surround modes. . .

I've had it both ways and it is not a big concern to me anyway. I'm still a fan of ProLogic, done right it can be pretty good.

Still I'm anxious to get-r-done. . .

 

[SpruceMoose]

if you set your surrounds to small they will get rolled off at the hi-pass frequency, typically 80hz. (not the surrounds around the woofers...)

i have the front/center doubles set to large, and all the others set to small. the double advents can take just about anything, and the minimus 7s dont have to. works out perfectly.

 

[gyusher]

I set all my speakers to 'small' regardless of their FR. . .Done this since the mid 70s when I first started using subs. I've used mains (fronts) that were flat to 16Hz and still set them as small. Typically I cross them at 80Hz although at times up around 100 to 120 depending on what I'm trying to do. You will not 'locate' the subwoofer in my house. You would bet money that I do not use a sub and that bass is comming from the speaker you think its comming from.

When I setup a room I don't care for a flat response. I set it around 4-6dB hot under 100 and start rolling off the highs around 6000Hz until I end up around 4-6dB down at 16-20kHz.

The reason I set large speakers at small is because I want the low bass off of them for a couple reasons. One is for lower power requirements and the other is to clean up the speaker. So far I have yet to hear a speaker that did not sound better with the low bass removed. Lets the speaker not have to work so hard for its keep plus I use good subwoofers that in my mind do a better job anyway.

That said though for just plain stereo I prefer no sub but just two full range speakers for simplicity sake if for no other reason. I do like a powerful stereo system that can and will dig deep and do what it is supposed to do.

This vintage HT thing is kinda new to me. Normally my 'big' system cost about as much as my house but now days I can't or wont spend that kind of money to do it. Besides it is a whole lot more fun this way. . .

I have a few Minimus 7s that I have had forever too. . .Two of them used to be bathroom speakers that I drove with a 200wpc Adcom 555, talk about pushing that little speaker. Sounded great in that small of a room. I still have them but they get used little now days. I imagine I'll have them when I die.

 

[SpruceMoose]

i think its that i just cant bear to waste the bottom end of those 6 advent woofers in the front of the ht. thats a lot of cone area! and besides, i have cheap subs! a 15" audiosource driver in a custom box with 250 watts, and a philips 12" driver in a box built into the floor joists running off 100 watts of an old jvc receiver with a dead channel.

works for me!

someday i will do an spl survey of the room and see how bad it really is. until then, bring on the movies and music!

 

[gyusher]

works for me!
!

That is what its all about in a nutshell.

For years I used 6in two ways for everything but low bass. With vintage speakers there are so many gorgeous full size speakers out there cheap like the Pioneer CS-99A etc. Gorgeous Walnut cabs and awesome looking lattice work grills among many many others that are nice to just look at.

One thing I do know is my room and how I like it best. Not so long ago I was of the opinion that only full range speakers with a subwoofer only for LFE. I was using 7 Adcom GFA-565 mono blocks at the time. I had to completly redo the wiring in my house by adding dedicated circuits just for my audio stuff.

Then the company moved me to Dallas where I had only 1 outlet (15 amp circuit) to work off of for my audio/video gear. . .Needless to say it was time for a receiver and small effecient speakers. I changed my attitude big time during this period.

I went from all full range speakers to only small speakers with a dedicated subwoofer at each position. For a time I believed strongly that this was the only way to go. . . Today I get just as good if not better sound from my HT gear using only one subwoofer. I think my latest sub (SVS PC+2039) sounds as good or better than any I have owned. Takes up very little floor space, easy to place for good sound and I like how it sounds.

Now I am willing to try just about anything that sounds good to me. I like the energy you get from big speakers. . . I run across scoodles of nice looking great sounding speakers priced right so I started fooling around as I am doing today. I am very anxious to get this Advent HT thing running. Most likely it will be setup and running by this weekend.

As is the case with any audio setup the sound is only as good as you think it is. . .

 

[SpruceMoose]

i think the only change i would like to make at this point is to scrap the existing subs and go with an IB setup blowing into the basement. but its not my hardwood floor to cut a hole in. oh well...

in the meantime:

 

[gyusher]

Got the Prodigy's 8in woofers refoamed. . .Bad news. . .one of them is gone. . .couldn't get her to work without rubbing. . .My thinking is he must have played them too long and fried the VC. . .Now I love how the good one sounds. . .Looks like woofer shopping is in order.

I had very high hopes for these little towers. . . I still do. I think the whole system will be killer. . .

 

[SpruceMoose]

sounds like a bit of 'bay cruising is in order. good hunting!

 

[Doctordirt]

I just picked up a pair of those minis -- they sound great