Does having a mid range really matter? (1 Viewer)

[Michael R Price]

Large Advents crossed over at 1KHz? Whoa... you mean the ones with the original orange paperlike tweeters?

 

[ThomasW]

The only time I've seen a "pure" electrostat was a pair of enormous Acoustats at an upscale audio salon back around 1988

Lance

Did they look something like these, minus the silver line array of leaf tweeters in the center? My current mains

 

[LanceJ]

Thomas: close, but the ones I saw were totally black, flat & featureless--they literally did look like those monoliths. But they did have that box-like enclosure at the bottom (the high voltage supply?).

What kind of amplifier do you use for your speakers?

You probably have seen these already but here is Radio Shack's electrostatic hybrid speaker, the Realistic Electrostat 2A. I wonder how they sounded?

Speakers these days IMO don't have as much personality as they did in the 50s, 60s, 70s & early 80s. Manufacturers seemed to take more chances back then: these RadShak models; Bozak's aluminum tweeters/mids; DCM's "Time Window" series; Advent's and KLH's two-ways with a 10" (gasp!) woofer; Electro-Voice's humongus "Patrician" model with a thirty inch woofer; Boston Acoustic's extra wide enclosure series that IIRC properly "launched" sound waves into the room; JBL's "Aquarius" series; Infinity's EMIM/EMIT equipped models; the radical dbx Soundfield 1A; and on and on. Check out what I mean here. This (very) vintage site has pages of this stuff--it's very interesting.

Also this site and KEF's "museum".

LJ

 

[ThomasW]

Lance

The monolith speakers you saw were Acoustat 2+2's. They were about 24"X93" and contained 4 ESL panels/side. Mine are Acoustat 1+1's arranged as a pair/side. This results in the same 4 ESL panels/side as the 2+2's.

The box you saw is the power supply that converts the wall current to 5000VDC to power the stators.

My system is quad-amped and currently in transition. The latest configuration shown HERE is awaiting the fabrication of a new main baffle for the mid and tweeter array. It consist's of a pair of Acoustat 1+1's/side. These are powered by Aragon 8008BB's running from 100Hz-600Hz. The midrange is a B&G RD-75 planar magnetic powered by an Ayre V-5x running from 600Hz-7.5Khz, The tweeters, 16/side, are Technics 400D leafs powered by Denon monoblocks. They operate from 7.5Khz to 40Khz. There is a floor mounted IB subwoofer shown HERE. It contains 12 Shiva drivers, is powered by a pro sound amp and operates from 100Hz to ~10Hz. The outlet is centered between the arrays

Since you like ESL's and vintage stuff you also might find this site interesting

Regards
Thomas

 

[Andy Goldstein]

mike price: as i recall, yes, the originals with the masonite ring around the woofer crossed over to the tweeter at 1k. the later, "new large advents" crossed at 1.5

 

[LanceJ]

Andy: did you ever get to hear Advent's only three-way model, the Maestro? I got to hear the first edition (my old brochure calls it the "Advent Loudspeaker 6003"), the one in the classy semi-triangular cabinet but it was with a small receiver which couldn't really drive them properly. I always thought their 5" gray polypropylene "doughnut" midrange was an interesting design. It supposedly had the benefits of a dome and a cone midrange. And recently I've been seeing similar designs like this reappearing lately, like Pioneer with some of their 6 X 9 car speakers.

LJ

 

[Andy Goldstein]

no, i never did get to hear one of those. i wish i had though. i bet they sounded really nice. in theory, if they followed the same design principles, they should have sounded the same as the 2-ways, but with a higher power rating and max output. i guess i'll never know.

i hadnt seen the pioneer offering, but the design sure looks familiar! i cant wait till i get the chance to finish building my side and rear advents for the ht system.

ag.

 

[LanceJ]

Andy: Over on Steve Hoffman's forum someone said they worked for the company that recently bought Advent, and that he had seen what he thought were some new Advent models sitting on a loading dock.

I realize this is pretty flimsy information but it would be fun to imagine that in those boxes were updated Advents, still using a 10" woofer in an acoustic-suspension enclosure (screw efficiency! ) and parabolic-dome tweeter or maybe even a modernized version of their previous orange "fried egg" tweeter (which looked just like that Pioneer midrange I linked to), maybe in an updated cabinet with choice of cherry or black ash veneers, real veneers like the original used, & all this covered by an elegant floating black grill. Mmmmmmmm........retro speakers.

Anybody getting nauseous yet from this nostalgia trip?

FYI: from what I can tell, that Large Advent & its successors and many other speakers of that time (and a few today) used an enclosure designed with the Greek "golden ratio" formula. This ratio supposedly produced the most visually pleasing rectangles. Even my old Radio Shack speaker building manual recommends using this ratio.

Where are you getting all the parts to build all those Advents?

BTW: I found a picture of that Boston A150 I was trying to describe earlier:Boston Acoustics A150. (I think the site's owner is trying to sell them)

LJ

 

[Andy Goldstein]

well, lets see.... i have had a set that i bought new in '77. they are now part of the double stacked set. i bought a pair in mint condition (except woofer foam) from a guy who saw my stacked pair when he came over to pick up his son (friend of my kids). he said he had a pair in the attic he had been thinking of selling. 50 bux. in original packing boxes! all the other parts (including the second w/t/xovers for the stacked arrays) came off ebay. just waited for good deals. no hurry, no worry. i can shoot you a pic of the doubles if you like.

ag.