My Munich Notes with Western Electric Lowdown and music

1. Most rooms were disappointing
2. Western Electric was fabulous, but more on that in the next post
3. Vivid Giya G2 sounded very good, great bass, seamless crossovers, soundstaging, dynamics. Did Mahler 2 explosion open large scale without any problems. Backed by expensive CH Precision boxes and Techdas AF3
4. Lots of Techdas around. The TT has great density, weight, and texture. Throughout the show, TTs sounded better than digital.
5. Steinheim backed by CHP gear and Zensati cables sounded very good. They played an entire Ravel Bolero LP, where you could hear instrument by instrument, cluster by cluster, till it got into the large dynamics
6. TAD had a structured program where they played lounge music for the first 30 minutes. Like one guy commented, I felt like I am stuck in an elevator with a hifi system. But then they played Led Zep's Babe I am gonna leave you, so all is forgiven. Then they moved to classical. Those CR1 standamounts pack a lot
7. My favorite speaker Tune Audio Anima didn't sound good on Saturday, but opened up on today (Sunday). It was the only room WE aside that had no treatment and were just playing loads of classical and opera.
8. The 100k Live Act speakers at the other show in Mariott sounded good.
9. I should have listened to Blumenhofer more
10. MBL played lounge friendly elevator music.
11. Vox sounded creamy and buttery, but not very real

The WE pic

Last year, they had brought the top of the line WE http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?14760-Western-Electric-s-first-hifi-speaker&p=267218&viewfull=1#post267218, this year they brought in the bottom of the line WEs. Still outdid all other hifi IMO. Listening to these speakers changes perspective. All other speakers sound like hifi - as other speakers get better, crossovers improve, things seem more seamless, but they all sound smooth. Some sound so smooth that the brass instruments sound like the flute or the clarinet. The Western Electric is real. The texture is to die for. The soundstage is deep, like a real stage. You can hear the imperfections in the crossovers,but they sound real, like those in a concert hall.

The smaller WEs, which are GIP labs reproductions of the WEs, were sitting flat on their base on the floor, you could feel the vibrations and all, yet they sounded magical

I have never heard violin before, anywhere like what I heard on the following LP in the WE room. A friend of mine, Bill, who is a semi professional musician, and a first trombonist, was lukewarm the first day when he joined me to listen to these speakers, but today he was gaga and will tell you the same thing.



The following voice was to die for



I have heard Schubert's Winterriese live twice, but this vocalist was something else.



The two pianos sounded great on the smaller WEs.



Maria Callas' vocals were so raw and real

The 15k EUR Schick TT was killing the Scarlatti everytime in this room. The Silbaton amps were monos, each WE valve costs over 10k

I used to go to a blues club in the centre of Bristol many years ago. For more than a couple of decades actually. That used to run big horn loudspeakers similar in appearance to those WE speakers. They were taller to be honest.

They were driven by valve amps. The sound that used to come out of them was magical. Very similar in presentation to the WE/GIP systems. That said, they mainly played reggae, so accurate cross comparisons are hard - I've never heard a Silbatone set up try it.

Using technical measurements, I wonder just how badly these systems would turn out to be. Very poor I suspect. Which is interesting because they tend to sound the most real.

They are closer to PA systems than hi-fi I think. But when you go to hear bands, they play through PA systems. Is it any surprise using this kind of set up gets closer to a live sound? Probably not.

Thinking about it there are some PA systems used in Bristol dance clubs that are absolutely phenomenal in terns of scale, bass reproduction, loudness and dynamic capability. Nothing you heard at Munich is able to get close to those including the WE set up.

They will literally cause quite amazing chest resonance if you get close enough. They are also impractical, visually abhorrent, domestically completely unacceptable and usualy absolutely gigantic!

In many ways, domestic set ups are a joke compared to such systems.

User211 said:

In many ways, domestic set ups are a joke compared to such systems.

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Agree with you there Justin.

bonzo said:

Last year, they had brought the top of the line WE http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?14760-Western-Electric-s-first-hifi-speaker&p=267218&viewfull=1#post267218, this year they brought in the bottom of the line WEs. Still outdid all other hifi IMO. Listening to these speakers changes perspective. All other speakers sound like hifi -

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I am curious as to how you would rate the Tune Audio Anima's in comparison?

Harlequin said:

I am curious as to how you would rate the Tune Audio Anima's in comparison?

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Not as good, but the Animas are the only speakers who sound real to me like the WEs. Brass sounds like Brass. Other hifi speakers try to sound real by disappearing. The Animas and the WE sound real because of the timbre and the texture and the impact.

But at Munich the Animas didn't sound good. On Sunday (last day) they sounded ok. Saturday they were sounding really bad.

Animas are more top-down coherent then WEs, so while the big ones they had last year had great bass the ones this time they weren't so full range. The Animas are more full range and coherent, obviously, since they cater to the hifi community

bonzo said:

But at Munich the Animas didn't sound good. On Sunday (last day) they sounded ok. Saturday they were sounding really bad

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A perfect example of how an excellent pair of speakers, set up in an less than optimised scenario, may present an anomalous result and therefore a disingenuous consideration of its abilities, particularly when that may well be the one and only audition afforded one.

Harlequin said:

A perfect example of how an excellent pair of speakers, set up in an less than optimised scenario, may present an anomalous result and therefore a disingenuous consideration of its abilities, particularly when that may well be the one and only audition afforded one.

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Most Munich rooms are pretty poor. The Anima room was also the one with zero treatment.

Additional considerations duly noted.

How big is the Marriott show Kedar and was it worth going to?

User211 said:

How big is the Marriott show Kedar and was it worth going to?

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Very small, and it goes on till 8pm, so you can reach there by 6 and be done. Not really worth it. It's free though, and 10 mins by shuttle