I just inherited a Sunfire Advent AV550S, I'm looking for a wiring diagram can anyone help.

Doug

boogiedmusic@suddenlink.net

The AV 550S is accurately described by whatthedileo, very fair. I paid $199 plus shipping in either '02 or'03 can't remember exactly. I called Advent for use instruction and was told this unit has way more power than an average home listener needs. He recommended barely turning it on unless the recording is not digital and needs a bit more boost. The phase adjustment is critical as well for uniform sound spread thoroughout the room environment. When used this way i found the boominess is lessened. The
AV 550S output is factually down to 20hz as i have a test disc with white noise or warble down to 20. At 20 it is down probably 10 db i would guess, at 30 it shakes the house. I get many WOW comments when people with lesser or no big systems are exposed to movies here with us. I really couldn't justify an actual Carver True Subwoofer or equivalent. The price difference is not worth it to me.

Loud wall-shaking bass that you can hear from the road or INSIDE a neihbor's house.

Boominess, lower-end inaccuracy make this a choice better suited to less critical listeners.

This sub is designed for intimidation - big box, big driver, and Sunfire logo to scare off all visitors who own a HT-in-a-box. Infinity, Polk, Sony and JBL lovers can go home now. This review is critical, but I think this Advent sub creams these mainstream brands. of course, who cares since Advent (thre REAL Advent) went out of business shortly after the success of this unit! For MOVIES, it typically works extremely well. Hoever, on low-thresshold passages that tickle the subsonic limit of human hearing, you notice that the sub sounds exactly the same. It is as if there is a conductor inside the amp who has decided "Anything at 30Hz or lower, I will play at 27Hz steady". The result is sloppy sound reproduction that becomes tiresome to listen to. This may be in part to port noise - you can physically hear the rush of air breathing through the port, and this pitch will not really change no matter what frequency is being produced. This sub will rattle light fixtures in several rooms of your house, for sure, but this sub will expose its limits to you in some of your most covetted movie scenes - Saving Private Ryan tank scene, which lasts about a half hour, for instance. You start out extremely impressed at the magnitude of the sound, but that 27Hz catch-all frequency becomes a fatiguing drone that wears on you, unless you are able to focus your attention to the storyline (but let's face it - anyone reading this is focusing on far more than the storyline). For MUSIC, this sub does not like you to shift gears - if you jump around the dial on the radio, or play random cuts from various recordings, you will notice a big difference in the response of the sub. I beliieve the blame lies with the sound engineers who tailored the recordings, but this sub makes it painfully obvious that all recordings are not equal. You almost want a MOVIE/MUSIC switch on the sub. It is great for smooth jazz, rap, and R&B, but I find rock music especially wearying due in no small part to the sub. Perhaps because the sub is not prominently featured in most rock - if you go from 50Cent to VanHalen, you are going to wonder where the bass went, because it will no longer be filling your room with 50ft sound waves (note: a 20Hz sound wave is approximately 56 feet long, basically the reason that bass is non-direction sound). I ripped the whole sub apart and braced the three long walls with angle iron and put a cross brace across the two opposing long walls. I also Dynamated the outside of the port tube. I never bothered to use a meter before and after, but my ears told me that I hadn't reduced resonance perceptably, so I can say that the box is tighter than you might expect when you rap on it with your knuckles (hollow echo, instead of the desired faint knock that makes a cabinet sound like solid wood). I don't think anything out there in its price range will compare with this sub - however, I have decided that I am not a listener in this price range. I will probably step up to a Hsu or Velodyne that guarantees me some 20Hz no-distortion listening.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic, dbx, KLH, SVS.

Really low Bass for a really low price!!

Adjustment knobs, no "always on" power switch position

This is an amazing subwoofer considering it is priced well below other subs with similar specs. It takes a considerable amount of tinkering to properly adjust the crossover and phase positions as the knobs are impossible to accurately set. Because of the really deep bass output capability of this sub, you have to be careful not to set the volume unrealistically high, especially for music. At the price I paid ($300), I wish I had bought two, and had a left and right channel sub! My neighbors are sorry I bought even one... :-)

Similar Products Used:

JBL, Cerwin-Vega, Def. Tech.

Power, power, more power
500W (peak) SUNFIRE amp!

Boomy, no speaker outs, knobs

Man this baby packs a punch. This sub can knock paintings off walls. A trooper when it comes to home theater. It has a 15" woofer, which can move quite a bit of air. Unfortunately, I think that 15" woofers are a bit too big and bulky to keep up with fast paced music. The Velodyne CT100 and Klipsch KSW12 are superior for music. Both of these have tight, crisp bass. I don't know about the Klipsch, but the Velodyne has line-ins and line-outs through which your mains can be wired. This is the ideal setting for music: to let your sub handle the crossover, so you have a clean separation of frequencies. The Advent has only one speaker out- and that's to another sub for daisy-chaining; it's basically a dead end. It has one LFE in, L/R RCA plug ins, and binding posts for speaker wire ins.

Now, back to home theater- my goodness, my ribs ached after watching The Matrix with this sub's volume (gain) set to half-way. The only thing I had a problem with was the lobby shoot-em-up scene. The boominess of the sub obscured the quick basslines of the awesome Popellerhead song, "Spybreak." But Saving Private Ryan- when the ship lands at Normandy in the beginning and when the tanks roll in at the end you feel like they're rolling into your front door. Granted I have an apartment, but even if you have a large living room, at this price you can buy two and daisy chain them together for bass that can knock a molar out.

Now, on to the knobs. When I read all the other review of the knobs, I thought oh they're just being over critical. No. These knobs suck. They're tiny little push pins which take a flashlight and a lot of concentration to set right. Otherwise, this is a high quality sub. Did I mention the 500W Sunfire amp? I got this for $200 used, and it was worth EVERY penny. However, you can spend a hundred and twenty to sixty more for a good deal on the Velodyne and Klipsch. And these, since I use my system for a great deal of music, are superior subs in my opinion. However, the Advent knock the socks off of these in home theater. This is why I came to my rating of 4: 3 for music, 5 for home theater= 4 overall. Even with my reservations about music, I don't have regrets. I would buy this sub again in a heartbeat.

Similar Products Used:

Velodyne ct100
Cambridge Soundworks Basscube 8
Klipsch ksw12

Inexpensive

VERY boomy, difficult to adjust.

Even though I only paid $250 for this unit, I can't wait to replace it. It does go very LOUD but it is also very loose and boomy. I've heard 100 amp subs that had tighter, better sounding base than this unit. Just when I think I have the adjustments set correctly for Enya, I pop in Duran Duran and have to readjust. Haven't set up my home theater yet but when I do I am fairly certain that I will have to upgrade to a quality sub.

Loud, inexpensive.

Popping noise every time it is powered up.

Great subwoofer for a starter system. Sounds great,
inexpensive. Not complicated to connect. Adjustment leaves something to be desired, especially if not an expert.

big, solid bass

popping noise

Great for music, EXCELLENT for HT use!! Except for the popping noise when turning it on/off or there is no LFE signal, it could probably outperform any subwoofer up to 3X its price.

Big solid sound

auto standby after few minutes of no LFE signal

I bought two from J&R for approx $250 each. Daisy chained them for more complete bass management. Added bonus was that I used them as speaker stands for my front left and front right speakers(one on top of each sub-woof). Now I hear an even distribution of bass on the left and right. The Bob Carver Sunfire amp was worth the price alone! Hooked it up to my Sony DVD 550S. Home theater system consist of 54" Philips Magnavox rear projection tv, Harman Karman PA 5800 5channel amp, HarmKarm AVR5 as preamp,JBL SVA series speakers and Polk center channel speake.
Happy for now, but the trek for better sound continues!

Similar Products Used:

Audiosource 15' (garbage!), velodyne 15" -forgot the model number from 1998 (3 times the price similar results!)

Fairly high output, Bob Carver's name

Lack of very low frequency output, Poor control, poor build quality, control layout

My experience with this sub sounds a bit like some of the other posters. I got a pretty good deal on this sub (about $400- saw it for $300 a couple of months after I bought mine), and I quess it isn't terrible for the price.

My main problems with the sound stem from poor build quality. I don't doubt the amp's prowess-I've owned and used three or four Carver amps over the years. The problem lies in a really sub-par driver and a cheap enclosure. Sure, it's heavy, but a rap on the side yeilds a hollow thump, reminiscent of smacking a rotten log. I used this amp for about six months and never really was able to dial in the sound.

With very bass heavy music, like Metallica's "Load" album or Dead Or Alive's newest album "Nucleopatra" (hey, it's not Chopin, but I'm a product of the 80's...), the sound was very boomy and unfocused. I messed around with the level, phase control, etc., all to no avail. The bass just wouldn't integrate with the rest of the music.

Thinking that out of phase overlap between the sub and the large mains might be responsible, I used the crossover in my Audio Control Phase Couples Activator Series III (a very nice piece, reasonably priced if you can find one) to filter the frequencies above 90 Hz from the sub feed, routing the mids/highs to my Carver A 400x. This helped on some music, but the afore-mentioned examples still sounded bloated and out of control.

Performance on your plain vanilla, basic rock was pretty good. Music with strong bass guitar, etc. sounded fairly solid. Yet drums remained a weak area for the Advent sub. Compared to the Cambridge sub there was bloat and a lack of focus. I feel the Cambridge sub went a little deeper: no contest in the max output department, however. The Advent can really pump it out.

I guess I'd reluctantly agree with the poster who said the 15" driver isn't "fast" enough to integrate well with music. I say reluctantly because intellectually I agree with Legacy designer Bill Duddleston in saying that faster driver movement is a higher frequency. But the main problem with the unit is a complete lack of effective protection circuitry, a problem with seems to plague subs up and down the price range. To manufacturers: why can't you implement smarter overload protection in your products? I don't think you could design a sub that SOMEONE'S system wouldn't stress.

My Advent gave up the ghost months ago. It died giving it's all to the movie "Armageddon", expiring in a very noxious burst of smoke! Maybe I'm a cruel taskmaster, but I don't think so. Perhaps my unit had some problem from the factory. Who knows. It was for the best, really. It gave me the kick up the ass I needed to spring for a pair of Hsu Research TN 1220's and a Hsu 500 W amp. It was $1802 for the works, along with a set of lower crossover pins, but as a ponder my credit card statement each month, I must concede it was money well spent. I've heard things with THESE subs that I've NEVER heard before, or even dreamt were present, on discs I've owned for nearly fifteen years. Words to the wise, if that sum is within your means, BUY THE HSU'S! They are the KINGS!

In closing, I think one of the other reviewers had a great idea in pulling the amp out of the otherwise mediocre Advent unit and mating to a worthy driver. Parts Express sells a variety of good driver for the purpose. Hmmm... Maybe I'll have to see if the old dog is fixable...

Good sub for a beginner, home theatre buff on a budget or, quite likely, rap "music" fan. If you can get it cheap, go for it. But there is better out there for $500 on up.

I'd have likely given it more stars before I heard the Hsu's, though. Not a fair comparison, I realize, but it shows you what you're missing in cheap gear.

Similar Products Used:

Cambridge SoundWorks 150 Watt 12", Def Techs, Infinity, Jbl