But Dave, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but you said you have not heard any WE speakers, yes?
Suggest you reserve your opinion in terms of absolutism until you do?
Now, let's be clear, WE measured the response of the 555 driver on a plane wave tube, before it was released. I have a copy of the paper. It is good. Let's put it in the proper perspective, a modern perspective. This driver was designed to operate from 75Hz. to 5kHz! Which modern driver does that? And, at that efficiency?
So, now when you go to listen to it, you are hearing the entire meat of the audio spectrum from a single driver (albeit on a big horn). That in my book is a major benefit and advantage.
You can do it with an ESL, but that is big too. Most ribbon type drivers will not do this range without an xover point in the middle. Nothing like this efficiency. What else? Not much.
Also, the typical WE amp was P-P 300Bs. More than 3 watts. Work the math backwards, the amp's distortion (class A) at less than 1 watt average, more like 100mW or less, and the driver running at an input level of 100mW, in your average oversized listening environment. What sort of distortion numbers will you see? Also, keep in mind that the spectra of distortion from that PP 300B amp is going to be rather 'pure' compared to the spectra coming out of a low distortion SS amp with GNFB. That's important because it sounds different to the ear. In other words, it's a darn good set of design choices. These are design choices that are nearly impossible to achieve by other means, except perhaps copying the 555 driver, or putting that sort of driver on a different expansion horn...
As far as I am concerned, ALL speakers have their own unique characteristics that are pretty easy to hear, and they just don't all sound the same, and they don't for the most part get confused for "reality" very often.
For my money, you can put them in the same class as the Quad 57 ESLs. A speaker that stands on its own even today, and that few if any have equaled - even though it has some deficits and drawbacks (the Quad, that is).
just my perspectives...
_-_-bear
Suggest you reserve your opinion in terms of absolutism until you do?
Now, let's be clear, WE measured the response of the 555 driver on a plane wave tube, before it was released. I have a copy of the paper. It is good. Let's put it in the proper perspective, a modern perspective. This driver was designed to operate from 75Hz. to 5kHz! Which modern driver does that? And, at that efficiency?
So, now when you go to listen to it, you are hearing the entire meat of the audio spectrum from a single driver (albeit on a big horn). That in my book is a major benefit and advantage.
You can do it with an ESL, but that is big too. Most ribbon type drivers will not do this range without an xover point in the middle. Nothing like this efficiency. What else? Not much.
Also, the typical WE amp was P-P 300Bs. More than 3 watts. Work the math backwards, the amp's distortion (class A) at less than 1 watt average, more like 100mW or less, and the driver running at an input level of 100mW, in your average oversized listening environment. What sort of distortion numbers will you see? Also, keep in mind that the spectra of distortion from that PP 300B amp is going to be rather 'pure' compared to the spectra coming out of a low distortion SS amp with GNFB. That's important because it sounds different to the ear. In other words, it's a darn good set of design choices. These are design choices that are nearly impossible to achieve by other means, except perhaps copying the 555 driver, or putting that sort of driver on a different expansion horn...
As far as I am concerned, ALL speakers have their own unique characteristics that are pretty easy to hear, and they just don't all sound the same, and they don't for the most part get confused for "reality" very often.
For my money, you can put them in the same class as the Quad 57 ESLs. A speaker that stands on its own even today, and that few if any have equaled - even though it has some deficits and drawbacks (the Quad, that is).
just my perspectives...
_-_-bear
What many people do not seem to realize is that horn theory and practice was very well developed, even 70 or more years ago. There ARE problems with any horn that can't be easily removed completely, but for practical reasons we do not even attempt to get the most efficiency from a horn, mostly just because of cost and difficulty in getting the strong magnetic field.
Horn throat distortion is real! It is calculable, and well worth getting a feeling for. What you find is that above a certain acoustic level it is easier to get 'low distortion' from an array of direct radiators. Therefore, IF you can make a 10W amplifier or greater, you almost overwhelm any midrange horn with throat distortion. Check it out!
Horn throat distortion is real! It is calculable, and well worth getting a feeling for. What you find is that above a certain acoustic level it is easier to get 'low distortion' from an array of direct radiators. Therefore, IF you can make a 10W amplifier or greater, you almost overwhelm any midrange horn with throat distortion. Check it out!
I think the modern day products giving you that same nice feeling in a big space would be some of Tom Danley's speakers.
The big movie theatres in town when I was a kid were WE and had beautiful sound. I remember seeing this in 63 or 64 and remember it as being the best sound experience I ever had at the movies.
Der Rosenkavalier (1962) - Full cast and crew
The big movie theatres in town when I was a kid were WE and had beautiful sound. I remember seeing this in 63 or 64 and remember it as being the best sound experience I ever had at the movies.
Der Rosenkavalier (1962) - Full cast and crew
It's certainly amusing that people assume a modern system sounds better than an old one. 
I could give you half a dozen reasons why the sort of valve amps I listened to years back, Decca FFSS cartridges and simple Goodmans closed box speakers were 10X more revealing on LP than most modern stuff on CD. Good enough to make you think the artists were in the room.
But that would start a flame war. And I'm bored with those.
I could give you half a dozen reasons why the sort of valve amps I listened to years back, Decca FFSS cartridges and simple Goodmans closed box speakers were 10X more revealing on LP than most modern stuff on CD. Good enough to make you think the artists were in the room.
But that would start a flame war. And I'm bored with those.
I wouldn't mind seeing the plane wave tube measurements of the 555. My understanding is that the JBL 375 and 2440 family are permanent magnet evolutions of it (along with Altec derivatives). I know what they do.
I also know what kind of power handling you will get out of a compression driver at 75 Hz. (loud enough to get above the threshold of hearing? Probably not) I also know what happens to upper frequencies in a folded horn. I also know what kind of colorations the typical exponential (non-CD designs) horn causes. And the outrigger tweeters shown on the video? I know what directivity that narrow angle straight exponential tweeter will have. I know what crossover design was like in that era.
Based on all of this I have a pretty decent estimate of what that system can perform like. I'd love to hear the system in the flesh (not over a Sony camcorder), but I don't think I would be surprised by its sound.
You guys need to seperate nostalgia from reality. I like old stuff as much as the next guy. When my buddies are riding the latest carbon fiber bikes I'm chasing them in a 35 year old Raleigh (Reynolds 531, nothing rides like real steel!). I like my old cameras (nothing beats a 50's Voightlander). I watch the car collectors finish restoring their cars and the rush to sell them off. It turns out that the dream of 60's perfection get punctured when you realize that cars didn't brake or handle very well at all back then. They aren't nearly as fast as most any V6 luxery sled available today. Read the reports.
Western Electric made a product as good or better than their competition? Agreed. Their designs were the state-of-the-art for the 1920's? Agreed? A triode amp could have negligible distortion then? Agreed. They might sound "pretty good" with the right program material? Agreed.
They surpass anything made today? I don't think so!
David S.
Dave, that pretty insulting coming from someone who hasn't even heard them!
I have, and know what they can do. For me they were "new" as in I had no idea they even existed before working with them. No reason for me to think they sounded anything but "vintage". They did not. It was a shocker for me.
Can they be used in there original configuration to best effect? I personally don't think so. But used with more modern sources, amps and crossovers the drivers and horns are remarkably good.
Fair enough.
But I am basing my presumptions on having heard a lot of vintage horn gear from the 50's. This was 30 years later and the Patricians and Jensen Imperials and K-Horns and Hartsfields are not known for their accuracy. Fun on the right types of music, maybe, but not tonally accurate.
So, did 30 years earlier WE engineers have a secret formula that was lost for all time? What was the magic that made their designs so good, that the whole industry ineptly evolved away from?
I don't mean to be insulting, because I think, in the context of their time they were probably the best engineers in the business. But isn't it an insult to think that Hilliard and the Altec organization didn't make a thoroughly better product in the 40's and 50's? What about Lansing? What about Fancher Murray and Don Keele (JBL in the 80's)? Are we insulting them by not acknowledging that they contributed positive steps and bettered the products that preceded them?
David S.
But I am basing my presumptions on having heard a lot of vintage horn gear from the 50's. This was 30 years later and the Patricians and Jensen Imperials and K-Horns and Hartsfields are not known for their accuracy. Fun on the right types of music, maybe, but not tonally accurate.
So, did 30 years earlier WE engineers have a secret formula that was lost for all time? What was the magic that made their designs so good, that the whole industry ineptly evolved away from?
I don't mean to be insulting, because I think, in the context of their time they were probably the best engineers in the business. But isn't it an insult to think that Hilliard and the Altec organization didn't make a thoroughly better product in the 40's and 50's? What about Lansing? What about Fancher Murray and Don Keele (JBL in the 80's)? Are we insulting them by not acknowledging that they contributed positive steps and bettered the products that preceded them?
David S.
The JBL 375 is the copy of the later design from WE, *not* the 555.
WE needed more max SPL and decided to go with the "modern" idea of putting the xover up in the midrange. This also pushed the HF limit of the driver/horn combo up an octave plus. Increased the power handling, and they added the slitted phase plug as well. A completely different driver, and the model for virtually all compression drivers that came after...
The 555 will do a surprising amount of output at low mid freqs.
They are different from the compression drivers you know all about.
That's the point!
DO NOT confuse the usual 50s and 60s horn junk with this vintage WE gear at all! No comparison. Different league entirely.
I would love to hear Danley's horns, the ones he showed on youtube recently were extremely impressive given the distance and the way that the camcorder thingie picked up the sound. Wow. Don't think they will be that good in a (very) large home hi-fi system, but maybe they would.
PA/SR and home use are very different requirements.
The WE horns like the 15A are not folded exactly....
Yes the WE tweeter is not a good match to the larger horn... I'd go for something else myself.
It's not really a good tweeter.I have the plane wave tube thing in a copy of a journal article that I found in a library in Philadelphia 20+ years ago. IF i can locate the binder it is in, and IF mice have not ruined it (they do that sort of thing without telling anyone), and IF I can scan it, I would post it here. I would also have to *remember* to take the time to look for it the next time I am at the location where that stuff resides. That might be the hardest step of all!
John, my understanding of throat distortion (probably poor at that) is that until the SPL reaches a certain amplitude, causing the air pressure in the throat to reach a threshold, there isn't much happening - and that it is non-linear, increasing beyond the threshold. Given that average input level in a home (Non-PA/SR app) with WE horns would be on the order of 100mW average or less, I think it is pretty much a non-issue. Up at PA/SR levels, big issue.
_-_-bear
Good reference
"The sound department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios was not satisfied with the augmented Western Electric system. Specifically, they objected to the 12-foot path length of the midrange portion and its inordinate transit delay time, relative to the low and high frequency sections. Neither were they satisfied with the RCA systems of the day, which consisted of a single 8-inch cone mounted on a straight horn.."
"In 1933, a frustrated Douglas Shearer, brother of movie star Norma Shearer and head of the MGM sound department, came to the conclusion that he could build a better system than either Western Electric or RCA. With the help of a young electrical engineer named John Hilliard, he assembled a team of experts that included Robert Stephens (who later founded Stephens TruSonic) and John Blackburn, a physics graduate of California Institute of Technology. Among them, they identified Lansing Manufacturing Company as a logical, and local, source for both electrical and loudspeaker components."
The "12 foot horn" problem is ellaborated on by Hilliard here:
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/afternoon_hilliard.pdf
So apparently they were not convinced that the WE system was the ultimate for all time??
All things evolve.
David S.
"The sound department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios was not satisfied with the augmented Western Electric system. Specifically, they objected to the 12-foot path length of the midrange portion and its inordinate transit delay time, relative to the low and high frequency sections. Neither were they satisfied with the RCA systems of the day, which consisted of a single 8-inch cone mounted on a straight horn.."
"In 1933, a frustrated Douglas Shearer, brother of movie star Norma Shearer and head of the MGM sound department, came to the conclusion that he could build a better system than either Western Electric or RCA. With the help of a young electrical engineer named John Hilliard, he assembled a team of experts that included Robert Stephens (who later founded Stephens TruSonic) and John Blackburn, a physics graduate of California Institute of Technology. Among them, they identified Lansing Manufacturing Company as a logical, and local, source for both electrical and loudspeaker components."
The "12 foot horn" problem is ellaborated on by Hilliard here:
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/afternoon_hilliard.pdf
So apparently they were not convinced that the WE system was the ultimate for all time??
All things evolve.
David S.
Yeah, that's pretty much the legend. Having heard the stuff, I'm inclined to agree. But they may not have had the financial and marketing constraints that came later. Don't know if you read my first post in this thread.
Those are very important engineering and marketing values. Real progress. But not necessarily progress in sound quality. So it's a mixed bag of progress. I firmly believe that crossovers are getting better and better all the time.
Thanks for the paper, I'll have to read it over. IIRC, the main problem for MGM was tap dancing sounds delayed, not overall sound quality. And perhaps wanting to do it in house. Will read to paper to learn more.
I've been around pro sound long enough to see that there is a distinct bias toward all things new - the "latest, greatest" gear. The old stuff is always "junk." A sort of reverse nostalgia, if you will. Maybe not a bad thing, it helps sell equipment and keep folks employed!
Secrets of the Ancients...LOL
I thought I'd elaborate on why the top sixties HiFi was better than most junk you buy today. But this is not for discussion. I will simply state 6 good reasons, and you can stuff them in your pipe and smoke them.
1) Engineers were older, had lived through WW2 and had a much broader background in Radio and antennas and high frequencies and would even make their own components like coils and oiled paper capacitors. They had far better mental arithmetic ability than most of you, and could use a Smith chart for matching impedance and a slide rule for calculation much faster than you can with computers:
2) I have no particular axe to grind on transistors versus valves, and in fact classic performers like the Radford STA25 had a single rail transistor preamplifier driving a valve output stage with a defined source impedance. But they were Class A designs with all the lovely cancellation of common-mode that makes them sound so good. The power supply for instance had only to drive a constant current and all electrolytic capacitors had the proper bias which keeps them linear.
3) Record pickups were wide bandwidth and low source inductance moving coil designs. These avoided trying to jump out of the groove due to LC resonances which plagued later moving magnet designs and LP crackle and pop was less obtrusive.
4) Bass speakers would often be 10" paper cones in huge solid closed boxes mounted literally as bookshelves against a wall. Tweeters would often be simple 3" paper cones with a single capacitor crossover. It didn't much matter how good the speaker surround was, because acoustic suspension essentially kept the speaker linear. Frequency response was probably not the last word, but rolled off gently. In fact the reputable WLM La Scala speakers rather recreate these babies.
5) Components like transistors were doubtless not as fast, but then feedback was kept much lower too, so gross distortions like slewing tended to be avoided in favour of gentle rolloff of frequency response.
6) Recording engineers really knew their equipment like the backs of their hands. They set up levels to avoid overload and at their peak would record straight to the record-cutting lathe via a mere couple of microphones with no recording console worth mentioning. The result was breathtakingly direct recordings like Count Basie with Frank Sinatra, which if you've never heard them on Vinyl with it's 70dB signal to noise ratio, well you haven't lived, my friends!
Onwards and upwards!
I thought I'd elaborate on why the top sixties HiFi was better than most junk you buy today. But this is not for discussion. I will simply state 6 good reasons, and you can stuff them in your pipe and smoke them.
1) Engineers were older, had lived through WW2 and had a much broader background in Radio and antennas and high frequencies and would even make their own components like coils and oiled paper capacitors. They had far better mental arithmetic ability than most of you, and could use a Smith chart for matching impedance and a slide rule for calculation much faster than you can with computers:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
2) I have no particular axe to grind on transistors versus valves, and in fact classic performers like the Radford STA25 had a single rail transistor preamplifier driving a valve output stage with a defined source impedance. But they were Class A designs with all the lovely cancellation of common-mode that makes them sound so good. The power supply for instance had only to drive a constant current and all electrolytic capacitors had the proper bias which keeps them linear.
3) Record pickups were wide bandwidth and low source inductance moving coil designs. These avoided trying to jump out of the groove due to LC resonances which plagued later moving magnet designs and LP crackle and pop was less obtrusive.
4) Bass speakers would often be 10" paper cones in huge solid closed boxes mounted literally as bookshelves against a wall. Tweeters would often be simple 3" paper cones with a single capacitor crossover. It didn't much matter how good the speaker surround was, because acoustic suspension essentially kept the speaker linear. Frequency response was probably not the last word, but rolled off gently. In fact the reputable WLM La Scala speakers rather recreate these babies.
5) Components like transistors were doubtless not as fast, but then feedback was kept much lower too, so gross distortions like slewing tended to be avoided in favour of gentle rolloff of frequency response.
6) Recording engineers really knew their equipment like the backs of their hands. They set up levels to avoid overload and at their peak would record straight to the record-cutting lathe via a mere couple of microphones with no recording console worth mentioning. The result was breathtakingly direct recordings like Count Basie with Frank Sinatra, which if you've never heard them on Vinyl with it's 70dB signal to noise ratio, well you haven't lived, my friends!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Onwards and upwards!
Without a doubt vintage speakers do have a certain sound - that probably only 100 years of aging could duplicate.
I think it would be cool to try to duplicate the old WE sound, which can be done largely by Bakelite diaphragms, open back cabinets, field coil drivers, etc. - but it's all about chasing nostalgia, IMO. I've looked at a lot of this stuff, and the fact is if one wants better sound there is simply no beating modern drivers, materials, and methods.
I get the draw to old speakers and the like, I really do, but not to look back at it as an ideal, which is the equivalent of saying the epitome of the car was the Model T, and it has all been downhill ever since. That is just flat out false - unless the criteria is a nostalgic ideal. Then, of course, there IS only one way to go.
I agree with LafeEric 100%. To say that those were the best speakers can only be said in a nostalgic way. Audio industry changed goals and direction many times after the creation of these speakers, that's why noone made better drivers and speaker systems using that specific way. If a part of the audio industry had as a goal to duplicate WE sound, i am sure that they had done it years ago! With cad, space age materials and competition it is just a matter of few big companies jumping in the wagon.
And i am saying this with a big respect to those WE speaker systems. I had the opportunity to listen to that exact system in the video, during my visit of the Hiend show of Munich last year. As a coincidence they were playing records that i know, so i think i got a correct idea of the systems sound.
Yes it is sweet and big but no competition for today's systems.
probably yes
later engineers had other requirements than absolute quality of sound
such as uniformity of coverage.
I know for a fact Hilliard did not think that time arrival or phase was a problem in speakers such as the K-horn.
Further, I doubt there would be much issue with tap dancing considering its frequency band.
Dave,
I agree that path length and resulting time delay remains a significant issue in any horn design, 12ft or not.
But again we are comparing PA/SR (movie theater) applications with home audio use of the WE gear... and I am not suggesting for a moment that there are no problems or issues inherent in the WE stuff. Only that it sounds awfully good, regardless of what it is compared with.
System7, it was mostly *mono* until the mid to late 60s for most people. My grandfather had a (whoooo) *stereo* in his house as early as 1961. Harmon Kardon and University. He couldn't swing the McIntosh amps and Altec speakers. He got the "Chevy" grade, not the "Caddy" grade stuff.
And I do not agree that the old paper cone stuff was particularly good generally speaking. It isn't and wasn't. What it was, at its best was pleasant to the ears. Which is part of the allure (imo) of many of the FR speaker designs that are discussed elsewhere here on DiyAudio.
My opinions are mine, and not those of the management or staff.
If they are the same as theirs, I will have to change mine!
_-_-bear
I agree that path length and resulting time delay remains a significant issue in any horn design, 12ft or not.
But again we are comparing PA/SR (movie theater) applications with home audio use of the WE gear... and I am not suggesting for a moment that there are no problems or issues inherent in the WE stuff. Only that it sounds awfully good, regardless of what it is compared with.
System7, it was mostly *mono* until the mid to late 60s for most people. My grandfather had a (whoooo) *stereo* in his house as early as 1961. Harmon Kardon and University. He couldn't swing the McIntosh amps and Altec speakers. He got the "Chevy" grade, not the "Caddy" grade stuff.
And I do not agree that the old paper cone stuff was particularly good generally speaking. It isn't and wasn't. What it was, at its best was pleasant to the ears. Which is part of the allure (imo) of many of the FR speaker designs that are discussed elsewhere here on DiyAudio.
My opinions are mine, and not those of the management or staff.
If they are the same as theirs, I will have to change mine!
_-_-bear
I'm sure the Altec and later the JBL engineers had the same criteria as the Western Electric engineers: Natural and inteligible dialog reproduction. Pleasant and realistic background music reproduction. Adequate volume, adequate dynamic range. Minimal variation of level across the seating area. Minimal response variation across the seating area. I design digital cinema A/V sytems and those have always been the requirements, from then until now.
It is silly to think that the WE guys were going for some alternative requirements that might somehow better suit future audiophiles.
There is an Eargle/Gander History of PA paper that repeats that the WE system was initially conceived as a full range system and that it was deemed inadequate for music, specifically in LF output. The range was augmented with open back woofers and the horn tweeters but the combination was not felt to be successful. AT&T was pushed out of the business and sold their assets off to the All Technical group (preceeded Altec). Hilliard and Sheerer developed their system for MGM which was well liked (won a technical Oscar) and set the pattern for the industry. Hilliard moved on to Altec and continued to evolve the systems.
Clearly you didn't read the reference. He first heard the issue on tap dancing and felt it was a problem until the time discrepency was reduced to between 1 and 2 feet. Tap dancing is a wonderful impulse response stimulus.
I think a K-Horn might just barely fall under 2 feet.
David S.
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