today I would like to tell you about a never ending running rivalry in the hifi-world. Probably everyone who reads here knows he competition about the most efficient loudspeaker designs in history. All these well known speaker designs are huge space occupying concepts, enclosures as big as furniture. Everybody who knows about the facts knowns, only big cabinets, mostly horns speaker designs, will do the best efficiency. This article is not meant to serious and more dedicated to entertain owners of large volume Altec, Western Electric or Tannoy enclosures.
Owners of these classic speakers will learn now, there are some much bigger professional concepts existing, than they did know. And even when not well known at all, they are made for highly professional demands.
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| Two HF-horn units per opening in the first four rows and one MF-horn driver in the middle three rows, combined with LF-drivers of 15'' size in the lower four rows, all with funnels made from concrete. |
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| The HF-units share one caving |
For many of us such speakers have to score as a one to the models from the "Voice of the Cinema " range, or the huge WE Cinema Systems like the WE 15 and similar types. Even the described "Tannoy Autograph" speakers use cabinets of such dimensions for a competition. But all named examples are "small-scale" transducer for home use, when compared against the speakers I want to present here now.
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| Each HF-unit is connected to three drivers |
In a tv documentary I recently saw a reportage about Taiwan. In this film it was shown how the politicians tried to liberate from the historic guardian of the People's Republic of China. To get rid off the electronic eavesdropping from the mainland they installed giant loudspeaker enclosures along the coast to China in order to drown Chinas directional installed surveillance microphones.
The enclosures are house sized concrete buildings with almost 100 different drivers installed in a multiplied molded horn funnel design. I do not know anything about real efficiency and the used amplifying systems, but taking the time into account, it must have been fed by tube amplifiers in the 1950ties.
So this is an invitation to collectors in the asian pacific area to get hold of these installations, they are still intact. And there a lots of these housings around the western coast line. Maybe it will be a very exotic extension for your hifi collection to get the biggest speakers of all time, may be for the outdoor summer season in your park...?!
Read on soon, Volker
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