Advent/1 Speakers

A recent trip to Vancouver yielded this pair of Advent/1 speakers from a local thrift store. I have had many Advents Speakers come my way including the Advent 5012, the New Large Advent, the Smaller Advent, the Baby Advent, the Advent 2002 and a pair of Advent 2W that were in my possession before the birth of this blog. Needless to say I have been a big fan of Advents along with EPI speakers as both are well designed 2 way acoustic suspension speakers.


This pair is a later version with the metal woofer basket but still with the fried egg tweeter. New foam surrounds were needed after 40 years. The cabinets are real wood veneer and I would rate them a 7 out of 10 at this point. These definitely needed some serious dust cleaning at this point.

 I really like  this set of Advent/1 speakers and they remind me of the New Large Advent I had but the cabinet is not as nice and the bass extension is close but not as deep as the New Large Advents, the rest of the speaker has the same acoustic signature as its' big brother.

I am currently running these off my Electrohome Push/Pull tube amp and I am really pleased with the detail of the sound plus the warm deep bass that these are known for. Although I am a big open baffle fan I will keep this pair of speakers around for a bit, these are easily my favorite 2 way 10 inch speaker that I have come across. Just to note that the EPI 100 are my favorite 2 way 8 inch speaker.

There is plenty of opinions on how these speakers won accolades in the 1970's as one of the best speakers for the money. I would tend to agree that these are great speakers and I am pleased as punch to come across a pair, Way to go Henry Kloss.

KLH Model 17 update

I managed to recap the Model 17 with some Solen metal polyester 5% caps which really help open up these speakers. I also have managed to get the majority of the cabinets back to their walnut veneer glory. Pictures of the cabinets when the job is done.

I really like these speakers and I can see the evolution from these speakers to the New Large Advents that were developed after Henry Kloss left KLH.

The bass is really full and melts into a very smooth mid range. Perfect with a single ended tube amp. I really like these speakers and can see why the Model 6 and the Model 17 have garnered internet attention.

Mid range is nice and forward which is what I like. Bass nice and solid and super tight being in a acoustic suspension box. Over time I tend to prefer acoustic suspension versus a bass reflex system. The bass may not be as low but it sure is tighter.

Update #2

The cabinets are done.

From this....

To this....

Genesis Model 1+ speakers

I have had these speakers for a few months now and they were in need of some crossover attention when I bought them.

Genesis is a spin off of EPI or Epicure speakers of which I am always a fan of. Very simple designed, requiring minimal crossover components. The woofer and tweeter are designed to roll off at their crossover point naturally.

This pair I bought already had the woofers refoamed, the crossover panel was worse for wear. The spring clips were broken and the glue holding them to the cabinet was no longer bonding the plate to the cabinet.

I opted to use MDF 5"x5" board that I cut. I installed new gold plated binding post to accept banana plugs. Upgraded the capacitor to a Solen polypropylene cap, and installed 18 gauge audiophile speaker wire.

The cabinets were a bit rough, some wax was on the vinyl veneer and on the speaker grill cloth. I cleaned all that up.

This pair of Genesis still had the QC tags on the front baffle, I opted to leave them on as you do not see this attention to detail in today's gear.

I kept the original serial # tags as these speakers are 20 off each other in production.

I always like the sound of the EPI 100 and the Genesis Model 1 is the equivalent to the EPI. Excellent bass from a sealed 8 inch woofer and the inverted dome is smooth as silk. These are highly musical speakers. The bass is almost on par with the  New Large Advents with 10" woofers and the mid range and highs or on par with the Dynaco A35's.

These are truly a wonderful speakers and always a pleasure to restore. I think I have done at least a dozen pairs now.

Advent, The Smaller Advent

I have been on a Henry Kloss roll as of late and the newest addition is The Smaller Advent speakers.

This pair has already been re foamed using the spliced surround method.

This pair was meant to be a lesser expensive pair of the original Larger Advent while trying to incorporate the original sound of the Larger Advent. these have a smaller woofer but the same fried egg tweeter.

The bass response is very impressive for their size but not nearly ass deep as their bigger brother.

I found that the Smaller Advent are best suited to solid state like my Marantz Model 28, I read somewhere that the efficiency is somewhere around 85-86db which does not make it a candidate for the tube gear.

I do prefer the Larger Advents over the Smaller Advents.

Here is a great article in Stereophile Magazine on how these speakers stack up against $500.00-$1000.00 speakers today.

"First, inner detail in the midrange was excellent, and as good as any under-$500/pair speaker I have reviewed. The Advent's articulation of transients, and its ability to render wide dynamic swings, were extraordinary—also in the league of the most impressive bookshelf speakers I've reviewed in the last few years. The Advent's bass extension, too, was surprising—more akin to what I'd expect from a floorstander, and accomplished without any of the modern design tricks of judiciously placed reflex ports."

 

New Large Advent Speakers

A friend of the blog contacted me and offered me this wonderful pair of Advent A4 speakers also referred as the New Large Advent.

This pair is pre Jensen and has the fried egg tweeter and the non masonite basket woofer.

They have a wonderful walnut veneer with the famous blunt nose curved cabinet.

Lucky for me this pair has been re foamed already.

These speakers are extremely neutral with the lower bass octaves covered really well. Imaging front to back is excellent. They sound very similar to the Advent 5012W that I had in the past.

The cabinets will need a bit of a re finish to make them really shine.

Stereophile has a great review of these speakers form their archives in 1971 that can be read here.