The spec for the 'New Large' Advent loudspeaker was 89dB/W/m. I drove mine fine for years ('79-'89) with a modded Advent 300 receiver. I replaced the electrolytic crossover caps with much better poly caps. Because they were inexpensive speakers, they were too often paired with cheap gear of the '70s and the awful sound was blamed on the speakers. I had auditioned mine from time to time with top-notch electronics of the '80s and they only sounded better. I tried double advents with a friend, but the Sansui 717 amp always popped its breaker after 5min.
The recent stereophile review was of the 'smaller 'old' advent loudspeaker', which was a dumbed-down version of the 'large' model. The side-by-side difference was not subtle, with a far more open and less-congested midrange on the 'large', along with obviously deeper more defined bass from a 2" bigger woofer.
Both speakers were redesigned in '79 (?) and renamed the 'new' (small/large) advent loudspeaker. A big part of the change was more output from a redesigned tweeter to take advantage of the less-hashy HF reproduction offered by newer transistor electronics of the later '70s (it's all relative!) The reviewer's concern of the missing high frequencies would have been much less-so with the 'new'.
I sold my Advents for VERY similar sounding Boston A200s, but have been listening to Thiel 2.3&4 since 2002. Sure, the Thiels are a far better speaker esp wrt soundstaging, but there's a lot to be said about Advent's 12" woofers and a simple crossover.
If I was forced to own a '70s speaker, I'd take my 'New Large' Advents back in a second: they could play loud, decent dispersion, a warmish engaging sound with wonderfully natural midrange for a large 2-way, and conveyed more detail and dynamics than you'd expect (as the stereophile reviewer reported).
As much as I enjoyed them, technology does march forward: I'm no Advent guru, just recalling the thousands of hours they provided my music.
