Sell them before you think about replacing the speakers with a different brand/design or poking holes in the cabinets. The foam surround replacement did not degrade the sound of mine at all. Placing them near or against a wall or up against an entertainment center can cause the bass to become boomy. The only weakness I can think of is that they need room. Well balanced, able to handle lots of power. You can actually 'place' instruments from the music in the room. They can seem to disappear when listened to, where you aren't listening to the speakers, you're listening to the music. Nothing can touch these for the price (eBay has them for between $160 and $220) and probably not for a whole lot more. Had to had the woofer surrounds replaced in 1995. I've had mine since 1982 (bought used for $75.00/pair). I want to listen to my advents for a long time or until my ears don't work anymore, so to protect my speakers and amps and my ears, i fitted all my speaker cables with 1 ampere fast blow fuses. I've tried different vintage amps like luxman, sansui, pioneer, marantz from 35 to 140 watts/channel and the Advents just work so well with all of them. i've refoamed 4 woofer pairs and they get neater everytime. remember the factory closed doors more than 20 years ago. i figured more people will re-discover these wonderful speakers and prices of complete cabs and spare drivers will eventually rise, or worse, you may not find them anymore. i also stocked up on several pairs of tweeters, crossovers and woofers, foam surrounds (got more than a dozen pairs stashed away). very similar, sonically, to the Large but i'll stick to the big ones. got carried away and bought 4 pairs of Advent/1 models as well. i've even played as many as four pairs at one time. I must admit they don't all sound the same, but they all sound great and i love them all. Since discovering the amazing Large Advent, i have hoarded a total of 7 pairs with both utility and walnut cabs, with round and beveled front moulding, masonite and all-steel basket woofers, masonite and non-masonite orange tweeters. I've heard some pretty high performance speakers in the past (celestion, jbl L100, B&W, Infinity, Altec, AR, Cerwin vega) but none are better, for any reasonable amount of cash, than double advents for my type of music (jazz/pop). btw, thanks again george, your advents are working great. found two pairs on ebay, re-foamed and re-varnished by the seller. found a pair of decent looking, refoamed utility cabs in the local used market.

I was amazed at the performance of the refoamed speakers.clarity, naturalness, detail, imaging, power handling.and these were bookshelf speakers! did due diligence and decided to look for Large Advents. ordered a refoam kit from 'simply speakers'.great guys. it played badly at first, turned out the surrounds were almost completely gone.

i bought my first advent speaker by accident.i thought i won (on ebay for $30) an AR (acoustic research).

Advent large speakers specs