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***Large Advents*** In For Audition At Space-Age Bachelor Pad - My Report!

Posted by Lawrence of Suburbia (A) on March 4, 2007 at 19:46:55

My local audio boutique informed me that a pair of 70's-vintage Large Advent "monkey coffins" were in, on trade for something else; I've been dreaming about trying these with my Naim kit for some time, as I never had the big guys back in the day. So, I lugged 'em back to my penthouse aerie for a listen.

The pair I'm giving the audition to are the walnut-brown, beveled-edge ones, not the "utility" boxes. Sand-coloured grilles, to complete a nice "two-tone" look. "Fried-egg" tweeters, woofers with brown "Masonite" rings about the things. Foam appears brand-new. I've stuck 'em on some old ADS stands that I've had for yonks, just for putting monkey coffins on.

Albums for the listening session are, appropriately, of a similar era: Procol Harum "Grand Hotel", Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here", the Beatles "1967-1970", the Moody Blues "In Search Of The Lost Chord", Steely Dan "Aja", King Crimson "Lizard", Joni Mitchell "Hejira", ELP "Brain Salad Surgery" etc. Playback is driven by my Naim CD5X into Nait 5i into the Advents. (My usual speakers are the wonderful J.M. Reynaud Twin Signatures, in the other room for the duration of this experiment.) IC is Naim, speaker wire is Chord.

First the initial quibbles: the "fried egg" tweeter exhibits a **slight** bit of "spittiness", not surprising given the vintage. The mids are ever-so-slightly recessed, but not (thankfully) anywhere near a suck-out extreme. There's a bit of unevenness there too, possibly the age of the crossover components. Bass is ample, you might say; but not as "boomy" as I feared, given my room. The three-position tweeter switch, I opted to set at "Decrease" to give a friendly rolled-off slope to things. I wish more modern loudspeakers had this feature - things tend towards brightness in speakers sold today, IMHO.

Here's what I like about these old vets: the big "image". Somehow that big'n'tall baffle makes the stage seem larger, more life-size, than the narrow little monitors I tend to own. The song "Grand Hotel" seemed appropriately vast, the soundscape Chris Thomas constructed around Procol and the orchestral players positively 70 mm. Depth of stage isn't what it should be, but I'm used to the modern designs. Ray Thomas' flutes in "The Actor" were not as far behind the other Moody players as I'm used to. Detail in "Wish You Were Here" by the Floyd was rendered a bit impressionistic, not as precise as my reference speakers. But, I think listening back in the day was a bit more casual, at least for me and my bell-bottomed pals; we were looking to rock out and enjoy ourselves, not see if we could extract the last iota of information. "Karn Evil 9" by ELP did rock out quite convincingly; plenty of PRaT on evidence.

Bottom line? These old Advents, proud sons of Henry Kloss, are a fun listen. Big and friendly, in the main (keep that tweeter switch to the left!). Not sure if I'm gonna keep 'em, I'm giving it a day or two. But they sure are cool!

Any other Large Advent owners, please feel free to comment.

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