What's old is new again....or is it??? Tone above all???

[DaveyF]

Today, I had the pleasure of visiting our new high end shop.... Deja Vu west audio.
Our audio club visited the new store and we were treated to a very gracious host and an introduction to some of the most venerable antique gear imaginable....
The highly sought after western electric tube gear with assorted speakers utilizing Kondo drivers, Jensen drivers and EV tweeters. Along with that, we also listened to a fabulously restored EMT table and superb original Quad 57's in like new condition!
Mono was high on the agenda with a Thorens 150 table hooked up to a SME 3012 arm and a mono Ortofon SPU cartridge.

As some of you may know, horns really are not my thing...and while I thought the horn based systems today were some of the best I had heard, I realized something that brought home to me exactly why we have so many a'philes who swear by them and others, like myself, who are not that impressed.
The answer is ...and I think this is coming from my musician side more than my a'phile side....the western electric gear playing into a mono speaker with the horn was great at this....reproduction of TONE! Yes, the tone was excellent and was what one could fool oneself into believing the real sounds like. BUT here's where the problem lies, at least IMO...the sound was tone wise great, yet the other aspects of what I want to listen to as an 'audience' member were missing (an a'phile audience member)...those things being 1) extreme extension (both in the bass and more importantly in the treble) 2) resolved bass, 3) depth portrayal....very little with this gear, 4) separation of instruments on the stage and lastly, 5) ambience retrieval.
Now this system, based on some of the greatest gear from the past, had tone in spades, and for many this will be the end point of their journey. I can easily see why the likes of Art Dudley and so many others would go nuts for this sound...easily. However, if we are to value all of the other items that I mentioned above..they were either poorly presented or missing entirely from the presentation; then I think we have actually come a long way in the last 50 years or so since a lot of this gear was developed.

So, to conclude, how important is the reproduction of purity of tone to you...because I am now a believer that depending on the answer to this simple question, one can now assign a type of relativism to your expectation and desires for your audio system.

Thoughts...

 

[RogerD]

Davey, a great read and observations,as I have always wondered what present day audiophiles think of WE. I still think it's possible to have it all.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Davey, it's all a synergy
Ie one can't do w'out speed if one loves tone, and vice versa
But, for me tone is the major deciding factor in choosing gear
Or more accurately, tone w tonal density
This is the result of me going from a greyer SS system, evolving to a Hovland tube preamp w more color, then discovering Zu spkrs with full range drivers and no x'overs that saturate the sound, thru two rounds of SETs which complete the color/tonal density picture
Interestingly, I've just listened to a mainly SS w some tube color Apogee based system which majored in speed and scale, but was poor at tone, and despite the overall sound being ostensibly better than mine by a fair margin, I would not swap in a million years

OTOH, 4 years ago I was one of the very few and highly privileged people to hear a recreation of the Denman Exponential Horn, a 0.5 Watt pwrd WE field coil driver firing a 27' long horn, flaring into a 7'x 5' horn mouth
Mono point source, not full range (30Hz-6kHz), just not you would think I would love
But the SOUND, and I do mean SOUND
It was other worldly, w imaging and depth that was beyond holographic, slam w delicacy you don't hear from any modern day spkr, and a presence that made you feel alive
And the tone was scary real
But my guess is that limited freq range would become apparent over time, and would imprint the music
But as a phenomenon, it was SO far beyond anything I've ever experienced in a speaker

 

[LL21]

My priorities have been pretty consistent over the years:

1. Tone and tonal depth
2. Bass Power
3. Extension
4. Alacrity
5. Separation of Instruments/Detail/Decay
6. Soundstaging

All are inter-related at some level, some more so than others...but this is my personal list. You can see it in the evolution of my systems:

- Celestion SL6si + Sub (Denon electronics)
- SF Guarneris + Sub (CJ Electronics)
...Beautiful tone and reasonable extension, but lacking all-out power in the mids; not the most detailed though soundstaging was quite good

- SF Strads + Sub (CJ/Gryphon Electronics)
...Beautiful tonal qualities, now full range...but not the alacrity, low noise floor of the next system. better separation, particularly at scale, with ok soundstaging

- Wilson X1s + Sub (CJ/Gryphon Electronics...and a whole bunch of isolation/grounding to try to reduce emi/rfi/vibration/grunge, etc)

 

[JackD201]

I've always been a tone and timbre guy first. I'll state what Roger stated a bit differently even if we're in total agreement. Tone and Timbre need not trade-off other attributes. Directional loudspeakers also image they just image differently. Extension is a relatively easy fix as well. We see additions of the likes of bullets and subs to augment what was not yet invented back in those days all the time. The Vox Olympian would be one of the more famous examples of this.

 

[Ken Newton]

I view my listening priorities as the means to certain ends, not the ends themselves.

Listening priorities (means):
1. Tonality
2. Dynamic freedom
3. Imaging solidity ( which I think is partly a function of tonality).
4. Soundstage size and spaciousness (which is partly a function of the recording).

Listening ends:

1. A sound that seems live. Verisimilitude, is another word. I'm not primarily concerned with whether the sound is faithful to what was heard at the original acoustic event, something I can't know anyhow. I'm much more concerned with whether the sound is convincingly live or real sounding.

2. A sound that consistently communicates to me on an emotional level.

If I obtain those two ends together, I've arrived. I don't understand the view that prefers accurate (whatever that is supposed to mean) reproduction even if it is neither live sounding, nor communicates emotion. For, what hath a man profit to gain the whole world (signal accuracy) and lose his (the music's) soul?

 

[bonzo75]

Today, I had the pleasure of visiting our new high end shop.... Deja Vu west audio.
Our audio club visited the new store and we were treated to a very gracious host and an introduction to some of the most venerable antique gear imaginable....
The highly sought after western electric tube gear with assorted speakers utilizing Kondo drivers, Jensen drivers and EV tweeters. Along with that, we also listened to a fabulously restored EMT table and superb original Quad 57's in like new condition!
Mono was high on the agenda with a Thorens 150 table hooked up to a SME 3012 arm and a mono Ortofon SPU cartridge.

As some of you may know, horns really are not my thing...and while I thought the horn based systems today were some of the best I had heard, I realized something that brought home to me exactly why we have so many a'philes who swear by them and others, like myself, who are not that impressed.
The answer is ...and I think this is coming from my musician side more than my a'phile side....the western electric gear playing into a mono speaker with the horn was great at this....reproduction of TONE! Yes, the tone was excellent and was what one could fool oneself into believing the real sounds like. BUT here's where the problem lies, at least IMO...the sound was tone wise great, yet the other aspects of what I want to listen to as an 'audience' member were missing (an a'phile audience member)...those things being 1) extreme extension (both in the bass and more importantly in the treble) 2) resolved bass, 3) depth portrayal....very little with this gear, 4) separation of instruments on the stage and lastly, 5) ambience retrieval.
Now this system, based on some of the greatest gear from the past, had tone in spades, and for many this will be the end point of their journey. I can easily see why the likes of Art Dudley and so many others would go nuts for this sound...easily. However, if we are to value all of the other items that I mentioned above..they were either poorly presented or missing entirely from the presentation; then I think we have actually come a long way in the last 50 years or so since a lot of this gear was developed.

So, to conclude, how important is the reproduction of purity of tone to you...because I am now a believer that depending on the answer to this simple question, one can now assign a type of relativism to your expectation and desires for your audio system.

Thoughts...

Dave, the WE 16A which you heard does exactly that - tone in spades, and depending on the tweeters used - GIP, original WE, etc, it can do some extension but not like today's high end. It also needs to be crossed over at 75 Hz to WE woofers (or an equivalent match) which is not easy to do, as you have to buy maybe 5 pairs of drivers to get a perfect match for 2 woofers, and throw the other pairs away.

It also plays well at 180 degrees off axis. Also, each WE 16A set up sounds different. As I always say, if I had the space and the money, I would have restored Apgee full ranges firing down the room and WE 16A on the long wall.

There are people who can DIY VoTTs that will give you this tone with more scale and dynamics that will easily beat today's cone scale and dynamics - you need to find them. And, each horn is different - the difference in the WE that you heard, with the trios and the bass horns, Tune Audio Animas, etc etc, could be larger than those horns have with say, Wilson, Focal, Avalon, etc.

 

[DaveyF]

As pics tell a better story, here are a few from yesterday: Loved these Quads...for a second system that was primarily in a small room and biased towards classical or for some jazz...very hard to beat, even today. Plus I think they look KILLER!

 

[DaveyF]

I really liked this EMT TT...fully restored and a joy to listen to....

 

[thekong]

Yes, the tone was excellent and was what one could fool oneself into believing the real sounds like. BUT here's where the problem lies, at least IMO...the sound was tone wise great, yet the other aspects of what I want to listen to as an 'audience' member were missing (an a'phile audience member)...those things being 1) extreme extension (both in the bass and more importantly in the treble) 2) resolved bass, 3) depth portrayal....very little with this gear, 4) separation of instruments on the stage and lastly, 5) ambience retrieval.

Hi Davey, my experience pretty much mirrored yours!

Not sure if this is relevant, but I believe the very same problems are present with mono playback. I have friends who are heavily into mono and SPU’s, and when I auditioned their system, I always find they have great tone! However, I felt all recordings present a similar atmosphere, a sort of smoky feeling which you get in a jazz bar. Not sure whether it was due to the SPU’s or their systems (horns or ESL driven by modern tube electronics)

It could be very attractive in the beginning, but it turned me off when hearing records after records with similar atmosphere. I wonder anyone else has the same feeling!

 

[JackD201]

Hi Davey, my experience pretty much mirrored yours!

Not sure if this is relevant, but I believe the very same problems are present with mono playback. I have friends who are heavily into mono and SPU’s, and when I auditioned their system, I always find they have great tone! However, I felt all recordings present a similar atmosphere, a sort of smoky feeling which you get in a jazz bar. Not sure whether it was due to the SPU’s or their systems (horns or ESL driven by modern tube electronics)

It could be very attractive in the beginning, but it turned me off when hearing records after records with similar atmosphere. I wonder anyone else has the same feeling!

You are not alone. I do really have to have such a system in our planned vacation home someday. A sonic change of scenery to go with the ...err...the change of scenery. I've been doing research on what to put together for years now.