amplifier for large advents?


I just bought a nice pair of original Large Advents. Which are the speakers I should have bought in 1973 when I purchased my very first stereo system. So any thoughts on a nice amp to drive them? Vintage or newer would both be ok. Not more then about $1000 used. I've been thinking about vintage Levinson, Audio Research, Krell and such but all a bit more than I want to spend. I haven't listened to a pair of Advents in decades so any current owners opinions would be greatly appreciated.
dfwlistener
Maybe Hafler? Once upon a time a DH500 drove the heck out of a certain pair of Large Advents - they sort of make a "period pair". There are definitely others that worked (B&K, maybe Carver or Rotel, even Dynaco) so you really don't have to go at the level of Krell et. al.
My pair work nicely with a Rega Mira3. Also great with my Eagle 4.
You can take the Advents up a few notches by replacing internal wiring, connectors, crossover cap, etc. I have improved the already great bass with 4 front to back 1" maple crossbraces and changing out fiberglass insulation. enjoy.
P.S. Cardas Golden Cross speaker cables work great.. at 4 times the cost of the speaker lol!! Got 2 sets of Advents to play with, paid I think 150 or 200 for each pair.
For sound more towards the warmer tube side of things, there was a pair of TAD Hibachi 125 monoblocks up for sale here the other day. I used to sell the Advents and have a pair of these and would like to hear them together.

For pure performance, a pair of 100 w/ch or so Class D amps would be another interesting choice. D-sonic might be a good place to look.

FWIW I still have my pair of OHM Ls (refurbed) that I bought back in the 70's when I sold both these and the Advents. OHM L was designed to have Advent sound in a smaller box and still have decent efficiency. These sound really good off my 500w/ch CLas D Bel Canto ref1000m monoblocks that I use to run these and other more demanding speakers, but are probably overkill for older Advents alone.
Mr_hosehead - thanks for the ideas. I had forgotten about Hafler. Those were pretty good in their day. I also forgot until you mentioned it that I have a pair of B&K mono amps in the attic. I'll try them first.

Xiekitchen - I was thinking the same thing. Have you replaced the connectors? What did you use? Does anyone do a crossover upgrade/rebuild service? Did you put the braces on the inside or outside?
The Harman Kardon receivers from the early '70s sounded great with large Advents then and still do. With dual power supplies and lots of point-to-point wiring, they have a muscular, tubey sound. A friend powers his large Advents with the H/K 430, and I use the same model with ADS L1290II in a secondary system. Only rated at 30 watts but it plays bigger, and is considered the most reliable of the x30 series at this point.
The amps one already have sitting in the attic are definitely the right ones to try! :^)
Dfwlistener: The crossbraces get glued inside. Pretty easy to do even for a klutzy non-woodworker like me. Buy some maple 1" x 1" stock at home depot.. just measure very closely and over cut not undercut until piece fits snub between front and back baffles.. glue in with wood glue..
I used somewhat inexpensive "gold plated" connectors from parts express as I did not want to spend hundreds on connectors. I used the Swedish made 12 gau wire from Madisound web site with good results (I've used this in all my speaker rebuilds.. inexpensive and sounds pretty good.) I used a couple of Kimber caps to get the right value, this improved midrange warmth and glow. There was a guy on ebay did crossover kits for these and others.. for AR speakers as well. Also he had some really good vintage looking grill cloth for AR's that I used on my advents and they look great. One thing I did was remove the inner black grill cloth to reduce the amount of fabric 'blocking' the sound. I also removed the fried egg tweeter metal grill, you have to be (obviously) very careful with this, but it opened up the tweeter dynamics a bit.
Hi Dfwlistener,I have a pair of Large Advent speakers and I drive mine with a vintage Marantz 2275 receiver and they sound wonderful together. You ought to consider this receiver , I think that you would be very surprised.
Carter