Advent Speakers

Half the speaker they used to be, Advent is now a budget name

The story behind Advent is a tale of acquisitions and mergers that run deep into the history of speaker manufacturers. Advent is a speaker company that has been around for a long time but was acquired by the same company that owns Acoustic Research, Recoton. Recoton also owns NHT, a high end speaker manufacturer. They kept some of the great designers from NHT on staff to design speakers for Acoustic Research, or AR as theyre known.
Recoton Corporation is involved in development and manufacture of an array of consumer electronics equipment and accessories. Their most popular brands include Advent, Ampersand, Acoustic Research, Discwasher, NHT, Parsec, Phase Linear, SoleControl and SoundQuest. Audiovox is a popular brand in handheld digital equipment that bought Advent along with many other brands from Recoton, including Jensen, PhaseLinear and Acoustic Research. In 2003, European consumer electronics giant Thompson added Recoton to its considerable consumer electronics properties.

Despite Advents deep history of unique offerings in Home Speakers, today Advent seems to be a budget wing of Acoustic Researchs slightly higher end products. Some of the products from both lines seem to be the exact same speaker with a different brand on the front. The higher end of Advents product line is its Heritage series featuring their top of the line Advent Heritage 500, a 200 Watt tower speaker. Its probably a decent speaker system for the price but that price is so low its difficult to recommend for tower speakers. Its probably better to simply find some bookshelf speakers if youre only going for a sub $200 speaker. The Advent Heritage 500 is stuffed with four 4 woofers, a midrange and a tweeter. Multiple drivers in a speaker dont necessarily make it better.

Advent is a product line that looks like it has taken a real beating over the years through its multiple acquisitions. Ending up as the budget wing of Audiovox (itself a budget model handheld manufacturer) shouldnt sit well with potential buyers. But for a pair of budget speakers its hard to complain about dedicated engineering quality. These speakers arent designed to compete with NHT or Boston Acoustics; theyre designed to compete with basic Radio Shack products and the lowest end stuff you can find at the big box store.

Ultimately its your ears that should decide if you like the sound of a pair of speakers, and if youre in the market for speakers with prices this low, understand youre getting what you paid for.