For Lunch in Paris

Hi everybody,

when I was a teenager, we – my friends and I – did regularly after hanging out late at Friday nights, some spontanous road trips to Paris in order to have breakfast in one of the countless street bistros early in the morning. Driving through all the night is something for young people with lots of energy, when getting older such dangerous practice gets lost. But recently my friend Andreas asked me, if I would like to go for a Sunday lunch with him to Paris. This time the manual was not set for breakfast with croissants and cafe, but for a colorful lunch with the best Japanese sushi and sashimi accompanied by some British beef slowly roasted in a typical large scale American barbecue smoker, made in China. Exquisite Japanese Sans (masters) like Kanno, Shishido, Shindo were booked to form a delicate audio menue in conjunction with a Line Magnetic loudspeaker system.

The Defilè

Left: Classic SE PX4 amps with Tamura iron and vintage tubes,  right a typical Shishido SE 808 stereo amp with
Tango transformers and RCA808 triodes, transformer coupled driven by GEC KT66.

Kanno Works SE 300b with input transformer into the
paralleled ECC33 driver tube for improved impedances to couple the
interstage transformer to the grid of the 300b tube.

Nobukazu Shishido's legendary SE 811 positive grid amplifier,
typical for Shishido are the interstage transformers with reversed secondaries
and always realized with silicon rectifier diodes.

In the Premier Arrondissement, in the heart of the town, lives the gourmand Philippe F.. He is a extremely polite and cordial man with good sense and taste for several interrests in life. So it does not wonder to meet a man who has collected a good variety of top class vintage single ended amplifiers from the important period of the 1970 to 1980ties, which can be hardly found outside of Japan. He combines them in his set up with vintage classics from the 1960ties in Europe, like tonearms, pick up cartridges and record players, extended by some today impossible originally to find replica loudspeaker components of Western Electric origin to a majestic audio system. Exceptional in many terms is his Line Magnetic speaker system LM-3, which got highly upgraded with top line products to form some final improvements. The tweeter got exchanged to LM597, presumably the crossover as well to best Line Magnetic standard, and so the Tungar power supply got included to feed all three drivers with three independant lines at once. The bass driver is here now the legendary LM4181.

A pair of familiar Shindo 300b Limited amps, connected to perform. 

We started listening with a Tim de Paravicini preamp and a pair Shindo 300b Limited power amps, equipped with original WE tubes to adapt the whole system and get used to the given room attitudes. After half an hour we switched to the brought Shindo Vosne Romaneè preamp, which was Philippe's major interest to listen to. The standard Ortofon SPU/A got exchanged to the adequat Shindo derivate with a clear destination into refinement. As next step the 300b Limited got exchanged to the pair Kanno 300b amps, which showed up with a very well outbalanced souvereignity. Here now several 300b tubes and as well different rectifier tubes have been in service and showed some typical tonal fine tuning. But as everybody know, such complex systems are mainly defined by their acoustical transducer systems. The loudspeaker in a given room defines more than 60% of the soundstage in a given system. At this point it was quite difficult for me to find decisive opinions about all the changes.

Upgraded complete loudspeaker system LM-3, beside its three-way tungar
power supply for all three units

Readers of my blog learned about several presented systems with Line Magnetic LM22, extended with LM597 tweeter and several different solutions for the low frequency finalisation. I spell out no secret about the fact, that a 22a horn with its dedicated tweeter 597 is a combination, which performs a world class solution on its own. But its exceptional finesse, resolution and transmitted energy makes any adaption of the lower frequency part to a life task. All named sets which have been presented here within the last years, have in common, that all owners permanently try to improve the low frequency support of their horns. The most do incorporate a replica WE7331 dipole enclosure or a downsized derivate of such design principle as by far best type. These are driven by field coil motorized alternatively permanent magnet units of diverse makes and from variable origin and vintage cinema productions. These get powered with one or more amps of different technology (tube-, switched-, transsistor amps) or get powered active to passive, with different crossover types or even with DSP.  To match the horn around 300 hz with more or less wide transitions and different steepness, all these finalisations show how complex it is to find a natural tone. The lighter and faster wideband woofers from Klangfim, the KL405 in different connections, seem to be a passable way for some. This means the low freqeuncy unit needs to be exceptional fast, deep and extended into the middle frequencies with wide overlapping parts between horn and woofer. This problem is the achilles heel of the 22a horn. The bigger wooden horns WE12/13/15 and the metal WE16a perform a lower frequency cut off, so their response shows a different, a bit easier to realize preference for invisible completeness.

One of the best tweeters in audio history the 597 

The here shown frontloaded enclosure from Line Magnetic, which incorporates a 18-inch field coil speaker, is a exceptional solution for all such requests. Upgraded to LM4181 the enclosure can be used as fullrange unit up to 5000 hz, or equipped with different crossover designs to match all named horn types with different take-over frequecies. The LM4181 is like its original predessor from Western Electric, the wide band coned version of three different speakers, which share the same motor armature. The speaker shows elegant wide band attitudes with a unsurpassed fast, refined textured low frequency support down to the deepest levels of bass, without the otherwise dulledness, which is so typical for modern large pa-systems. The enclosure can be opened in the back to form a dipole, which transports together with the front loading horn uncomparable attitudes, which are hardly found in other design principles, like backloaded, vented or bass reflex systems. The combination of frontloading in a dipole is known to be my favorite solution. It is giving large coned systems the property of refined fastness and articulation otherwise rarely noticed. My own speaker showed me once the superiority of such design principle over other more commercially practicable principles.
Now here Philippe's installation shows simply the best connected low frequency range I have listened to in conjunction with the 22A. It is huge and it is high, it is a real piece of space determing furniture, and makes the positioning in the room difficult in both terms, acoustically and visually. This is not the type of furniture which makes life partnerships happy. It takes a good footprint and it needs some back space, as with all dipole systems, its backwarded radiated energy reflects from its backing wall. The system ideally will need some more space than Philippe will actually allow to spend, particular in corners even more, but such better position (a good meter) off the side and backing walls will tremendously increase the soundstage in his room, ideally to a almost invisible holographic soundstage. Another aspect is the door width to get it into the house and the final room.
But soundwise, in terms of a deepest, most refined and fastest organic bass response for musical completeness and integrety, this is a top notch solution of highest expectation to match the world class 22a horn with its invisible tweeter. So far simply the best solution I have listened to and it is straight available by order. No woodwork, no carpenter, no nightmares of finetuning, no lost last hair from endless frequency matching or overboarding bills of frustation killing substitude drugs, like alcohol or expensive food, – maybe only a good glass of wine, while relaxed listening to a record of Nina Simone.

Of course Philippe does not only use original WE-300b tubes from different production lines, he also
needs original Japanese makes from Takatsuki TA-300, here shown next to original WE-274b rectifier tubes,
beside legendary Jørgen Schou MC-step up transformers for the Ortofon SPU

At our way back we made stop at a typical French Hypermarché to get some food for the evening. We bought some exquisite cheese, baguette and were looking for some wine. The range in French supermarkets is phantastic and I needed some time to evaluate some of the offers, when Andreas noticed loudly from two shelves far away: "Look they have all the Shindos here, Latour, Lafon, Vosne-Romaneé, Monbrison, Lafitte, really all!" "Ok, why not staying on with a Vosne-Romaneé for the dinner."

Stay tuned,

Audible Drugs – Valvozepam or Tubalkaloides for the Addict

Hello to everybody in new 2017!

From time to time I will try to publish this year some new articles within my blog when there are some interesting topics about vintage audio are comming up. I hope to publish another "deep interest"-interview with Michael Fountain, son of Guy R. Fountain, founder of the Tannoy Company in the early 1930ties of the last century. I am looking forward to publish this in spring time with some unknown insights into the design and development of the famous Tannoy Dual Concentric Loudspeakers.

Typical GEC KT66 from late 1960ties production

For today I am resuming my expedition into beam- and power- (pentode/tetrode-)tubes of the 6L6 family in order to find valuable replacements for classic KT66 tubes, the by far the best sounding power output tube of this type, unsurpassed from any modern replacement. All members of this family show up with amost identical electrical operating points and might differ sometimes in heater consumtion and all around construction details, but are more or less compatible, but may need adaption of their socket. The british GEC KT66 is the crowning archivement of the golden age of tube amplification, so it is today the most sought after power output tube for the standard push pull amplifier types. These "Kinkless Beam Tetrodes" have been used with loads of classical tube amps, independant if we are talking about audio-, pa- or guitaramps. Within 20 years world wide sales through the internet and ebay the actual price range for original GEC NOS tubes has been sky rocketed through the roof and in particular guitar players seem to pay any price to make their amps sing. But as well in the audio world the original tubes are famous for their incredible sound opportunities, never matched by any modern replacement in audible terms. This might explain that a quad of four NOS GEC tubes is priced beyond the 1000 $ line, no question that it will explode into the 2000 or 3000 $ range within the next years, when they get even more scarce. This market mechanism can be observed for decades when looking to the price development of the legendary original Western Electric 300B tubes from all different production times between 1930 and 1988. This might give an idea for the coming future of vintage audio tubes. No question, vacuum tube business is getting comparable with drug dealing, in terms of profit and as well in dealer attitudes, but it is still legal?! Valvozepam, Tubalcaloide, who has the one and only pulp?

How can it be, that since 30 years of business in reproduction and replication of tubes made in China, Russia and from former East European Countries, which are sold for a fraction of the price of the original vintage tubes, – fabricted with all modern knowledge, sometimes at the original production machines, – not even one tube did match the standard industrial production quality of the business back in the 1950ties? And to be honest, not one of these tubes matches the magic, refinement, spacousness and natural dynamic atttudes of the vintage originals. You can get two new quartets of chinese replica KT66's (looking totally identical in physical terms), for the price of one single used original tube? What is the true hidden secret of the industrial age of the 1940ties technology, if it can not be transfered into todays production process in China or somewere else?
People pay tremendous amounts to get the original GEC tubes after they have evaluated modern substitudes, because not one of the modern reissues matches 50% of the tone coming with the "drug-like" originals.

Today I want to publish some of my experience with other vintage tubes, which show up with a rare quality range and ability to replace the phantastic soundung GEC KT66 into a seemless matching sound texture with only very little restriktions. The only difference is in common the mechanical matching of the tube socket. For this reason there is already a commercial solution, if you want to use a "tube-socket-adapter" to match your original octal socket, these are available for amost any tube and their dedicated socket from a dealer in Taiwan selling these on Ebay for about 20 bucks per piece.

GEC KT8c from 1940ties production with blacked anode plates and ceramic B5 socket

The first tube which I want to present today as a "better than original" replacement for the GEC KT66, the second world war production GEC KT8 or KT8c. The "C" marks the ceramic socket, where the standart KT8 tube shows up the a classic bakelite socket. The tube is equipped with a widely used 5-pin Euro socket or more internationally spoken, a B-5 socket. Additionally this tube is equipped with a anode cap on top of the shoulder shaped glass envelope. This tube is extremely similar in construction and internal design to be found in the first "coke-bottled-VT75 tube", the forerunner of the standard KT66/CV1075 as known today. These KT8 tubes have  been made as british answer to the US-american 807 beam tetrode for the use in plate modulated RF-amplifiers. But the KT8 failed the aimed quality in particular in the 125MHz operation target comparing the american 807, which was already a standard in this type of application in these days. This fault is our luck today, the KT8's are still available in a small amounts as NOS tubes from several british tube stockists (Langrex, Colomor, Billington, etc.) for about 60 EUR a piece. Their hf-fault does not matter in the audio range and so for that amount you will get a wonderfully made vintage tube, which ressembles the MOV/GEC KT66 originals in more than perfect matters for audio use. These tubes are all little gems soundwise within standard 6L6-applications, like in push-pull audio or guitar amplifiers  and match the lengendary first "coke-bottled- KT66 made by Mullard-Osram-Valve-Company, indicated by the legendary oval etching at the glass. These first KT66 tubes are exorbitant rare and they are together with the Western Electric 350B's the most sought after type of all 6L6's, reflected in their actual prices at 800-1000 $US per tube.

One GEC KT8 and one KT8'c with Taiwan socket adapters to match the classic octal socket

Another very good option to replace the KT66's are the exceptional cheap NOS 807 tubes equipped with a another tube socket, made by a wide variation of different manufacturers. These tubes do sound all around very close to the before described KT8 tubes, but are cheap as peanuts and they are available in big amounts. Out there are as well NOS Russian types from the 1950ties, but I don't have any personal experience with these. The 807's are as well beam tetrodes like the KT8's and they do sound phantastic as well. A little bit different in the general sound attitude, but as well very refined, detailed and show up with exceptional natural dynamics, light years better than any modern replacement. The experimental intended user might be interested into a british loctal 5B/254M tube type made by the famous STC (Standard Telephone Company). This small glass enveloped tube is a direct replacement for the 807 tubes with a loctal socket and they are cheap. But there are no ready made adapters available from the Taiwanese supply on Ebay, here the adapters have to be self made.

Two different NOS 807 tubes with octal adapter sockets

STC 5B254M tube with loctal socket, here the interested needs to make own adapters
in order to match the 807-replacment to any other socket type.

All these vintage tubes show up properties only vintage tubes come along with: finest micro detailed resolution, open refinement and fast translucent sound structures with exceptional natural dynamic attitudes, together with a today unknown sweetness in tonality. These 10 to 20$-tubes make any modern 6L6-replica sound like a audio diet or degrade them to placebos for the addict.
If you are planning to substitude in your vintage gear your 6L6-type tubes with vintage equivalents like the here shown tubes, you must first check your actual limits of heater currents in your amp. The filament current might differ within different tube types and make sure that your amp will not be set to swallow or even more will get damaged by increased heater currents!

I might continue the series about tube rolling with some Bendix 6889 tubes or some 5881 tube types of different origin. Anyway they will be at the payable side of life and do compliment the here shown tube line very well.

Read on soon,
Volker

Western Electric in Hong Kong – A visit at Mr. Wu's workshop

Hello to everybody reading on,

finally it did happen and I got one of my contacts working in Hong Kong. I did meet with Mr. Western Electric of Hong Kong, better known as Mr. Wu.
In these days of mobile internet any business address is available at a fingertip, in particular here in HK, where the people run crazy with mobile web. Everybody is permanently online with a minimum of two cell phones at once, independent of age, just to prevent not to miss any incoming message. In these days businesses are getting rare without a web page or a email address. When Google will provide any information worldwide on a fingertip, you need to accept that there are still some people existing which are hiding to such digital ease. If you want to meet Mr. Wu, you need to know somebody who might be able to give you his physical address. He does not have a business card, a web page or a any other registered form. There is neither a telephone book in Hong Kong, nor other options to find the location of his company – wonderfully out timed.

Wu is located at the very end of the 荃灣線 -line (Tsuen Wan Line) of Hong Kongs MTR (Mass-Train-Railway/Subway) in a remote industrial area. With other words, just another 300 m distance and you will match the western end the urbanized territory of this megacity. It is a 30 minute foot walk from the subway station through warehouses and fabrication units, when you will end up in a place of nowhere. A 30 level warehouse with a entrance corridor of 100 meter length and maybe 500 stainless steel mailboxes at the wall. At the 4th floor, at unit L in the remote dark end, round the corner, a very little workshop is hidden, secured with extremely rigid and solid locks. Just  lettered with a tiny golden "Western Electric"-sticker at a metal sliding door.
To here loads of Japanese and Korean audio enthusiast did pilgrimage in order to get some of his famous Western Electric Amps. That's the way to do it and it is the only way to meet him, bring a trolley for the long way back, – no Paypal.

Hong Kong's Mr. "Western Electric" – Wu

His workshop is so small that three persons are blocking each other already in movement, so one needs to get outside, to get space for the two others. I would estimate, may be 15 square meters for two sections in one room, where the storage shelf will be the dividing wall to the heavy metal work bench.

Mr. Wu is a extremely warm, nice and simpathetic man, he doesn't speak any word of English, but he laughs a lot for compensation. He did originally work as an electrical engineer for a Chinese Company. When this company did move back to China mainland, he decided to set up his self employment and started to restore vintage Western Electric amplifiers like the 91A or the 124's and their variants and derivates. The rising interest in the growing asian vintage audio markets pushed him fast into the position, that he needed to find other resources for original vintage amps and unreplaceable spares. So he decided to make replicas of famous Western Electric -transformers using original WE cores, -amp parts, covers and bodies in order to reissue the original designs and their matching to the original specifications. He found lots of vintage Western Electric military and telephone equipment, originally sold as rubbish from US Government to China to get rid of the metal trash in the 1970ties. He did work out that some of this trashed transformers were made with identical iron cores than many famous audio transformers like the legendary old WE 171A (the output transformer of the WE91A), the 618A/B input device or several others dependent designs. As a main idea of his business he rewinds these vintage WE- cores and this gives hime the opportunity to build up amplifiers with almost identical attitudes than the rare vintage originals. Original is a funny word, the western meaning is unknown to the asian culture.

Some of his power amplifiers, on top the 124's, in the middle the 91A, beside some
kits for different layouted preamps

In the western world we have a completely different understanding of "originality" than in Asia. The foremost asian countries like Japan, Korea and China do practice a cultural tradition since more than 1000 years, which is called Shanzhai. Shanzhai means a permanent improvement through copying the best, practiced with art, skills and as well with commercial products (a well known problem, where the western copyright ends in its own set limits). In such basic tradition any product can be optimized when ressembled with all necessary improvements supplied.

So Mr. Wu did start to make replicas of famous WE-amps, like the WE 91A, the WE 124A's, at the beginning mainly directed to Japanese customers. Later the Koreans got as well interested, as some Hong Kong residents together with some people from the western world got supplied by him. All his transformers, a wide choice of input-, stepup-, interstage- and output transformers, create a fundamental base for a wide spread range of different pre- and power amplifiers. He orientates the finish as well to the rare and obsolete vintage originals in designs in color and built quality. His famous preamp line, featuring the direct heated WE-tennisball tubes (from the 100 and 200 DHT line), has been discontinued for several problems with vintage tube stock. Now Wu just offers kits for different preamp designs including all necessary transformers and body parts for the interested, of course in WE-gray.

The rewinding gauge, the central work space

Heavy metal workshop for body work, actual 2,5 sqm space.  .

Storage shelf for ready made WE-amplifiers of different dedication.

This is Mr. Wu's set for the demonstration, a set of his legendary preamps driving two
driver amps, ending into power triode booster amps, able to bring
30 watts to his Heathkit speakers, all strictly separated into two monophonic rails.

One patient waiting for service to complete the demonstration set up for stereo.

It is already time again that lots of audio enthusiast will visit Munich for the coming High-End-Show soon. You can be safe about the fact, that you won't see any product from Wu there. This typical battle for attention of techno audio addicts or the all around "bling-bling"-audio from mainland China will be there. But refined intimate made products with a sustainability like the here shown products you will not find at such events anymore.

For this you might need to get into the old-school habit of a real personal visit to this unique place. If you are interested into Mr. Wu's audio creations, you need somebody to bring you there or you will need a precise description to find him in Hong Kong, I will be able to provide such.


Read on soon, Volker

The TrueFi Tannoy Enclosure – The Manufacture

Hello to everybody,

continuing reading here in the new year 2016. So I will start with a new article about my Tannoy speaker design. Still I cannot believe how exceptional these speakers in such a cabinet design do work out, even after two years of every day use I do not miss anything. People who know standard alnico versions from Tannoys classic or prestige range (mostly with reflex designs and a more or less too small scale volume) do not have a close perception of what this speaker is able to do. Almost refined and rich textured invisibility with fast transient response, due to its dipole design, combined with finest detailed natural musical resolution show a stage of musical completeness, tannoy normally are not known for. The typical bold, hardly textured and more than rich sound of historical Tannoy speakers, has been improved to a before unknown level for such 15-inch speaker. They remind me a lot more to the typical cinema horn installations with their impressive refinements in micro acoustic terms. Of course such a speaker is not able to show the same degree of micro acustic resolution, its physically handicapped to do so, but you never will ask for anything missing. A exceptional homogeneity, hard to obtain with such complex horn installations, has indeed more affinity to small scale full range speakers, but with a much improved dynamic ability. So these speakers do mark a full unique alternative option in size, living room ability and performed quality, last not least seen from the money point of view. The only natural predator in this league might be Voice of the Cinema-types of speakers, which would be from certain points no alternative for me...

The by now first manufactured samples are finished and are in deliver to their new owners. I have spend a good amount of time of the last year to find refinements for the production and manufacture process. The front loaded dipole enclosure is some sort of ultimate cabinet for the 15-inch Tannoy Dual Concentric speaker with the 15 ohm hard edged version of cone, i.e. Monitor Black, Silver, Red and Gold with 8 ohms. Almost any detail of my prototype cabinets got improved for the series production.
The most problematic detail is still the curved front horn extension. It is made from solid layers of 3 mm mahogany veneers, each glued to the next within a specially made press form, to a final thickness of 18 mm solid wood. Mahogany wood is a ideal material, since it is grown in long strong fibers, which will be bendable in a perfect way and will give the necessary elastic stiffness for preferred sound values. I still hope that FSC certified tropical wood is not only a placebo for the conscience of the consumer and will give some extended sort of sustainability.

Different stained fronts are available to customer requests

 The front of this speaker design is exceptional important design feature, since it is acting as a relevant extension of both different speaker units. The HF-compression part will be extended to lower frequencies, since the LF-cone will be supported in the important lower mid frequencies of 400 to 1000 hz. In the same time the fronts are acting as frontal part of the well known h-dipol design (original WE 7331), they need to mount mechanically the more than 10 kg heavy Dual Concentric speaker to the enclosure with all known advantages and problems. This is a highly delicate question to solve and one main issue bringing vintage alnico equipped Tannoy speaker enclosures into a refined singing mode. Within a misunderstanding of this little detail lots of generations of Tannoy speakers from last 40 years didn't reach their inherent built world class smooth expression.
The open back needs to be completely lined with 10 mm woolen felt in order to minimize direct reflections inside the cabinet, the extension cases are lined with low density boards. These extension cabinets are just movable only for transportation reasons to keep the enclosure sizes small.

Here shown with slightly stained and oiled oak veneer for the main corpus and dark brown
stained color for the extension enclosure in the back.

All veneers are thick types of minimum 2mm thickness to give the enclosures a robust surface
and a solid wood appearance since they are made from lumber core plywood, the best sounding
wooden boards for speaker enclosures.

Listening to these Tannoys shows a well expected improvement in the naturalness and liquidity of the  typical tonal impression, comparing these with my plywood cabinets. The coniferous solid wood inside sounds better articulated with less resonant edges in the tonal accuracy. They will improve within the next month even more, when they get played in, a process known well from a typical wooden musical instruments.

10 mm woolen felt is my preferred damping material inside enclosures, in order to minimize
reflections inside cabinets. pine strives of 10mm thickness add some controlled strength to
cabinets. These are arranged in proportions of the the "Golden Cut" to find the best dispersed
reconance distribution.

I was almost shocked when I did refurbish the first pairs of chassis with original "recone kits" supplied by Lockwood Audio. These typical preassembled units (paper cone with surrounds, centering unit and voice coil) don't make a lot of problems to the experienced and get perfectly installed into the well known chassis of the dual concentric loudspeakers. It struck me down when I did a first listening test after the reconing process, I was save about the fact that both high frequency units are defunctional. Even if I did measure them before, I stopped the listening test and reopened the tweeter for a second inspection. I was quite save that the didn't work by listening. But I was wrong, the paper cone was absolutely not able to perform its dedicated frequency ends, i.e. the lower frequencies below 150 hz, as it could not resolute the frequencies above 500 hz. So these units over roared with 200 to 500 hz frequency parts so loud, that it was impossible to hear the hf unit or some lower bass.

Variants of the enclosure in different stained color and again with retractable back.
This option needs a precise felt gasket between outer and inner case-

After almost 4 hours of first playing the music started to open up and was already sounding in a way which did remind me a bit to the typical Tannoy sound. After 50 hours play from radio they started to sound quite well, still with a reserve of resolution of 5 % to match. It will show in future, I think it  will need another good 100 to 200 hours till they will show their best attitudes.
As well the cabinets itself need a extensiv cuing in process very similar to wooden musical instruments. At the very early beginning they don't sound refined. Quite edgy and inharmonious in their musical behavior within the first hours, they start to brake in after eight hours play of music. After another 20 hours play in time, they show some first musical insight and convince with some first harmony distribution. I expect them after 100 hours playing time to reach their final exceptional transparency and harmony in a stage, where thy are already acoustically invisible. This process seem to be very similar to the run in process of wooden instruments. Interesting, normally when you build a speaker one time, you can not realize such effects. But if you listen to a new sample of your well known speaker, you are able to observe even the smallest changes.

The crossovers are made from copper foil inductors and oil-paper capacitors and solid 2mm copper wire. They have got a metal housing, close in design to the original crossovers known from the legendary Tannoy Monitor Silver and Reds. So I have spared no effort to take care about any technical but as well optical detail to match the original or better standard these speakers were known for. I think it might be a pleasure for the future customer to see how much attention has given into any detail of these speakers. Details which haven't been seen for more than 50 years from commercial sold speakers, even if they were manufactured in low amounts. I did try to make one of the best loudspeakers in history even better and keep its almost legendary standards to the highest possible level. Like several other recently issued remakes from history, like the LineMagnetic series of speakers or the Western Electric 15A horn replicas from Aldo in Italy, I try to manage a similar idea of reissuing with a main interest to a before unavailable quality with vintage Tannoy speakers. I am happy to present with such speaker a stage of improvements, which was never available before, nor it can be found in in their current own pricy legacy releases known as "Prestige Series".

Fresh reconed chassis are looking like new

Of course they have got the TrueFi logo

I prefer felt gaskets like known from the early Monitor Silver, better than the later
introduced high density foam in black or white (shown in one image above),
known from Monitor Red, Gold or HPD.

These speakers are available to order as complete loudspeakers equipped with refurbished Red units or can be alternatively equipped with own speakers from the Tannoy Monitor Silver, Red or Gold line. They can be made with different veneer types as they can be customized in several details on request.

It's always good to have some spare Reds in house, you never know what will
happen...As well some spare recone kits might give safety.

Read as well what other say who have listened to this speaker!

Sizes and technical informations:

95cm high to 60cm wide, with a minimum of 65cm depth variable extendable between 45 to 80cm.

Made from 18mm lumber core plywood, veneered with 2mm furniture veneers.

Funnel made from solid mahogany 3mm veneers.

All used solid wood from coniferus sorts between 1.5 to 6 cm strength.

Soft rubber rollers integrated in the base.

Total weight 52 kg each equipped with speaker and crossover.

Read on soon,

Volker

30 Years of Revelation III

Hello to everybody following,

today I want to find more and further explanations about the fundamental historical change initiated by Japanese audiophiles in the 1970ties. Before such comprehensive evaluation based on extensive human sense perception was brought into culture, a typical pure technical analytical understanding of logic measurement arguments was state of audio fidelity perception. Even the mode of highly professional products with a necessity for definition and standards, for the broadcasting and television industry was mainly defined by ingenious superiority of their designers and their compliance to a purely technical understanding of audible processes. Here Japan didn't constitute any exception like everywhere.

Denon turntable unit from 1970ties for the Japanese broadcast industry

Listening experience and aural competence never have been a natural given qualification of mankind, it is as many other refined human senses are a result of intensive training of abilities. The ear is a sense organ, which relies in a tremendous grade to a wide spread individualized experience search. A conductor of a complex symphonic orchestra for example acquired his listening competence, i.e. the opportunity to difference out several dozens of singular instruments at once, just because of his regular training. This might have trained him as well a ability of distinction for tonal refinement, which will be up to a factor of 10 higher than ordinary people will show, let's say by a bus driver. The typical daily noise floor might have effected here the ear into opposite direction.

Several hundred years of man made insistent experience with acoustic instruments, equally with their evolution in design, manufacture and performance, have created a deeply rooted sense for natural originated tonalities and detailed harmonic structures in almost any culture. "Unplugged (i.e. without electrical amplification)" musical performance practice with solely acoustical arranged instrumentation is a perfect base for such training and improvement of the own listening ability. Serious practice and internalizing of these senses bring us straight into all limitations within musical recordings, these are inherent to any form of acoustical reproduction and are so typical with audio playback technologies. Here a always more or less prominent compression of the general dynamic attitude together with a loss of detailed expression of micro harmonic details are the foremost problems of all forms of audio reproduction. Such losses have been accepted traditionally more or less over decades as to be typical, so a overcoming of such limitations was one major intention of the early evaluation shoot outs in Japan of the 1970ties. Early sound transducing units from the 1930ties cinema installations like the Western Electric Horn Systems together with their dedicated amplifying units with direct heated triode tubes demonstated in these days a highly graded superiority in almost any case of such former explained attitudes. Well experienced and typically Japanese cultivated listeners detected apart from commercial market mechanisms within such old technologies a stage of aural realm and refinement within music reproduction, which never again reached a similar successfully completed level again in history.
The technically seen most simple stage of early amplification, a single ended tube amplifier with one power triode, namely the Western Electric 300B in cooperation with its dedicated designed receiver unit (WE555A compression driver) using a wide band horn transducer telephone, outperformed any newer, technically advanced technology in many terms. The horn development with its wide range frequency dispersion (between 70 and 5000 hz) and its dedicated compression driver unit works physically seen like a typical acoustic instrument in giant form. It shows the typical attitudes known from such wind instruments (and the typical efficiency in dynamic and loudness response), which have physically seen different properties than a wave radiated by a paper cone. Fed by the advanced organized harmonic signal structure of a direct heated triode, such a system can convince with a by far less technical appearance in its tonal structure. Lot more naturally radiated wavefronts and even exceptional micro dynamic performances did make the much higher THD (typically 5% for directly heated triodes) of such systems to a forgettable incidence. From these early days of rediscovery in Japan in 1970 the Western Electric Systems obtained cult status first in Japan and Korea, before their legend started as well in Europe. The WE300B triode got in the coming 20 years to be a synonym for direct heated triodes, may be even to a synonym auf audio tubes in general. But within these days vintage original Western Electric made original tube samples had been still available in useful amounts and were even still in production together with other US brands like Cetron till the end of the 1980ties. Their disappearance gave way for more and more Chinese, Russian and other remakes, all unable to perform at a similar advanced level of properties which is inherent with NOS original tubes.

Typical installation of a WE16A (in untypical colored red) in a traditional Japanese timbering house.

From today it clearly can be seen that in Japan in these days a drastic change of music perception did take place. It took two decades to influence the listening attitude of audio aficionados all over the world and to create interest for more individualized sensations as listening preferences. The definition of quality with electric amplified music reproduction was not any longer evaluated by a printed superiority of technical data sheets. Instead a human emotional significance and sensitiveness as general base of audible evaluation criteria broke ground outgoing from a small group of elitist circles in Japan (Read the interview with Hiroyaso Kondo to understand). There in such a fondness hedonistic culture exceptional vintage horn installations did find a nutrient-rich soil to set out. Allocated to the small scaled size of the country Japan and its typical high density of population and resuming minimalistic apartment sizes in its metropoles, a incomparable audio culture did find exceptional unique preconditions for its solely hedonistic realizations of historical intended audio installations.
So former cinema horn installations got installed into tiniest rooms. A exceptional developed collecting mentality of rarest items forced such preconditions to sometimes unbelievable peaks and drove iridescent flowers.

Who does not remember the widely published under earth build horn developments, which ended with their drivers far outside in the garden? Additionally a highly advanced sense for product qualities exaggerated some of the most interesting, elaborated and unrestrained audio installations existing in the world, even within smallest space conditions for its realization.

WE16A matching perfectly the widths of the room

WE16A in a Japanese apartment

A small selection of images (only three rooms from altogether six are shown here) with respect to one of the most interesting collections of vintage audio arranged as a private museum in an apartment of Dr. Takeshi Mikami (images with respect to gokudo ) in Japan:

Mastery of Meaningful Listening 

or: like hearing took back to emotional integrety of music

Looking at the above shown images shows very clearly that a completely different understanding of audio culture did have taken place in Japan after the 1970ties. The interest of such lively, vivid and intense scene still existing in Japan, created incomparable products made with the highest degree of mastermind culture in order to find the last and tiniest compromising aspect in a audio playback system.

Such research was objectivated to a major intention of finesse and ease, both typical adjectives with natural instrumentation. It was the base for such evaluations to give them a almost religious inspired mission of perfection. Their resulting amplifiers didn't explore "the" common targets of standards, than to find individual definitions of least incomparable qualities and subtile harmonic expression. The amplifier "shootouts" (name est. in the US-american english) reminded me more to the traditional wine or food tasting events in the western world, than to typical technical evaluations with precisely arranged target lines and a resulting hierarchy as quality reference i.e. better selling argument in commercial terms which is the common practice over here.

In Japan as well a wide spread community established a do-it-yourself made audio product culture to before unknown levels of refinement (speakers, amplifiers, crossovers, etc. and fed by a comprehensive accessory business with transformers, enclosures, components and almost any part of high quality). This scene was mainly intended to overcome the typical limitations of commercial mass market products and to find alternative solutions of highly increased quality preferences and not, like in the western world established definition of diy, as a "low cost side business". It was said in the 1980ties that more than 100.000 people were involved into such movement. It was a energetic market, that even internationally acting audio companies like Lux-Corporation (Luxman), tried to establish from specialized branches high quality products. At the same time lots of small accompanying side businesses, like Yoshimura Labs, GOTO, GIP, Onken, Tamura, Tango, etc., established with highly focused product ranges of dedicated parts. Several individual figures acting as forerunners of exceptional sophisticated audio standards defined individuality as unique position and as highest claim in amplifier design (read the interview with Mr Matsumoto of Mactone.Co for better understanding). Names like Morikawa, Sakuma, Anzai, Shindo, Kondo or Kaneta established as to be exceptional significant designers or better said sound creators of mostly handmade instruments. They were respectively connoted to a highly valued master degree like the typical Japanese cultivated graduation "san", instead of been evaluated with the adjective "best".

Read on soon, Volker