Miscellaneous

Went to my first audio salon wanted the Audio Research with Tympanis - in the real world as a young Airman, matched Advent to GAS Son of Ampzilla, with 1st gen Magnepan MMG, and AR table - started here and continues!

I had this receiver, because it was reviewed favorably here, and because the preamp or tuner was designed by one of the industry golden boys (Holman?), but it had a hum I couldn't get rid of, and I figured it was just too cheap and dumped it. Holt famously said once that "Who cares how long it lasts if it doesn't sound good?", but the other side of that coin is just as true.

I bought a second-hand Advent 300 receiver for $75 soon after joining Stereophile. I used it in my office system for several years until one channel died.

It was designed by Tomlinson Holman, who subsequently started APT-Holman, before ending up at Lucasfilm, where he came up with THX.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

At least the early versions of this receiver were indeed plagued with background hum. They may have improved it in later runs. It may have been a ground loop or some power supply problem, but in general this thing was built like a complete piece of junk. The only real redeeming factor was the phono preamp, which did perform well above its pay scale. But it was not a well built or reliable product by any stretch, especially when the Japanese were churning out virtually bulletproof, high quality products at the same time. It was an attempt at producing better sound quality than what the Japanese were offering, which in my opinion it accomplished mostly when playing records. There was a fad for a while in using it as a tuner preamp, which faded away with the realization that the tuner was pretty mediocre as was the rest of the preamp beyond the phono stage. I also recall the preamp output letting out a hefty thump when switched on and off.

I bought this receiver back in the '70's, after Vietnam, along with the HK ST-6 linear tracking TT and the large Advent speakers. The receiver has long since died and I pitched it but the speakers I re coned and gave them to my son who replaced the grills and still uses them as his main speakers.

We got one in on trade once, back in the early '90s. Couldn't resist comparing it to the NAD 7225. The new one was better but not by a tremendous amount (and that's not counting the FM tuner performance.)

So did TH also design the tuner, or was that a KLH design (the tuning dial may have just been a coincidence.)