I've had many Advents in woodgrain 'utility' cabinets, but never a real wood veneer pair. The sound is wonderful, as always, but they look
much betters and of much higher quality.
For those who wonder about the'original' Advents with the masonite ring around the woofers, they were made that way so that Henry Kloss' long travel woofer design could be realized inexpensively by the young company. A standard 10 inch woofer basket was too shallow, and the ring allowed a 10 inch woofer to be built with a 12 inch basket, which had sufficient depth. As soon as financially possible, Advent got it's own basket, the deep 10 incher. The masonite ring version sounds exactly the same to my ears, no better and no worse.
You'll notice a repair made to one of the woofer surrounds. The previous owner tore a dime sized hole, presumably with a screwdriver when installing the refoamed woofer. Since the refoaming was done (well) with contact cement (not recommend), it would have been difficult to remove the surround without damaging the cone. I glued a foam patch to the underside of the foam with my (recommended) Speaker Service Cement. It doesn't look pretty, but works perfectly, and sounds great. The Advents are pretty strange looking with grills off anyway, and I imagine owners of the real walnut veneer versions keep the grills on anyway.
