I wonder if any new interning horns ideas are present at CES. There is a post at the hi-fi-heroin site:

http://hifiheroin.blogspot.com/2011/01/ces-preview-you-actually-want-to-see.html

… that depicts a new speaker. I kind of like it and don’t.  It is 3-way speaker at the bottom it has push-pull looks like 15” drivers. In front it has a very shallow horn give probably one-three dB at 200Hz. There is back exit from that 15”. I would estimate 80-70Hz. The speaker has those wings from 30s that shall pouch some additional upperbass forward. This configuration is of cause is self-defeatable for the driver. On the top there is some kind of 12 multicell with exit of at least 150Hz. I think a MF driver live in this horn but the horn is very strange.  It flat and has no curve, it means the length of the middle pipe and the side pipes are different – not too kosher. The biggest problem that I with it is the relation between the size of the MF horn and the depth of the horn. This horn looks like 15” deep and will not provide any QE at all. It acts more like a diffuser, which might not too bad itself. Between the MF and bass channels there is a WE type tweeter with a pipe.

 I like in this speaker that whoever behind it was trying to do something different but I do not know that they accomplished.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I wonder if any new interning horns ideas are present at CES. There is a post at the hi-fi-heroin site: http://hifiheroin.blogspot.com/2011/01/ces-preview-you-actually-want-to-see.html … that depicts a new speaker. I kind of like it and don’t.  It is 3-way speaker at the bottom it has push-pull looks like 15” drivers. In front it has a very shallow horn give probably one-three dB at 200Hz. There is back exit from that 15”. I would estimate 80-70Hz. The speaker has those wings from 30s that shall pouch some additional upperbass forward. This configuration is of cause is self-defeatable for the driver. On the top there is some kind of 12 multicell with exit of at least 150Hz. I think a MF driver live in this horn but the horn is very strange.  It flat and has no curve, it means the length of the middle pipe and the side pipes are different – not too kosher. The biggest problem that I with it is the relation between the size of the MF horn and the depth of the horn. This horn looks like 15” deep and will not provide any QE at all. It acts more like a diffuser, which might not too bad itself. Between the MF and bass channels there is a WE type tweeter with a pipe.  I like in this speaker that whoever behind it was trying to do something different but I do not know that they accomplished.

The AUDIOVOX is buying KLIPSCH? Hmmm, so what? Klipsch long time ago stopped to be a company that deserves any interest from horn perspective. The only worthy their speakers were made in the end of 60s. In 80s they terminated their R&D for commercial division and in my view there was no Klipsch anymore. So, I feel that it was no news…

Now about the main subject. The speakers that I linked in the post above are by Silbatone Acoustics. This kind of see another perspective at whaler I was guessing. If it was by Silbatone  then it is very likely that Silbatone  did not “invented” of designed anything but copy some kind of Western Electric design.  The multicell without the curve and the wings around the bass horn and the Pinocchio tweeter did remind me WE. I do not remember all of those WE numbers but  I am sure that if anyone would go over WE catalog then they find a direct correlation between what Silbatone presented and what WE did. IN fact I think it is a pure replica but I do not know WE too much to judge. The only exception would be is that I do not think that WE would put a tweeter in their speakers. At that that time the requirement for Sound was VERY LOW and WE would not add tweeter as they most likely felt that MF multicell above is enough.

I do not know if Silbatone made own replica of WE drivers or they just used driver from own collection. If they made own drivers inspired of even copied from WE then it might be a commendable efforts. If they just brought WE speaker from this collection then it is boring from the perspective of horn awareness and has only interests from the perspective of the Sound that Silbatone will be able to demonstrate. This it is the SEC ad-hog room I would not expect a lot….

If wonder, if it not the Silbatone speakers but WE then why Silbatone brought this system to CES. They do not have any US exposure and then only their presence in US is their US pimp (Joe Roberts) who is running across the audio forums like a wounded in ass antelope and trying to convert the WE paranoia that he created in past into a marketing noise around  Silbatone.  I am not sure what the Silbatone objectives in all of it.  If they are doing it for “fun” then good for them, overcome to the club, why they spent time and money to get somebody attention? If they are looking some kind of parley to world and US market then they need to realize that Joe Roberts blabbering is able to impress a few deranged individuals who are fingering wives by a polled copy of Sound Practices magazine.  They people are not marketing market and shall not be aim of Silbatone attention. Anyhow, this is all another subject and it has nothing to do with actually horn or Sound.

jeff1225 wrote:

…"whatever that means" is that most rooms at a trade show are not good. You know this Rommy, I've seen you write it in past posts.

jeff1225 wrote:

I like that Silbatone was trying to demonstrate to the "Wilson Audio" crowd that vintage horns can surpass the latest multi-driver cones.

It was reported, and I do not know how accurate it is, that Silbatone did not use WE driver but used a Japanese replica by GIP.

http://www.gip-laboratory.com/

http://www.amtrans.co.jp/audio/gip/lineup.shtml

It does not make any different to me as I equally not family with nether WE or GIP. The entire setting is still very much WE-inspired and has a number of fatal blunders in my view. Sure it would be interesting to hear what TTH those drivers are capable but I would need much more to get stimulating Sound then to recognize that those things do not sound like Kharma.  I do not know what kind sound Silbatone demonstrated but I hope whatever objectives they had they fulfill.

zako wrote:

I dont get it,,,Why introduce a system thats been around in all the CINEMA theaters for the last hundred years,,  I guess what goes around comes around again,,,

Well, they did not “introduce” anything as I understand they have no commercial objectives in this project. They have some time and money and they juts demoed some piled up speakers. Since Silbatone has a lot of WE exposure it is no surprise that they brought a rendition of cinema speakers. Why did they do it? Well, this is my disagreement with Silbatone and with many other people who have the vintage sickness under the scull.

I have written many times at my site that old cinema speakers from 30s are garbage. They are garbage from design and from implementation perspective. The requirements to sound at that time were extremely low, the objectives were to serve large open space audiences and people did what they did. The good part the at that time no one saved money on materials and engineers did not developed bad habits  that become wide-spread later on. So, some of the elements of the cinema acoustic systems were indeed very-very good and contained capacity that was not even near close to realization at that time. Those cinema-speakers people are  fanatically pray to WE, Bell, Klangfilm, Telefunken, Marconi and many others without “getting” what is the key positive element in the sound that they like.  So, they just brainlessly are mimicking whatever they do not understand, to a different degree of success.

The truth is that some of those vintage elements are remarkably unfriendly for reuse, very non-liner, have very narrow bandwidth and it require a LOT to sound acceptable for today demands. You will very seldom see successful sonically and design-wise intelligent reuse of cinema elements from far past. What Silbatone demonstrated I find is not intelligent reuse. I am sure it did not sound like zippy crap in the rest of the room but it is not enough for me to consider what Silbatone demonstrated as “interesting” attempt.

I got today an email with reference to ultrahighendforum. I do not read that site as it is where that audio douchebag  Oneobgyn, aka Steve Williams, aka Lamm’s Tampon is posting.  Still, glancing the pictures and a few comments I did not find it disgusting, in contrary somewhat sane. Most of the content comes from “faberryman”. I do not know he is, I presume that since he is in a bed with Oneobgyn then he is also an idiot. It is what it is.

http://www.ultrahighendforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4105

http://www.ultrahighendforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4120

BTW, What I found funny that always Silbatone -goggling and sticking his nose in any Silbatone hole Joe the Archeologist did show up in there and did  spread his mental Vaseline over faberryman mentioned his protégé.

Go today two emails from the site readers with two links to the CES comments.

First one is from Jeffrey Jackson who looks like was recruited by Joe the Uninvolved Archeologist with the room:

http://hifiheroin.blogspot.com/2011/01/ces-2011-big-western-electric-system.html

The second link is to the Federated Mike:

http://www.audiofederation.com/blog/

You need to scroll down and it will be a lot of clickable high-res pictures. Mike did not write any comment and it was pretty much nothing to look in there besides one intriguing moment. In the article about the new Lamm ML2.2:

 http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=15398 

I have wrote that knowing what ML2 input stage is I feel that it is highly possible that the claimed modification of ML2.2’s input stage to “make it to sound like ML3” is a pure BS. Thanks to the Federated Mike who posted a high res picture of the “new” ML2.2. To the best of my memory I see absolutely no difference in PCB the traces between old ML2 and the new ML2.2. Lamm might stop to use garbage output transformer that he used to use in ML2.1 and not he declares it is “improvement”.  Sorry, I do not believe in anything Lamm produced after ML2.0. Whatever Lamm did after 2001 was already “not there”….

jeff1225 wrote:

I never understood the affinity that the Germans have for heavy metal. Whenever you going into any of their rooms at CES (especially MBL), Slayer is playing at 130 DB. Maybe it's the modern interpretation of Wagner.

tokyo john wrote:

Only reason I took notice again recently was because in the latest edition of Stereo Sound (Japanese audio magazine), an audio reviewer renowned for his love of dubious audio equipment (Krell and Magico speakers etc) reviewed the GIPs and was shocked to realize that the sound he was used to listening sounded wooden and slow in comparison. I was shocked at his honesty (my expectations of reviewers are maybe just too low), and given that GIP spends virtually nil on advertising (compared to the Krells and Magicos), a miracle.

You are right I think. He confuses his followers with this GIP review, his fans who sold their Tannoys and bought his recommendd Krell Lats and Magicos, but they will fall in love with him all over again when he tells them the latest Magicos got the bass faster, or how the Krells got better driven by the latest 1000w amps.

By the way, what is your table radio? Is amazing, but I was once very upset when my father-in-law's table radio by Sony sounded too magical, and just yesterday, I was again bothered by the fact that the sound in the bathroom of a hotel (speaker in the ceiling) sounded too good! And if you have ever been to Tokyo Disneysea resort, you might be impressed by the sound quality of the open-air PA system playing all kinds of orchestral music from the Disney movies (these scores remind me so much of Mahler for some reason) - I liked the sound so much I asked what they were using. (turned out to be professional speakers by Meyer)