Standmounted/Bookshelf Loudspeakers

Editor: We are very grateful that Stereophile has evaluated the Advent loudspeaker on the basis of absolute sound quality rather than restricting comparisons to its price peers.

We are a bit confounded by the statement that the speaker is "noticeably amplifier sensitive," because this does not agree with our experience. The Advent loudspeaker is critically damped, having an almost ideal system Q of slightly less than 1. As a result, it does not change character when used with different amplifiers that differ only in damping factor, so long as each of them has a minimum damping factor of 10. Any speaker will sound heavier in the bass, for better or for worse, with a low-damping-factor amplifier.

We wonder how many amplifiers Stereophile used with the Advent speakers. The two mentioned in the review have been noted in prior Stereophile reports as having sonic differences when auditioned on other speakers. We suspect that what the reporter heard with the Advents were the previously noted differences between these amplifiers, rather than differences between otherwise-similar amplifiers that were caused by the Advent speakers.—Henry Kloss, Advent Corporation