The Project Asylum

Advent Brochure Page 5



The
New Advent
Loudspeaker



listening at even the highest usual loudness levels.
The High-Frequency System.
The high-frequency driver is a new design that is at least as important as any other factor in the performance of the system, and directly responsible for the clarity and definition of instruments at all loudness levels. Its unique diaphragm is formed in one piece, and is made up of a very small inner dome and an outer rolled ring that serves both as the driver’s suspension and as a highly effective radiating surface over half of its area. The design is such that no part of the radiating surface is very far from the voice coil driving the diaphragm, and it combines exceptional uniformity of driving force over the entire surface with the ability to radiate large amounts
 






of high-frequency power.
The rolled ring form of the New Advent Loudspeaker’s high-frequency cone not only is a radiating surface but is also a free-moving and linear suspension that permits exceptional cone excursion and power-handling down into the mid-range of music. The advantage of a single driver for both mid-range and high frequencies is important, since it avoids all of the disturbing interference effects common to combining separate drivers for those ranges. In addition, by requiring mid-range power-handling in one small speaker, the two-way concept takes the designer in a direction in which he should be going anyway for the sake of high-frequency power-handling.
The driver uses a two-layer voice coil in a relatively heavy


THE NEW ADVENT VS.
THE ORIGINAL ADVENT.


In designing a speaker for use in the real world rather than for “ideal” or laboratory performance conditions, one of the most important factors is that the quality of recordings and broad- casts is part of the overall environment in which a speaker must operate. And the most important limitation on total, reliable speaker performance since the beginning of the high-fidelity era has been the high-frequency limitations of recordings and broad- casts. Noise and distortion effects present-on records in particular- have placed a limit on the total amount of high-frequency energy that it has made sense to try to secure from a tweeter.
   Almost twenty years ago, for instance, some of us now at Advent were involved in a live-vs.-recorded test of an “idea1" tweeter design that could, and did, sound identical to the live source. But this same tweeter was absolutely unlistenable for actual playback of recordings, particularly LP records. It mercilessly revealed the tremendous residual noise and distortion (from tape hiss, cutter limitations, vinyl imperfections and other factors) present on recordings at high frequencies.
   By the time we designed the original Advent Loudspeaker in 1969, tremendous improvements had been made

in recordings and broadcasts. But there were still important limitations, and the total high-frequency energy output of the Advent was carefully balanced to suit that reality and match well with the mixture of new, not-so-new and old LP's in most people's record collections.
   In the 1970's, however, two very important improvements have been made in the high-frequency capabilities of recordings and broadcasts:
 The almost universal adoption of the Dolby system and other noise reduction measures for recordings has reduced background tape hiss and residual “hash” at high frequencies by a tremendous amount. The entry of the Dolby system into FM broadcasting is also beginning to be felt.
 A new generation of record-cutting equipment has made it possible to put more essentially undistorted output onto records in the 10,000 Hz region. And a new generation of phono cartridges has been designed to take advantage of the opening for cleaner high-frequency response. These factors add up to more recoverable, usable high-frequency content in source material than ever before-more clean sound above the noise and distortion in the recording process.
   With these improvements, and influenced by the fact that most people’s record and tape collections now date mainly from the early 1970’s

onward, we decided to change the high-frequency capabilities of the Advent Loudspeaker. Also involved in the decision was the knowledge that we could make use of developments like ferro-fluid damping for the tweeter to come up with a higher- output design of very high reliability at very little added cost.
   The New Advent Loudspeaker, then, can radiate significantly more energy at 10,000 Hz than our original design -more than enough to reveal the cleaner high-frequency output on records. The audible difference is subtle on most recordings Ca slightly more open and defined quality) and most noticeable on recordings that have a heavy content of brass, snares, cymbals, and other demanding high- frequency material.
   We don’t believe that the difference is great enough to make more than a tiny percentage of present Advent Loudspeaker owners want to trade in their speakers. (We don’t design any of our speakers, including the least expensive, to make people want to trade them in after the honeymoon, however long, is over.) But the change is the kind we think should be made in a speaker designed to compete in the "best" category without compromise. And we think it will be appreciated by today’s and tomorrow’s speaker and record buyers.







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