What's wrong with my Advent 5002? They sound very harsh.

S

SamiK

New Member
I picked up these quite sometime ago. I just refoamed them and hooked them up to my usual receiver. These sound horrible. My speakers have these tweeters, whereas others have the "fried egg" tweeters. Are these tweeters original? I also have the switch on the back that goes from normal to background.

These guys sound like they have twice the tweeter volume. This also makes the bottom end sound very weak in relation. That is... if the tweeters are too loud, I can't turn up the volume, so there isn't any bass to appreciate. They sound so bad, that I am thinking there is something big has gone wrong--not like minor tweaking would solve. The cabinets were in good condition. The woofers (except the foam) and tweeters appeared fine. The old man who sold them to me only listened to classical music, so I don't think he turned it up very loud.

Crossovers cannot be the problem, because when I replaced capacitors in other speakers, the original capacitors were either within spec or very close to it. Also, resistors can't be bad. Can they go bad? I replaced/upgraded capacitors and resistors before, and the improvements were minor.

Any suggestion on what could be wrong with these guys?
 

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No idea but something must be wrong. 5002 might be the best Advent ever. Also, 5002s never used a fried egg tweeter. I think your's are the right tweeter if my memory serves correct.
 
I wonder if the woofer surrounds are cracked or leaking. If so, the bass output would be way down and you'd hear relatively too much from the tweeters.

Take a good look at the foam surrounds between the woofer cone and the outer woofer frame. If you see cracks or breaks, you need to refoam them. That's not hard to do. I betcha that's your problem and it's a pretty simple one to solve.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw that you refoamed them. In that case, check for two things:

1) No binding as the woofer cones move in and out. Push them gently with your fingers with nothing playing. If they scrape or stick, they are misaligned and you'll have reduced bass.

2) No leaks or unglued spots where the new surrounds attach to the cone and frame. If so, you'll get reduced bass.

First, make sure you have the two speakers connected with proper phasing. If not, they will cancel each other's low frequency output.
 
Look at the crossover, perhaps they were recapped with the wrong values.

Bad caps can make the tweeter sound raggedy as well.
 
LexDM3 said:
First, make sure you have the two speakers connected with proper phasing. If not, they will cancel each other's low frequency output.
Click to expand...

This... I bought a pair of recently refoamed NLAs. Rest of my system wasn't up and running so went ahead and recapped them while waiting. When my power amp was up and running I hooked them up and they sounded "OK" but not great. A little shrill, lacking in the low end. I thought maybe they were just too inefficient for my low-powered amp. Opened them up to check the polarity. Both were wired the same but upon further inspection (and testing with a battery) realized one woofer has the terminals wired backwards. No idea if that is something that got switched around during the refoam or they were made that way... Swapped the wires on the out of phase one and... AWESOME!! Great sounding speakers!!
 
The simple battery test with an AAA or AA battery will tell you if they are out of phase as Stumper determined, just make sure you put the piece of spk wire on the same way, + to +, usually the marked or striped wire, many times the gold wire, reverse the test wire and you won't determine the phasing.
 
Stumper1 has a good suggestion. I bought a pair of ADS 400s that never sounded right. I finally figured out that one woofer was connected backwards by someone who'd been in there earlier. Instant and cheap fix. They sound nice now.
 
Thank you very much for your inputs! You guys are the best!

I am quite sure the foam surrounds are done properly, and there is no break or leak. I had checked them over and over to make sure they were done right. The surrounds were a little more difficult to put on than other woofers I had done before. Also, the woofer cones don't rub when they move in and out. I checked them before the glue set and after they set.

The crossovers are original. From other speakers I looked at before, even the really old capacitors don't go out of spec by very much. I don't think old capacitors could be the problem.

I will check the polarity of the woofers. When I took the woofers out, I saw that the positive and negative connectors are the same size and same color. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but many other manufacturers mark the positive with a dab of red paint or have different size terminal tabs to make sure it is impossible to reverse the connections.

Questions on checking the polarity: I see that I can put a battery to the terminals and see whether the woofer cone moves out or in. Let's say, I connect a battery to the woofer, and the cone moves out. Does that mean the terminal where the positive terminal of the battery is the positive terminal of the woofer? I just want to make sure.

Also, thank you for reassuring me that I seem to have the original tweeters. I see a lot of "fried egg" tweeters when I google for Advent 5002.
 
SamiK said:
Questions on checking the polarity: I see that I can put a battery to the terminals and see whether the woofer cone moves out or in. Let's say, I connect a battery to the woofer, and the cone moves out. Does that mean the terminal where the positive terminal of the battery is the positive terminal of the woofer? I just want to make sure.
Click to expand...

Yep!
 
Well I can tell you if you put the wrong foams on those woofers the 5002 will sound AWFUL (btdt). I made the mistake of putting cheap thick $9.00 eBay foams on my 5002's and they sounded horrible and harsh with little to no bass. Basically I had turned the woofer into a big midrange driver. I had to rip them off and install the correct super compliant thin walled foams that those woofers require, and it transformed them into some of the best Advents I've heard since The Smaller Advent. The bass extension on the 5002 when the proper foam surrounds are used is quite amazing.

The correct foams are extremely important in these, you can't use thick cheap surrounds. I got the correct super thin compliant foams from My Audio Addiction on fleabay, and I'm sure Rick Cobb has the right ones too. The Boston Acoustics "filleted" foams are also suitable for these.
 
I've done them with generic foams with zero problems in performance. Check your seal and stuffing. Double check wiring polarity. Also check and see how freely the driver move by hand. Look at the spiders for sagging.


Barney
 
audiojones said:
Well I can tell you if you put the wrong foams on those woofers the 5002 will sound AWFUL (btdt). I made the mistake of putting cheap thick $9.00 eBay foams on my 5002's and they sounded horrible and harsh with little to no bass. Basically I had turned the woofer into a big midrange driver. I had to rip them off and install the correct super compliant thin walled foams that those woofers require, and it transformed them into some of the best Advents I've heard since The Smaller Advent. The bass extension on the 5002 when the proper foam surrounds are used is quite amazing.

The correct foams are extremely important in these, you can't use thick cheap surrounds. I got the correct super thin compliant foams from My Audio Addiction on fleabay, and I'm sure Rick Cobb has the right ones too. The Boston Acoustics "filleted" foams are also suitable for these.
Click to expand...
I used the generic foam surrounds from eBay. Maybe that's what's wrong. Thank you for your reply.
 
How could incorrect woofer surrounds could make a speaker sound harsh? "Harshness" usually refers to something wrong in the upper mids or highs, incorrect surrounds would have an effect in the extreme bottom.
 
Your tweeters are 100% original... at least they are identical as mine.
And my 5002 sound terrific. ( pic before refoam )
Phasing check is a good hint to a remedy to your 5002 problem.DSC01463.JPG
 
That woofer design is the same as the NLA and the Smaller ""Spitwad"" models. Back years ago before ebay when a surround was required the generic were just about the only game in town. I've used them on all the square 10's and never had the complaints describe here by others.

Just my $0.02.



Barney
 
from my experience refoaming steel basket woofers they are more forgiving than their inverted/masonite older brother.
the latter definitely sound best when coupled to the correct thin surround material.
 
audiomagnate said:
How could incorrect woofer surrounds could make a speaker sound harsh? "Harshness" usually refers to something wrong in the upper mids or highs, incorrect surrounds would have an effect in the extreme bottom.
Click to expand...

The thicker stiffer surrounds restrict the woofer cones reaction to the restoring force air cushion in the sealed acoustic suspension cabinet. This restriction totally changes the woofers parameters (Fs) and reduces its output which throws it out of balance with the other drivers in the cabinet. Now the woofer (with a stiffer surround) has a midbass hump and tweeter is more forward = less bottom end, more squawk. I personally made this mistake and expereinced the results on my own without reading up on it first, then when I realized my mistake and corrected it the improvement was night and day. No hyperbole, no internet BS or repeating what other people have said, this was first hand experience. I don't know what generics other people are using but the surround compliance is key to an acoustic suspension woofer. They will work with thicker surrounds but the overall sound will not be correct. Whether people notice that they sound different than they originally did or not I can't speak to, but I'm sure they sound better with cheap thick generics than they do with rotted missing foam.

BTW - the same thing happens when someone tries to "redope" the cloth surrounds with the wrong type of sealer on vintage KLH and AR acoustic suspension systems. The surrounds become too stiff to react properly, bass response suffers and other drivers become too forward. Made that mistake a time or two over the past 40+ years too I'm embarrassed to say!
 
I have a pair of 5002's , or rather a good facsimile thereof. The cabs are ULA and the drivers are 5002. I'm told it was a job done by an audio salon some years ago. As the ULA cabs are the same size as 5002, I suppose the results are valid. My issue is that they sound pretty much blah... until the spl is pushed a bit. Before anybody attacks me for having taste in my mouth, I do have KLH6's , 17's, Fried Q2's, A25's, and others I completely enjoy. These mash-up 5002's have such a limited freq range at lower levels. I've tried a couple of different amps to drive them and keep coming to the same result. The surrounds are good, the seal tight. When time allows, I'll look into the crossovers. At higher spl's, they come into their own and can be quite impressive. Am I missing something ? Is this normal ? The 6's are such a treat at almost any spl. This is my first experience with larger Advents.
 
I don't think anyone's asked yet, so I'll ask it- what amp/receiver are you using? I find (personally) that the Advent X002 speakers sound fuller when used with a large power amplifier than they do with a receiver. I used my 4002's with a 50 watt Realistic STA-960, an 80 watt JVC SR-J400 mkII and now with a 240 watt QSC USA900 power amp. They sounded okay with first two, but they have deeper, more controlled bass with the latter.
 
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