Western Electric 1928 - How far have we come in the last 100 years?

[bear]

Again, I have ZERO relationship with Silbatone or GIP, never met them either, or spoken to either company. But, you have to understand that they do not care about what you or I want or think. The idea is simple, if you have to ask about the price, you can't afford one. Period. Sorry, but this is the way some things work. It's like buying anything else in the *exotic* or stratospheric range - anyone who wants measurements can afford to hire someone to do them and not notice the amount of money it costs.

That doesn't mean that I don't want to see the measurements at all. Doesn't mean that they ought not to post measurements. Just that the usual expectations really do not apply to companies and products of this sort.

This is the sort of stuff that the person buying it might have to decide which house in which country and in which room it will go... well some days I wish I could sell to that market and to those customers too.

_-_-bear

[Pano]

"...this guy was listening to his own WE 15a system in 1987... what were you listening to then?"

Jean Hiraga's WE 15a system.

[DavidL]

Originally Posted by bear

The idea is simple, if you have to ask about the price, you can't afford one. Period. Sorry, but this is the way some things work. It's like buying anything else in the *exotic* or stratospheric range - anyone who wants measurements can afford to hire someone to do them and not notice the amount of money it costs.

So in actuality there's perhaps 5 people on this forum that could afford them and no one is willing to quote a price regardless? Why would doing measurements cost an arm and a leg too? So this whole discussion is similar to a car forum where most drive a Chevy/Ford/Chrysler/Toyota/Honda/etc.....and talk about the latest Lamborghini that gets 10 MPG . seats 2, does zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds and handles great but the prospect of ever owning one is nil, it costs more than their house does, and the wife would never allow it to happen anyway since "where would the kids sit?"

Originally Posted by bear

That doesn't mean that I don't want to see the measurements at all. Doesn't mean that they ought not to post measurements. Just that the usual expectations really do not apply to companies and products of this sort.

Oh brother........so the higher the cost the less info they are obligated to give?Sounds very much like the uber priced cables that "lift 7 veils from the music"" yet "there are some things we just can't measure".

Originally Posted by bear

This is the sort of stuff that the person buying it might have to decide which house in which country and in which room it will go... well some days I wish I could sell to that market and to those customers too.

_-_-bear

Not me, I find such people willing to lay out large amounts cash without a seconds thought on the real performance on just what they have purchased only that it is "The Best:", slightly repugnant.

[speaker dave]

Originally Posted by DavidL

Oh brother........so the higher the cost the less info they are obligated to give?Sounds very much like the uber priced cables that "lift 7 veils from the music"" yet "there are some things we just can't measure".

Its the same with high end turntable manufacturers. Nobody quotes wow, flutter and rumble numbers anymore because they don't have the gear to measure it. Of course we all know that "those measurements don't relate to how things sound..."

David S.

[speaker dave]

Regarding the 60% efficiency number I would be curious as to how they measured it.

The classic definition of compression driver efficiency gives an absolute maximum of 50%. A good JBL white paper on it here uses the classic definition. It also shows some terminated tube measurements of JBL and TAD drivers.

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/suppor...=295&doctype=3

Keele later wrote and excellent paper and redefined the efficiency calculation in true efficiency terms, rather than related to nominal efficiency (based on nominal impedance) here.

http://www.xlrtechs.com/dbkeele.com/...%20Drivers.pdf

An excellent paper that also has easy to follow graphs of what happens when you vary diaphragm mass, compression ratio or BL. Unlike the direct radiators that we are used to, higher BL expands bandwidth and adding mass does nothing to efficiency but loses high end (lower rolloff point), all related to the different opperating mode and more resistive load of an ideal horn. Although he allows for 100% efficiency he shows that typical drivers, with a useful bandwidth, are more typically in the 30 to 40% range.

As to high efficiency being the key to great sound, no one has ever shown any linkage between efficiency and accuracy, even though Klipsch used to try and scare us with measurements of Bose 901 drivers. My money is on the magic being in that pre-war steel.

David S.

[Alvis]

Magic steel? I don't think so.

Efficiency is important, small details are lost in high powered units with complex crossovers, inefficient heavy drivers.

The small details and timbre are lost to heat, also the direct radiator does not amplify.

The efficiency is higher also because the horn is an amplifier, a direct radiator is not.

As far as price, the last unloaded 16A horn(s) I noticed on eBay sold for around $26,000.

[Joe Roberts]

DavidS...I'll quote you a price ---> $100,000.

We usually downplay the prices to keep crotchety old complainers at bay.

Silbatone is not profit driven. If you have a trunk full of $100 bills ready to buy and we think you are an anal orifice, we will tell you to get lost. Point of pride. Go find an Audio Note dealer!

OK, now you can go back to thinking about building $50 chip amps to max out on bang for the buck.

Silbatone measures a lot. jc morrison is a very scientific engineer and our other designer, Dr. Steven Bae, is a PhD in Physics.

Our C-100 preamp was measured by LP Magazine in Germany. Quietest tube preamp ever measured. Excelled in many other measurement parameters also. I have the review in German if somebody wants it.

"This is one of the very few preamps about which you no longer need to debate whether it is really good. The C-100 is a revelation."
Holger Barske, Editor in Chief, LP Magazin für analoges Hi-Fi und Vinyl-Kultur, 4/2011

Stereo Sound just measured our C-100 preamp. The Editor, an 70+ year old man who is the KING of audio in Asia, said it is the best vacuum tube amplifier he has ever encountered. He is using it in his personal system. In fact, he is returning to vinyl after giving up years ago thanks to the Silbatone preamp.

They did about 50 pages of measurements. They checked the attenuation and channel to channel balance on every step of a 60 step attenuator.

We know what measurements are and they are no basis for a purchase decision and of very limited utility for making sound quality decisions.

We see measurements as a way to make sure an item is working properly and up to the promise of the circuitry. And Silbatone gear measures extremely well.

Otherwise, measurements erase all unique performance characteristics of a particular item. Silbatone is held to the same standard as a Sherwood receiver from the 70s. In a way, this is fair. In another way, this is the most absurd procedure imaginable.

There is probably a TANG BAND 3" metal cone driver that has the same FR as a 15A. Will it sound like a 15A?

morrison posts circuits that are the building blocks for Silbatone gear (with measurements) on his blog labjc.com

He and I strongly believe is sharing circuits and design concepts, not only measurements (which in themselves are useless to do anything with).

I find such people willing to lay out large amounts cash without a seconds thought on the real performance

I think I speak for my colleagues in saying that we would rather have people evaluate our gear in the music listening context that is was designed for.

That is the real performance metric and the only one that really matters, once it is established that a unit is working as it should be.


Although this thread is among the most tedious experiences of my life, there is some learning going on. I can't expect brutish objectivist pinheads to come to terms with the profound theoretical and practical deficiencies of their methods. This would take a self-directed interest in further education.

I hinted at a few of the profound delusions that underpin the retarded notion of the subjectivist/objectivist split. Forget Toole...read Wittgenstein.

The term "paradigm shift" was mentioned in passing. Read Thomas Kuhn on the notion of paradigmatic science and maybe you will come to recognize that "science" is organized according to cultural (i.e. non-necessary) principles. Eventually the holes in the armor become apparent and the old scheme is rejected in favor of a new one.

Well, this happened for subjectivist/objectivist split almost 100 years ago, although there were thinkers in the days of the Enlightenment age that spawned these fictions who argued powerfully against them.

The Enlightenment claimed that man using logic and reason could apprehend and control the universe, leading to a golden age of endless progress and earthly glory.

They were like a bunch of Speaker Daves with powdered wigs.

Well the tuna have Cesium 137, can't buy a freaking tomato without GMO beetle DNA, my dog won't eat half the food in the supermarket, the world economic system hangs by a thread...

And scientists all now know that logical positivism was a delusional dream.

Sorry fellas, nothing, especially measurements, is going to bridge the gap to the experience you didn't have.

Scientists are supposed to be into empirical experiments...well, go do some. You'll need the physical speaker for that.

On the other hand, people seem to be realizing that Western Electric was a remarkable institution at the center of actual scientific research in electronics and acoustics. Research more and you will be even more impressed with what this arm of Big Science achieved with the WE theater gear.

To me, the achievements of Western Electric demonstrate that "science" as it was then conceptualized did indeed serve a useful fiction to organize the social labor of research and development.

When you nerds find the measurements you seek, they will show that WE field coil gear is very respectable in performance, even by modern-day standards.

If somebody think that secondary resonances on a beryllium diaphragm that yield uncorrelated tizz out to 20k is progress, go at it.

The 1930's 594A controlled the natural 6db mass rolloff to +- 0.1db. Art Garcia (ex-RCA) had measurements to confirm that. The idea was that a converse first-order network in the electronics would yield flat response to 13k. Furthermore, according to Art, they were concerned with and controlled for group delay under that condition.

This was not Thomas Edison style goal-oriented wanking about in the shop.

The fact seems to me that Western Electric had more science behind them than any other speaker company since. PC based measurement may have narrowed the gap on measurement capability but Western Electric had guys like this hanging around.

Ralph Hartley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just to name one.

Wente, Thuras, Fletcher, Bostwick. I consider these guys applied physicists, back when a lab coat was a lab coat. Few people could fill those shoes and people in this field today who know history would be the last to demean their accomplishments.

Back to the 15A system in Munich, I grant that we had problems with the set up and show conditions, but does anybody who was there think that any known mic-based measurements will provide a mental picture of how LED ZEP sounded blasting on the 15As?

This is the story of the triumph of history and experience over mathematics. Even if the mathematics is there, and it all does line up for Western gear, it is background noise.

[bear]

ok, led zep?

you want stacked Bose 901s, Phase Linear 700, and an open, blank, real thick plaster over lathe wall, solid hardwood floors and tall ceilings... ahhhh... whole lotta love baby!! sit back in ur lazy bastard recliner and reeee-lax! Now THAT is really good sound brutha! Good sound.

Baby you need COOL AIR! BABY I GOT COOL AIR!!

_-_-bear

[speaker dave]

Originally Posted by bear

ok, led zep?

Baby you need COOL AIR! BABY I GOT COOL AIR!!

_-_-bear

Really? I always thought they were singing Kool Aid!

(guess I need a better system)

David

[Pano]

Schoolin' with cool air for Kool-aid. It's a mixed metaphor.