Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Romy the Cat wrote:

Nowadays, knowing what I know and understanding why some WE sound in the way they sound I would not expect that you will be able to touch the core of the WE Sound. I know the answers and I know that they are not possible to sell in publications. So, you will write another cult article about pretty much empty subject and I would expect very little TRUE educational value from this endeavor for TRULY thinking reader.

I wrote it yesterday and today I got email from a site visitor asking me to extend the subject of Western Electric Sound if I claim that “I know the answers”.  An additional encouragement I got from Italian Stefano Bertoncello's (Twogoodears) who in his blog referred to above linked thread  as “Western Electric - myth and reality“. That made me to think – I was debating a lot of myth that Joe Roberts tend to spread and I expressed a feeling that I “know the answers” but I still did not clearly lay out the answers. Well, I think I need to do it, even though I have done it many-many times with my site.

Joe Roberts is not incorrect. The Western Electric does have very special and very valuable sound; I would say very unique sound. It is of cause is very far from the “serious sound” as I understand “serious sound” due to the very many design decisions that WE did in 30s were done at sub-acceptable level. There were no such a high demands to sound at that time as we have today. Still, the Western Electric systems have something very special that for people who accent that “special” makes all difference. Yes, some Western Electric elements have tone, the tone and harmonics that none of the today elements have. But can Western Electric be responsible for this tone? Here is the major difference between me and Joe is kicking in. The people like Joe Roberts catalog the difference and build a superstructure of admiration. They drop on the knee and pray to it, they completely subordinate themselves to the subject of self-chosen worshiping. There is nothing wrong to it but I find it is not stimulating enough for myself. I am in contrary would like to find the reason for that “special” and be able to administer that level of “special” at my own will.

Here is what the ridicules contradiction came: Joe Roberts is not incorrect – there is absolutely nothing special in Western Electric design and implementations. The all differences why some Western Electric products have very unique sonic characteristics are in very different resources that dosing/production companies used then and now.  60-70 years back there were different materials and manufacturing posses was very much not concentrated how to save money. The cost-effective technologies were not so developed people dumped enormous amount of super expensive recourses into manufacturing.    That all that describe the secret of Western Electric sound and why is what we today can’t replicate it.

Mr. Roberts prostitute on his love to Western Electric but he does not realize that there is absolutely no uniqueness in Western Electric uniqueness. Joe is American, he learned about Western Electric and him and the people like his sold the Western Electric story to reach Japanese.  Joe does not feel that RCA in 30s and Bell did identically uniquely sounding audio products.  They were the same crap not up to today reference point but they were made from non-frugal materials and they do have very different sound from the plastic driver we have today. Europeans have Telefunken and Klangfilm (with is mostly Siemens) and a view others .They were in my view even more advanced then Western Electric and they also had not as much sophistication in design but rather very expensive made products with very good materials – all of them have very unique sound.  Find some Tesla driver from 40s and you will see how good tonally the drivers of the crappy company might be if they make not by technologies from economic factuality of contemporary university.  I do not even mention some Russian products from long past. In the condition of planed economy and with no competition some Russian making from 50s was so stunning expensive that the today technologies would have hard attack. A few years back I was told by a very old guy how military tubes were made in 1952 – it was insane from today stand point.

Many, very many thing was very different in past. Phonographic film in past had 100s time mode silver then it has today. If someone knows A2 film then they know that the file was so much silver that it was scare. The film might run from 16ASA to 3500 ASA and while you shot you could make 8 stops error (!!!) with no negative consequences. I can give dozen and dozen examples, including from audio and it will be very clear that t the “low” and non-economical technology from the past were a huge benefit.

Ironically every single attempt toady to recreate the sound of some of the vintage elements is never work. We do not have today the same metals, the same paper, the same chemicals, the same air and the same water;  the time passed and as Russians say – you can never step in the same river twice…

Some of the vintage products do have some materiality-base uniqueness and it shall cost a lot of money. That is fine. Still, in my view it shall not be a reason for blind and self-demeaning worshiping of everything vintage as so many morons in audio suffer. Take me as an example. I do use some vintage elements in my playback but I use them purposefully.  I recognize their strengths and weaknesses and I capitalize on the strengths only. I think this is the only sane approach I see; when some vintage uniqueness of my choosing serves the purposes that I dedicate it to serve.

Remember:  the advantage of the some (not all of them) older products in not because they were better engineered but because at that time were better natural materials and because at that time the bad engineering methods were not invented yet. Read the last sentence again a few time to understand and to memorize it.

Sure, Joe would continue his WE paranoia, very much the same as some of my European connections have their fixation on a dozen other companies.  I have a guy who over a year swears to me that there is no better sounding tube then PX4 by Marconi. His is not only very experienced guy but there is hand full person alive who has the experience of his level. I bought this tube. It sound very nice and it looks like shit. The guy gave me an explanation why this tube must be better than anything else. Interesting but all of his justifications and reasons were about the materials used. Yes, it is about materials and low technologies. The Leitz of Wetzlar would not become the Leica if not that unique Australian sand hat Germans bough in 30s and those pregnant women who polished with fingertips the best Leitz lenses. It is good material and absence of cost-effective production - it was it. There is no need to lick WE label out of rotten wood boards. You need to recognize what was good what was bad, to make concussion and move forward.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site