How many of you are interested in Vintage Horn Speakers?

thomask

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Yesterday I visited Silbatone company at Seoul, Korea and saw more than 50 pairs of vintage Western Electric big horn speakers that I had hoped to get one.

I asked my friend who is a owner of Silbatone whether I can get long term loan of one of them for 10 years at my home.:cool:

He politely replied back that he is building museum for vintage audio and so he can not spare one for me.

It will be completed in 2 years at the suburb of Seoul, Korea.

If you are interested in vintage audio, it shall be the place to visit.


I had a good time at my friend's home and took some photos but I can disclose only part of them for his privacy.

I will fly back to US today and post some photos and details of discussion with him about vintage audio after being back at my home.
 
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bonzo75

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Is this Cheung that you visited. I want to go there. How many days you reckon to do justice to listening there
 

thomask

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I visited "Secret Paradise" of my friend on Dec 17th, 2018.
Although I took photos of his main systems, I will not disclose them without his permission.

Here you can see one of the most expensive Silbatone 5 W amplifier (50k$) and vintage Western Electric amplifiers side by side.

Vintage western amplifier drive Western Electric speakers in natural timber but fall short of detail compared with Silbatone amp.



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I got the permission of disclosing this small gem (around 15K$ for pair) of full range Western Electric 755.

This one gave ultimate details and 3 D holographic soundstage driven by 5W Silbatone amplifier.

You may see glimpse of his second main system on the back.

The second main system cost around 500K$ but I did not get impressed by it very much.

It seems to be better than my 100K$ system by only 25% or so subject to my personal taste.

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He has the ultimate Western horn system on the other big room (7m [23ft]high, 9m[30ft] wide, 15m[50ft] long).

It is too rare to judge the value of the speaker system( I guess two million$ or more).

Although I took it's photo, I can not disclose it until I get his permission.

The ultimate system has got everything that I want for audio system.

Natural soundstage and dynamics, ultimate details and fanciful Jazz voice.


But there is no way for me to afford such expensive system.

I am happy to enjoy the sound while drinking 400$ wine with him.

I went to same high school with my friend so we had known each other for more than 40 years.

In addition I had more than 10 years of business relation with him before I retired several years ago.

He invites only few friends and people with close business relation to his "Secret Paradise"



I am just happy to have such friend in my life.

I will try to save money for 300K Western Big horn system.

But in the meantime I will have fun spending on small things.
 
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bonzo75

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What turntables and carts is he using? In Munich it is always idlers only
 

thomask

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What turntables and carts is he using? In Munich it is always idlers only
We did not play vinyl this time so I do not know.

His company is making world top class digital converter but I did not have chance to compare theirs with products of other makers this time.

It would have been interesting if I had done so.
 

Stump

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I had also listened to some modern horns. But somehow vintage horns have something special in its sound.

But I have not had any horn speakers in my listening room.

I had used high efficiency full range driven by 300B Set amp.

I had been happily using Lansce 4.1 for 11 years which mate well with tube amp with high efficiency.


One affordable choice will be Line Magnetic LM3

LM-3 3-way speakers - LM302 - 22A - LM555W - BA-18


which is a replica of Western Electric and Jensen vintage drivers.

I am curious whether anyone here had listened to it.
I have had a listen to the LM 302 a number of times .I am putting together a similar system but it takes time to get everything..
 

thomask

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I have had a listen to the LM 302 a number of times .I am putting together a similar system but it takes time to get everything..

I am going to listen to it myself someday.

Audio is dependent on personal taste so you never know whether you like it or not until you hear yourself.

Thanks for your kind input.
 

bonzo75

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I have had a listen to the LM 302 a number of times .I am putting together a similar system but it takes time to get everything..

Hi where is this?
 

thomask

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#1
Yesterday 300,000 people had experienced power outage in Northwest of Washington State due to severe winter storm.

I was one of them to have outage of 15 hours from 11AM to 2AM on this morning.

4 years ago, I had experienced 60 hours power outage.

Thus I had bought gas power generator just in case.

But it is heavy (around 50kg, 110lb) and got stuck in storage.

So I did not use it yesterday.

But if power outage had extended to daytime of today, I would have used it.


I had been back to my home in Washington State on 18th Tuesday.

After being back to US, I had 150 new CDs delivered from Oldies.com including some soundtrack.





Also I have new digital cable ready and 300B tube to play with.


Just after playing music for 12 hours, I experienced sudden power outage with severe winter storm similar to "Frozen".

After checking the situation that more than half or people in my county is going through power outage, I was expecting for the worst case.

Fortunately, it ended after just 15 hours.


Now I am just happy to enjoy music without paying much attention to sound.

During 18 day's stay in Korea, I had gone through lot of things including vintage Western horns, first audition of Total Dac and MSB Select Dac.

But after being back to my home, I can enjoy music without paying too much attention to sound.


It will be nice if I can get vintage Western Big horn system which has very natural dynamics and soundstage.

But I can happily live with my current system of Lansche 4.1 speaker driven by Line Magnetic 508 SET amp for the time being.
 

thomask

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Line Magnetic LM3 just by the nature of the A22 Horn shape produce an effortless holographic sound.I enjoyed the HK/Show prefab room sound wise to the LM Factory demo room .It was the A22 Horn which sparked my interest a few years ago. Hommage 22A loudspeaker do a nice modern take with the A22...

http://www.auditorium-23.de/Hommage/22A.html
That is an intriguing opinion!

But it was difficult to find showroom in Hong Kong to audition LM3.

I contacted several shops but with negative response.
 

christoph

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Line Magnetic LM3 just by the nature of the A22 Horn shape produce an effortless holographic sound.I enjoyed the HK/Show prefab room sound wise to the LM Factory demo room .It was the A22 Horn which sparked my interest a few years ago. Hommage 22A loudspeaker do a nice modern take with the A22...

http://www.auditorium-23.de/Hommage/22A.html
For how much is A23 selling the Hommage 22A?
 

Stump

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Jul 15, 2012
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When I have it all together I will keep you informed.I will be using LM A22 horn with Line Magnetic 555 field coil driver .LM-597 Super Bass tweeter and the speaker box will be different X2 RCF L15P530, Mid-Bass 15", 350 Watt RMS / 8 Ohm similar to the one below..I will be going active with bass running LM G-212 mono blocks with Horn and tweeter running LM 91A mono blocks..
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f292ft.jpg dc2bc9e2-fa63-43b5-9eee-83cf4edcd3d5.jpg
 

thomask

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Dec 9, 2018
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Washington State, US
When I have it all together I will keep you informed.I will be using LM A22 horn with Line Magnetic 555 field coil driver .LM-597 Super Bass tweeter and the speaker box will be different X2 RCF L15P530, Mid-Bass 15", 350 Watt RMS / 8 Ohm similar to the one below..I will be going active with bass running LM G-212 mono blocks with Horn and tweeter running LM 91A mono blocks..
View attachment 46786 View attachment 46787
View attachment 46788 View attachment 46789
Wow you have got a nice system!

When you assemble it, please let us have your opinion on LM speakers in detail.
 
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