A couple of possibilities:
The electrolytic capacitors in the crossover may have gone south, causing
loss of high frequencies and shift in the crossover points.
Or, the tweeters may have developed "ferrofluid clog". This is when the iron
particles in the fluid coagulate causing the coil to seize in the gap. It
was common in some tweeter designs using old, high viscosity ferrofluid
formulations. This can happen when the speakers are unused over a long
period.
I also wonder if the foam surrounds, even though they may look good, might
have stiffened up considerably in 16 years. The impact of this would be more
in the bass end, but it can also affect the midrange response.
It may be time for new speakers. The good news is that more modern design
combined with overseas manufacture have resulted in much better speakers
than those Advents at rather reasonable prices.
On 2/4/15, 9:48 PM, in article
,
" wrote:
Don't know if this qualifies as "high end," but maybe somebody here
might have a usefull suggetion.
I have a pair of Advent Legacy speakers which I bought in the late 80's,
new, driven by an SR-3A Nakamichi receiver. About 16 years ago the foam
in the woofers basically disintegrated and I had them rebuilt by a lab
in PA, can't remember the name. They sounded really great afterwards.
Anyway, they sound pretty bad now - sort of mushy and fuzzy.. Can't
make out the lyrics easily to well produced songs. The foam around the
woofers still looks perfect. I have Audio-technica headphones and the
receiver is very clear through them. I played some music through the
Advents at volume and headphones at the same time to see if the clarity
was breaking down with a load larger than the headphones, and the
Advents sounded fuzzy and the A-T's sounded clear. Any ideas regarding
cleaning the sound of these babies up? Gotten attached to them over the
last 35 years:-)