If you’re a retro speaker enthusiast, you’ve probably heard of the large Advent speaker, but have you ever heard of the small Advent speaker? For audiophiles looking for that classic colorless Advent sound without the huge footprint of the big Advent speaker, the smaller Advent speaker was the perfect solution. It truly is a testament to the smaller advent speaker that even today, a pair of these bought in 1972 holds up against today’s speaker technology of the day. This can’t really be said for large advent speakers or speakers from similar brands like Bose and JBL from that era.
Arguably, the approach of the Advent speakers of the early 1970s was groundbreaking. They were the consummate innovators led by Kloss and his team of mad audio geniuses. Since Kloss’s goal when he founded Advent in 1967 was to develop a commercially viable large-screen television, the Advent Speaker was something he came up with somewhat deviously. Luckily for us, it did! The Great Advent Speaker, as we all know, was the cutting edge method for the acoustic suspension “book shelf” speaker of the day. With a smaller rigid dome tweeter and a 12-inch air-suspended woofer, this speaker had reasonable power in a small package. The large Adventist speaker cabinet was made of wood or MDF (customer’s choice). It included 1 tweeter control.
Anyway, in 1972, Kloss, fresh off the success of the great advent speaker, decided that he needed to design a smaller model. The smaller Advent speaker was very similar to the original Advent speaker, albeit with an 8 1/2 inch woofer and a 9 1/2 inch diaphragm in its smaller cabinet. The crossover and tweeter frequencies were actually the same as the large advent speaker, but lacked the control that was standard with the original advent speaker. It also lacked the option of a real wood cabinet. That said, the price was roughly 30% cheaper, around $ 140 a pair at the time of product launch.
To found the smallest team of Advent speakers, Kloss brought in respected colleague Andy Kostatos (who later founded Boston Acoustics), and offered his expert talents to the speaker, specifically in crossover set-up. Finally, Kostatos left Advent in 1974 after a recapitalization effort rocked the company.
The original Small Advent Loudspeaker was a real beauty and due to its more compact components, when you buy these speakers now on the second hand market, there is a great chance that you will find a speaker that is like new or lost with just a few small ones. reforms such as rubber gaskets or cones.
There are some cool things to keep in mind when working with the Small Advent monitor. The first thing is that they really are not that “small”. Truth be told, the smallest advent cabinet is actually larger than 90% of what would be considered bookshelf speakers today. Second, the build quality was pretty rough and not as polished or glossed over as current speaker / cabinet builds are. That said, smaller advent speaker bindings were, in particular, quite sophisticated for the time and still are today. Finally, if you’re shopping for smaller advent speakers, do your best to find a pair with the original papers – the manual that came with these bad boys was awesome! It was clear even back then that the Small Advent Loudspeaker was aimed and manufactured for serious audiophiles, the same people who covet these speakers even today. The Smallest Adventist Speaker is a great introduction to the Adventist monitor and a proven speaker in the audio world!
