This receiver includes a rather respectable little tuner, almost comparable to the Dyna FM-5 in performance, a 15Wpc power amplifier of passable quality, and a preamplifier section that in some ways gives some of the costliest preamps a run for their money.
If you don't live in a difficult receiving area or are trying to receive long-distance FM, the tuner should satisfy any perfectionist. It is far superior to the FM transmission quality in most US cities anyway. The power amplifier is better than any we have previously found driving the dinky little speakers in most compact systems, but it has neither the power nor the other attributes to replace any of the amplifiers currently in favor with perfectionists. Even for the person who is more interested in the music than the hardware, we recommend at least 50Wpc—not so much for the ability to make noise as for the ability to control the speaker drivers, to make them do what the signal tells them to do.
Sound Quality
Removable back-panel links permit the internal power amplifiers to be disconnected and the preamp outputs to be drawn off for connection to an external amplifier. The preamp section, from phono to external outputs, is one of the smoothest-sounding solid-state designs to come along to date. Highs are entirely free from the edginess that has more or less characterized previous solid-state preamps, and the sound has a richness and ease reminiscent of GAS's Thaedra. In the Advent's case, some of the richness stems from a slight heavying of the low end, amounting to what sounds like about a 1dB boost at 100Hz and perhaps 2dB at 40Hz.
The middle range sounds—not exactly veiled, for details are well (but not extraordinarily) reproduced—but more "gray" than liquidly transparent. Extreme highs, which contribute airiness, are deficient also—a combinat8on of factors that bar the 300's preamp from state-of-the-art status. But look at the price of this! $265, including a tuner! If this isn't the best buy in up-front electronics today, we're open to alternate nominations!
Conclusions
Let us state first-off that we consider it to be the best choice up-front for anyone who would rather, at this point in his life, put most of his cash into records than into hardware. The preamp's shortcomings are, except for the low-end fatness, of the kind that subtract things—detail, depth, air—from the sound rather than adding mostly disagreeable things to it. It will not make you acutely aware that some of your discs are a bit noisy or that your cartridge is mistracking, by exaggerating the irritation value of these problems. Neither, it should be added, will it obscure them by more than a small amount. For the audio perfectionist who can't afford a Class A-recommended preamp, this may or may not be the ideal second-best choice. If you hunger for razor-sharp transients and airier sound, you can get a Dyna PAT-5 FET (Improved) preamp for a bit less than $100 more, but minus the tuner. The Advent is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for a perfectionist, but if we were working our way there we would choose it over anything else under $300 as the most listenable stop-off on the way.
Removable back-panel links permit the internal power amplifiers to be disconnected and the preamp outputs to be drawn off for connection to an external amplifier. The preamp section, from phono to external outputs, is one of the smoothest-sounding solid-state designs to come along to date. Highs are entirely free from the edginess that has more or less characterized previous solid-state preamps, and the sound has a richness and ease reminiscent of GAS's Thaedra. In the Advent's case, some of the richness stems from a slight heavying of the low end, amounting to what sounds like about a 1dB boost at 100Hz and perhaps 2dB at 40Hz.
Let us state first-off that we consider it to be the best choice up-front for anyone who would rather, at this point in his life, put most of his cash into records than into hardware. The preamp's shortcomings are, except for the low-end fatness, of the kind that subtract things—detail, depth, air—from the sound rather than adding mostly disagreeable things to it. It will not make you acutely aware that some of your discs are a bit noisy or that your cartridge is mistracking, by exaggerating the irritation value of these problems. Neither, it should be added, will it obscure them by more than a small amount. For the audio perfectionist who can't afford a Class A-recommended preamp, this may or may not be the ideal second-best choice. If you hunger for razor-sharp transients and airier sound, you can get a Dyna PAT-5 FET (Improved) preamp for a bit less than $100 more, but minus the tuner. The Advent is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for a perfectionist, but if we were working our way there we would choose it over anything else under $300 as the most listenable stop-off on the way.
