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I just won these speakers from EBay, is this a decent price (I thought so), and can you tell if these are the vinyl or walnut veneer?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=909833740Thanks in advance
Follow Ups:
What I have noticed, ce, is that you are making the argument that new stuff is better because it is more efficient, expensive, louder, etc.As someone who loves his old, inefficient McIntosh C26 pre, MC240, and Dual 1219, the things you are arguing about don't matter to me- I like the old stuff from an aestetic angle.
I can find a higher power amp than my MC-240 @ 40 wpc (on a good day), one with .00001 THD that draws far less current. I can go out and spend moderately more money than I did on the Advent speakers I purchased ($112 with shipping), but having more efficient speakers doesn't interest me that much. I like that era of sound, I like the way the stuff looks, I like it BECAUSE of the anomalies that are inherent with old gear.
I am glad you enjoy your expensive speakers with a mammoth amplifier, but it isn't about that. I like the sonic quirkiness that I experience while I listen to a Neil Young record on my mid-fi turntable through my antiquated, inneffecient, outdated audio equipment. It sounds like I want it to sound.
I like vinyl better as well, and while I am sure you think that idea is ludicrous, but so be it. Likes and dislikes are all about opinion, and there are no incorrect opinions.
You claim to be so sage and wise with your facts, but you don't stop to consider that there is something other than facts and numbers that makes someone like something. It is like someone saying your favorite record sucks- it is an invalid argument. No matter how much you point out that Love Me Do is a simple pop song with limited chordal and melodic structure, there will always be plenty of people that don't care and nod their head and sing along.
Nice price, nice speaker.....BUT YOU HAVE A PAIR OF BOZAK 302a...
are you nuts! (just kidding!) I have utility Advents and have had, but sold, walnut Advents.....Imo, you can stack the Advents, add 4 more pairs of Advents and not get what the Bozak's have....
you need to get the Bozak's into that system....
WAIT....I just had a thought.....stacking Advents IS the way to go....
WAY BETTER....hmmmmmmmm....I have a pair of utility Advents (1975 w/ masonite ring) that would go perfect with your new Advents....here is a thought, I send you my Advents and you send me the Bozaks....and to show you what a nice guy I am....I pay the shipping!But, whatever, Advents are nice speakers....I saw the Advents on ebay...if I didn't alread have them, I would have taken a shot at them.
For the money you spent....I feel confident in saying...NOTHING on the market today (new) can touch those Advent, you can find outstanding deals on vintage speakers that sound great and they sound even better (Imo) with the vintage gear to go with them.ps...I have some Bozaks and am looking for more!!
Advents were flat dull and lifeless. I used the stacked Advents, when that was the thing...lotsa bass, no snap or sparkle, the mid/tweeter, lacked realism. I had to add a micro-acoustics tweeter on top to liven them up. Ribbon speakers of today blow away anything for 30 years ago. The idea is REALISTIC sound. 62 ear speakers don't have it. Horns are Pa speakers. They had large speakers before AR introduced Air Suspension. Listen to some modern ribbon speakers, you'll realize the deficiencys in OLD speakers. I had AR-2aX, Large Advents,Dyanco A-25...did em all. NOTHING comes close to what LEGACY does. NOTHING..www.legacy-audio.com Maybe the Ribbon setup from SLSLOUDSPEAKERS. used in studios at Philisp and others. Legacys are now showing up in studios...they are REAL. give them a listen
You still have your pair of speakers one each in different rooms?Or have you found better digs?
Have 3 sets of FOCUS in 3 rooms...sounds great...what are you using?
So which room is the center channel?You have not been missed, but we all could use a chuckle. Thanks for being the court jester this week.
This is the perfect forum for monkey business. Audio abstract ideas. Matter o' fact I smoked the ribbon tweeters on the FOCUS today, both sides...LOUD LOUD LOUD. 10 year warranty...literally seen sparks in the ribbons, and can see the burn mark on the membrane. Cool..let's see Legacy come through with some new ribbons and the dome tweters are dead. I was cranking..sounded great, then a little snap...They are menat to be played loud. the new Focus 20/20 have improved ribbons and domes, hmmmmmm, not just for sound but other reasons? I still love my FOCUS...great speakers.
distortion at being both direct radiator driver based and over driven.No wonder you can't determine the level of refinement those units provide.
Seriously you need to look at horn loaded speakers. It is the only way to achieve refinement, HIGH levels of output and very low distortion.
I'm not suprised about frying the ribbons, the ones used in the Focus are not as robust as many of the ribbons still available.
Three pointed or four pointed hat and are there bells on the ends of the points? Which is your trademark?
For some reason this joke popped into mind:A Focus owner and a Front-loaded-Horn afficianado were in adjacent stalls in a Mens' Room, with the Focus owner humming to himself "I love my Focus...I love my Focus...I love my Focus."
The horn fan finishes first, and starts to leave. The Focus disciple sneers and says in snobby fashion: We, the Focus owners, are classy enough to wash the piss from our hands before we leave the restroom!" The horn fan replies "We, the Front-loaded-Horn afficianados, are classy enough not to piss on our hands..."
The Horn fan then leaves whistling: "He's got a hat that jingle jangle jingles"...(or was that "spurs"?)
I also liked the other three above on break in. Especially (silence, gunshot, Now what?).
Glad to see your enthusiasm for the Bozak line. I have four pair of them and I'm always looking for more too! It astounds me that these speakers are not being snapped up for the prices they go for. I bought a pair of 1962 Concert grands for $735 a couple of years ago and they just smoke about everything else I've tried. These speakers were $2000/pair in 1962-heck you could buy a Chevy Impala for less in 62! Whats your opinion on the slow catch on with these gems? Only thing I can figure is that everybody is stripping them and selling the drivers on ebay-there are drives and crossovers everyday on ebay. Oh well-glad someone else appreciates these as much as I do.
Regards,
John
I guess they never had the sheer mass appeal or name recognition of other mid-upper line speakers. They are well-crafted furniture that sounds wonderful. I could and would not ever sell mine- outside of a $10K offer for them or something ridiculous.
I needed something nice for my office, and I love the Bozak 302-As in my living room- they look as beautiful as they sound.I just bought a HK A-220 and bought the Advents to match with that set-up so I can have tube niceness at the office, too; anyone want to biy a hink o crap Onkyo home theatre integrated?
Those are the Utility--vinyl cabinets. The walnut veneer ones have a distinct walnut edge. Originally this version sold for $116 each.
You got an excellent deal as tthe ones with the utlity cabinets in decent shape have commonly been trading at $125-$150 for the pair on ebay.Assuming the woofers have not been refoamed, they will definitely need to be done. Figure $30 for the kit if you do them yourself or you can have them professionally done for about $60, which I think is worthwhile given that the woofers are a bit tricky to take apart.
Not sure if these are the 1973-77 models with the masonite woofer ring or the 78 on model with the steel frame as the seller didnt show the drivers.
The two companies I have dealt with on refoaming are
www.newfoam.com which sells kits and has a video showing an Advent Woofer and steps in refoaming.
and
www.simplyspeakers.com who did a beautiful job professionally refoaming my Advent woofers.On the vinyl cabinets, you can actually repair larger skuffs by using small pieces of a wood-grain contact paper, matching the grain as close as possible. Smaller repairs can be done by warming a piece of those wax scratch filler crayons in a microwave for a few secs and then kneading it into the chipped area, scraping off the excess. A bit of Armour-all will bring new life back to the vinyl, but dont get it on the grille clothes or the drivers.
Once you get the speakers drop me a note and I will give you some more ideas on getting them fully into first class condition. These are great speakers--some would say better than almost anything on the market today..and a wonderful deal for what you paid even if you have to refoam the woofers.
They were good in there time, they are obsolete, and lifeless compared to modern design speakers. Nobody would say they are better than anything on the market today. Don't happy talk the guy, they are 70's era technology, obsolete and just plain basic speakers. I had 4 of em in their day....checkout www.legacy-audio.com or www.slsloudspeakers.com much better than anything ever from Advent...
The guys on Vintage WORSHIP these speakers and would never CONSIDER replacing them with something newer. These are the 57 Chevy convertibles of the audio world. (sigh)
to each his own....
technology moves forward...they where good in their time, like I said, I had the DOUBLE Advent system...in it's time they could really fill a room. I used 2 large Advents on each side, powered with a Dynaco Stereo 400 amp....30 years later, I have much much REAL better sound, more WATTS....all things old, ain't better, if they were so good they would still be made. Speakers have improved big time. Old speakers are like old females....old.
For the money: The old stuff is way better. What can you present me with that is comparable to my Bozak Concert grands that I paid $735 for? Anything at $735/pr. that comes even close?
Regards,
John
Riiiight. Homey don't think so. Rotary phone are better than touch tone. Riiiiiiight.
I have a plain, black , dial phone. A WE 500 from the '50s. Sad to say it has outlasted at least six other phones. As far as I am concerned, you lost this point.
Obsolete, they have a ringer eqivilence number that sucks too much current from the phone line. If you have multiple phones on one line, you can load down the ringer ckt. check the audio properties of new phones versus OLD phones...you will find the new ones given a good product, not the real cheesy stuff, soudn clearer, weigh less, more functions..for like $10 !!! Old is OLD, obsolete. If the stuff was so good, they would still be making the stuff. Never improving or updating. Same as people, OLD people are obsolete, that's why nature replaces them with NEW.
jareb - i agree - i have a pair of bozak symphonies. and besides what does more watts have to do with better sound.
Pappy, I've never thought of more watts having anything to do with better sound unless someone is trying to drive old bohemoths with an 8watt SET, so I'm not sure what the poster was getting at. I guess he likes high powered amps. As you and I have discussed before; lots of folks consider the larger Bozaks to be among the best 5 or so all around speaker systems ever built. To each his own.
Best Regards,
John
Lotsa WATTS if you want Realism...at SPL's of LIVE music..not listening as background. I listen at 101-103 dB...using 4 ohm Legacy FOCUS which are like very, very efficent. I can get a 300watt RMS/pc amp to do thermal shutdown on DEEEEEEP loud REAL bass. It is sucking some current. That's Why it's Bi-AMP on Monday..adding another 300Watt pc VanAlstine. One 300pc for the woofers, the other 300w/pc for teh upper end. If you want lifelike, REAL music, it takes POWER. There is nothing that changes that fact. 10X the power just gets you double the loudness. Watts is it, good CLEAN WATTS. That never changed. More watts gives better control on teh woofers. drive the saem set of speakers with whimpy amp, do it with high power. you be amazed at the improvement.
If you like them that's fine. The Legacy Focus is a bad sounding speaker IME. Midrange that "honks" worse than most horns with a nasty on-the-speaker Kevlar screachy coloration, high perceived low midrange distortion, NO deep bass impact or control, highly compressed on dynamics when asked to sound real, and they really don't image all that well either. If you think these are "efficient" than you haven't been around any real efficient speakers. Yeah, I heard them biamped a couple of times with lot's of power. The more you put into them the more compressed the dynamics got.
Magnetar
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Your opinon is one of a kind. No deep bass, huh? You ain't listened to any Legacy Focus. You are making up stuff now.
Sure I've heard them. I said no deep bass IMPACT or control. My freind had a pair. He replaced them with an eXemplar Altec/horn BR hybrid based system. Much more realistic sounding speakers IMO. No whimpy drivers with lttle motors. Around 103 db with 2.83 volts.
Magnetar
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ce---Lots of power is not always needed for realistic volume. I can see why you need lots of power, your speakers being only 96db efficient. But high efficiency speakers can get that 101-103 db you prize using less than 1 watt. Indeed a 50 watt amp will get a high efficiency speaker louder than ANY amount of power will get those inefficent Legacys.
You are uninformed...I drive them now with 300W/pc RMS amp....when some DEEEEEP bass comes along at realistic levels, it's using some current. You can't get ther with 1 watt, you are cluelss. Lotsa watts, makes it REAL, LEGACYS make it REAL...I don't want PA sound, i want live music...not just loud, but Sonic bliss, not a horn PA speakr. That sounds like a Blue Light special announment at K-Mart.
You argue by assertion, as well you must since the facts support me. My hi-fi will play 25hz at 100db with only 1 watt. Tell me why one can't get deep, loud bass with only a single watt, I'll bet you can't. As for "PA" sound, good horns were developed for motion picture theater sound and are true high-fidelity devices. PA speakers are another thing altogether. Seems you're the "cluelss" (sic) one.
Not realistic, at what distortion? Get out the SPL meter and current meter, you ain't.
Not realistic? Why not? Explain, don't just assert. Distortion? A single driver that I use is under 1% harmonic distortion with 60 watts, I imagine four of these drivers running at only 1 watt the distortion is somewhat lower.
Horns were developed because in the early years of motion pictures there were no high powered amps. So you say, old movie theatres are more hi fidelity than modern ones? Nope. Progress progress.
CE---Uh, I hate to tell you this but modern theaters use horns too. The only change to the drivers themselves has been an increase in power handling, an increase that some think was at the expense of sonics. And the multi-cell horns have been replaced with constant-directivity horns for more reliable coverage and everybody but you knows the multi-cells were better tonally.Modern theater systems do make deeper bass than the older ones but from 50hz on up the old systems are at least as good, if not better. I take it you weren't around in the late 50s and early 60s to see and hear movies like Ben-Hur, Spartacus and Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm multi-channel magnetic sound. It was better than what you see and hear today at the theater.
Nope. Otherwise they would not have devloped Doly Surround,Dolby Digital, which all came from theatre sound. Old is old, not better. Living always thinking the older stuff was better is just a denial thing. Don't want to accept the fact that things improve.
Ce--Digital lets them get good sound with 35mm film, that's all. It is more reliable than mag-strip film sound too. But not better sounding than mag-strip in optimum condition. Why would it be?
Lotsa WATTS if you want Realism...at SPL's of LIVE music..not listening as background. I listen at 101-103 dBNo wonder. Maybe he just can't hear you.
If you are regularly listening at that volume I'm wondering how many weeks you still have for your hearing above 5000 Hz. My bet is that you have already lost a considerable amount.
What?
You got me on that one LOL
I must admit, I do like to peel paint with my set-up of I am listening to Tool, Husker Du, Dianosaur Jr., Deftones, etc. I would rather have jazz at a lower level- not a whisper, but not peeling paint, either. I find that the classical I listen to is mostly Baroque and smaller ensemble music, so I enjoy that at a lower level, as well. Although, the 1812 at about 100db is quite exciting- especially when the cannons start- and although I am not super fond of him, some Kunzel CDs with exaggerated dynamics are great at about 100 db, too.
LOUD LOUDER LOUDEST!!! Takes WATTS WATTS WATTS...even on 96dB sensitivity like my beloved Legacy FOCUS... www.legacy-audio.com Watts is makin' it REAL...no if's and or Buts. the sound is in the ckts, not the wire, or the insulation.
the beauty of youth - for 10 years my neighbors hated me but they knew what type of music i liked.
nt
While I would probably agree with you were I using a new, super fast set-up, I am matching the Advent speakers with a mid-low Harmon Kardon integrated amp at my office. I think the Advents will be a good match in both quality and price for the application in which I will use them.BTW- I am not familiar with the speaker companies you mentioned, but after checking out their web sites, they indeed appear to be the real deal. Were I not happpy with my current listening set-up, and had an extra 5 or 6 grand lying around, I would be into that. Thanks for the opinion anfd the links.
I see parts express is stocking a high end vinyl designed to replace the vinyl on vinyl-clad speakers. The cost is $12.60 a roll and one roll should be enough do a pair of Advent speakers. There are a variety of wood colors availble. THis is peel and stick so easy application.If the vinyl is badly scuffed or there are big chipped areas this may be a better solution than trying to repair the old vinyl.
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