I have a great story here, which makes you wonder how they left NHT alone and didn't screw them up. We picked up AR thinking they'd offer a more efficient (AR, efficient? Something wrong there already) and more affordable option to NHT (MORE affordable? What was I thinking?). So, they bombed. Bright, edgy, sounding like the worst of the Infinity speakers. So, there I am at CES and this pitch guy from AR starts going on and on about the new AR1 and how Bill Bush of NHT helped in its design. Okay, I'll listen. "Ewwww". He keeps talking and goes and grabs Cary Christie, apparently responsible for all of the lousy, cheap speakers to come out of Infinity and he tells me how Bill Bush personally told him that he thinks the AR1s are BETTER than the NHT 2.9s. I'm not hearing it. So, I say, "well, look at the time" and duck out. Hey! There's Bill. "Hey Bill, guess what Cary Christie told me!" I got the biggest, funniest eye roll I've ever seen. So, here comes the story. He was called in to work on the AR1. He says he got the speakers sounding "decent" especially considering the high efficiency design. But it need more work. After spending an entire week "roughing in" the crossover (mainly through computer modeling with some subjective listening) he tells them what parts to order. They say "sorry, we've decided to put in these [cheap, crappy] drivers since the others are too expensive and you'll need to redesign the crossover." At which point, Bill said "well, look at the time."
I'm SO glad they're with Rockford. Too bad about AR and Advent. I love the name Advent and associate it with the older models and the Advent 300 receiver. Somebody needs to rescue these and do something with them.