Advent AW870 Wireless Powered Speakers

by Advent

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 9.4 x 12 inches ; 16.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 18 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B00000J1QV
• Item model number: AW870
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,360 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Are there places in your home where you'd love to enjoy music, but don't want to lay speaker wire or drill holes to get it there? Advent's wireless powered speaker system lets you import music from CD, radio, DVD, or any audio source to nearly any room in the house.

Advent's AW870 speaker system uses the FM (frequency-modulation) technique employed in radio to broadcast audio to the two loudspeakers, each of which houses its own 15-watt amplifier. The speakers, which are identical, offer a roll-on power/volume switch and a separate switch for designating either speaker as left, right, or mono--highly desirable when playing with different positions. (If you're listening to monaural material--including anything recorded prior to about 1954--the Mono switch will allow you to cut down on transmission static without compromising music delivery.)

The AW870 system comes with two main parts: the transmitter and the speakers, all of which require close proximity to an AC outlet unless you opt to battery-power the speakers. The transmitter, about five inches in diameter, plugs into a wall outlet and hooks into your desired audio source via a single stereo RCA cable.

We positioned the transmitter's tuner arbitrarily while setting up and were pleased to find that the speakers' tuner zeroed in on the appropriate frequency with little adjustment. In fact, the thing that gave us the most trouble was the fact that the speakers use individual volume controls. With no master "balance" knob, the two speakers have to be manually adjusted for equal volume.

The transmitter range seemed surprisingly large, though static and crackle increased as we got farther away from the transmitter. Listening from across a room worked best, though the omnidirectional transmitter works through walls and floors as well. Powered with batteries (eight "C" cell, not provided), the AW870 speakers make ideal portable deck speakers when you don't feel like moving your whole stereo just to enjoy the nice weather.

The sound from our test CDs closely resembled that of clear FM radio: dynamically compressed and slightly hissy even at its quietest. As speakers go, these are decent but not great. As with any sound system, a boost in convenience often requires a small sacrifice in quality, and this is true of the AW870 wireless system.

Pros:

• Intuitive setup
• Flexible placement
• Battery-power option

Cons:

• Separate volume control for each speaker
• No tone controls (bass or treble)

Product Description

900 MHz wireless speakers, 15 watts per speaker, 4" Tuff-Kote woofer, Christie design

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Convenient and flexible, sound better than you'd think., August 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Advent AW870 Wireless Powered Speakers (Electronics)

I've been using my Advent wireless speakers for about 2 months, and am very pleased with their overall performance. I will likely buy another pair. I use them for rear speakers in my surround sound setup, so I don't have to run wires around the room. Also, I take speakers to other parts of the house, or out on the patio when listening to CDs or FM and can't be in the main listening room. Reception and sound quality is good, only rare interference noise when someone passes near speaker.

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good points, bad points, July 12, 2000

By 

Adam Rice (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Advent AW870 Wireless Powered Speakers (Electronics)

I bought these in the hopes of using them both in my home office and for picnics--just bring along a walkman, plug it in, instant outdoor concert.

Well, not quite. Although the speakers can be battery-powered (requiring 8 C-cells each), the transmitter cannot be, unless you are adventurous enough to splice a power jack into the power cord and build a suitable battery pack on your own time.

I found the sound from the speakers to be OK but nothing special. I often thought there was some barely perceptible fuzz. Tuning has not been a set-and-forget affair: people moving nearby can knock the signal out. And 900 MHz cordless phones produce really bad interference.

The industrial design on these is pretty stupid, with the battery hatches actually screwed in place--making them very inconvenient if you plan on running them on battery power with any regularity. They would also benefit from more smarts, so that you only needed to set one volume knob (instead of three) and with automatic frequency hunting (my phone can do it, why not the speakers?). This would all drive up the cost, but it would be worth it.

I'd recommend these for people who want a set of speakers they can haul out on the deck once in a while for barbecues and as a remote set of speakers for the bedroom or office, or for situations where it would be really inconvenient to run a speaker wire (but you'll still need a power outlet nearby, really).

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Convenience is relative to price and performance, July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Advent AW870 Wireless Powered Speakers (Electronics)

I have just installed a pair of these speakers. Setup is relatively simple, although I had to use my headphone jack to create the connection. As one would imagine, the high end is better than the bass reproduction. All in all, I am pleased. The position of the speakers is about 50 feet from the source. Monster cable alone would be over half the price, as I would have had to drill through the floor, crawl under 2 sets of icky tight spaces to pull the cable, etc., etc. My time and money would have broke even with the cost of the units BEFORE even tackling the question of which bookshelf speakers to buy. If sound is a priority and you can live with a compromise with high fidelity, these are for you.