Advent AR-4X

Name: Advent AR-4x
Brand: Advent

This entry is odd, and it's best to say so up front: the "AR-4x" is not an Advent product. The AR-4x was a loudspeaker made by Acoustic Research (AR), the company Henry Kloss co-founded before he left to start Advent. People mix up the two brands a lot. Both made well-regarded bookshelf speakers in the 1960s and 70s, and both are tied to Kloss. But Advent never built or sold an AR-4x.

Audio (May 1972, p.22) ran an editor's anniversary reflection in which one writer said he would "rather have $500.00 invested in four AR-4x's and four-channel equipment than in two $114.00 speakers and two-channel equipment". That hints at a reputation as an affordable, reliable performer in the early quadraphonic era. A later retrospective in Vacuum-Tube-Valley (p.31) called the AR-4 a "very smooth little speaker" with less bass than the AR-3. It suggested a 15-watt minimum, but noted the speaker would run fine on seven to eight watts of single-ended triode power.

None of this is Advent. The Advent line that followed Kloss's departure from AR included the Advent Loudspeaker (Original/Larger Advent), the New Advent, and later models like the Advent/2 and Advent/3. No Advent product ever carried the "AR-4x" designation. For the genuine Acoustic Research AR-4x, look under the Acoustic Research brand, where it is well documented. It is a fine vintage bookshelf speaker, but it belongs in a different archive.