Original Large Advent 2-Way Speakers — Refoamed, Recapped, USA

A pair of Original Large Advents, built in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the woofers and crossovers updated to later New Advent parts.

Worth knowing up front, because Advent people look for it

These are Original Large Advents running later New Advent woofers and crossovers. That distinction matters to anyone who collects these, so here is the whole of it.

What makes them the original is the cabinet and the baffle. The fried-egg tweeters sit proud on their Masonite sub-panels, offset from center, which is how Advent routed the original baffle and how you tell the two apart at a glance. The New Advent that replaced this model in 1978 moved to a flush-mounted tweeter, and nobody converts a baffle backwards. The back panel is no help either way, and it is worth saying so plainly: Advent used the same wording on the rear plate of both models and never printed the word New on any of them. Old and New are what the public called them, not what the factory did.

What is not original is the woofers and the crossovers. Both are New Advent parts, fitted by someone before us. Advent designed those woofers to drop straight into the older cabinets, which is exactly why so many surviving Advents have them — the original foam surround perishes on every example eventually, and the metal-basket driver is the factory answer. It is the sturdier of the two. What it is not is one of the aftermarket replacements that turn up in refoamed Advents, which drop a true 12-inch cone into the hole and give away real bass extension in the process.

None of this is a compromise. The New Advent crossover is the simpler network and crosses over higher, which buys better power handling, and there are long-standing Advent listeners who prefer it to the original. You are getting the original cabinet and tweeter with the later drivers and network — a combination plenty of people go looking for on purpose.

Henry Kloss founded Advent Corporation in 1967, having already co-founded Acoustic Research and KLH. The speaker he introduced there in 1969 was called simply The Advent Loudspeaker, because for a while it was the only thing the company made, and it was aimed squarely at the AR-3a — a three-driver design with a 12-inch woofer selling for roughly twice the money. The Advent got to the same place with two drivers in a sealed box, and the market noticed. It stayed in production for most of a decade and became the speaker a generation of listeners actually bought.

What makes it good

The sealed acoustic-suspension cabinet produces bass that reaches lower than a box this size has any business managing, and produces it without the loose overhang a ported design of the era would have brought with it. Above that sits the tweeter collectors call the fried egg, a wide shallow dome that spreads high frequencies broadly rather than beaming them at a single seat.

The result is a speaker that sounds right from across the room, on a shelf, at moderate volume, which is how most people actually listen. That was Kloss’s whole argument, and it is the reason these turn up in more homes than almost any speaker ever built in America.

The high-frequency control

A three-position switch on the rear panel sets the top end to normal, decrease, or extended, and it works correctly through all three positions on both cabinets. Connection is by the original pair of screw terminals marked 0 and 8 ohms, which take bare wire or spade lugs rather than banana plugs — worth knowing before you arrive with cables. Bright walls and bare floors want decrease; heavy curtains and carpet want extended. Most rooms settle happily in normal, and having that choice at the speaker rather than at the amplifier is genuinely useful in a real listening space.

The work that has been done

This pair has had exactly the two jobs vintage Advents need.

The woofer surrounds are fresh, which matters more here than on most speakers, because the original foam perishes on every example eventually and a pair still wearing its factory surrounds is a pair with a bill attached to it. The crossovers are New Advent networks and they have been recapped, so the network setting the balance between woofer and tweeter is both matched to the New Advent drivers in front of it and running fresh capacitors rather than forty-year-old ones. Both jobs were done before the speakers came to us.

Condition

Advent offered these cabinets in walnut veneer and in a vinyl woodgrain finish that was acoustically identical; this pair is the vinyl, and it has worn well. Very Good cosmetic condition, with the light marks a speaker of this age honestly earns. The pair is matched throughout — same drivers, same crossovers, same cabinets.

A few relevant specifications:

A landmark American loudspeaker with its two known weaknesses already addressed, and addressed with Advent’s own later parts — most of what is out there still needs both.

Original Large Advent Specifications

• Two-way acoustic-suspension loudspeaker, sold as a pair
• Woofer: 10-inch cone on the all-metal New Advent basket, fitted in place of the original Masonite-ring driver
• Tweeter: 2-inch fried-egg dome
• Crossover: New Advent network, fitted in place of the original 1,000 Hz Advent crossover
• High-frequency control: three-position rear-panel switch, normal / decrease / extended
• Connections: original screw terminals, bare wire or spade lugs
• Nominal impedance: 8 ohms
• Minimum amplifier power: 15 watts per channel
• Finish: vinyl woodgrain, walnut pattern
• Made by Advent Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Dimensions: (Width x Height x Depth) 14.25 x 26.0 x 11.5 inches (362 x 660 x 292 mm)
• Weight: 47 lbs (21.3 kg) each

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