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RE: Western Electric

Posted by Joe Roberts on May 24, 2014 at 03:27:59:
The Silbatone 300B SE amp used on the WE horns has a current feedback driver stage with .01% distortion at 160V p-p output. Bandwidth of the silver foil output transformers is 10-75k with no resonant peaks. Any distortion is the product of the WE 300B tube (actually we used 30s vintage 300As) which runs open loop.
Electronically, the amp is quite "neutral," unless by "neutral" you mean "colorless," which is rather easy to arrange but essential to avoid.
In any event, it is sppropriate to recognize that the WE 12A/13A were the FIRST high quality speakers and are 90 years old. Then compare the 2014 crop! ;op
Incidentally, many of the rooms at Munich MOC are terrible. The worst I have seen at any show and sometimes impossible to tame. So, any performances and evaluations are contingent on conditions and have limited appeal to universality.
At the show, we probably got 80-85% of what the WE 12A/13A can do in a properly set-up hall with 30 ft ceilings. I usually listen to it in such a setting, so I know what is lost.
Last year, we had one of the best speaker systems on the planet, WE Mirrophonic M2, and I could barely stand to listen to it due to flutter echo and congestion in that nasty 3rd floor room. Sometimes you get lucky, or set-up chops can beat room problems, but when you don't it can be tragic.
Also, exhibitors have ONE DAY before the doors open to set up and tune systems. It can take months or years to get a big system really dialed in, in a strange, lousy and inappropriate room. Some of those rooms have as much glass as a greenhouse, such as the Mayer/von Langa solarium upstairs.
The view of the Munich show enterprise from the exhibitor's stance is much different from that of the visitor. If a decent number of visitors like what you are doing, it can be considered success under the circumstances.