Graybar Electric Company

The Graybar Building is a landmarked art deco structure on 420 Lexington Ave., NYC. It was once the corporate headquarters of Graybar Electric Company They distributed the Western Electric 755A, 756A, 728B wide range drivers, 753C, 757A studio monitor speakers + more, which inspired projects featured in this blog.

Audio Facilities by Western Electric 1946 (WE753C + more)

Lycan3R WP12024 Horn

A couple of months after I blogged about the 3D printed prototype of the WP12024 horn, Trieu sent a pair of these beautifully finished cast aluminum production versions. Included in the package was a set of parts for a horn stand patterned after the Western Electric original I've only seen in Stereo Sound Tube Kingdom.

OJAS 529B Horn

During my visit to the OJAS listening room late last year, Devon asked me to evaluate a pair of horns OJAS developed in collaboration with Lycan R&R. The OJAS 529B is a 500 Hz horn rescaled from the large format Altec 329A for use with 1" format Altec/GPA compression drivers.

  This horn was designed with a throat inspired by the Western Electric 32 horn to avoid the harshness and distortion I (as well as others 😉) associate with the Altec 811 and 511 horns, 

For more details about this horn's evolution and construction, please click here.

3D printed WP12024 horn from Lycan R&R

In late September, I received a message from Trieu of Lycan R&R, asking if I'd be interested in evaluating his 3D-printed prototype pair of multi-cell horns.

OJAS Listening Room @ USM in SoHo NYC

I never imagined 30 years after the late Don Garber closed his Fi audio gallery at 30 Watts Street, that there would be a similar gallery in SoHo NYC again.

In the summer of 2022, I visited Devon Turnbull's OJAS exhibit at the NYC Lisson gallery. Click here to read about it. This past summer, a similar exhibit was presented at the London Lisson gallery. 

As soon as the London exhibit concluded, Ken Micallef, whom I follow on YouTube, uploaded this video featuring OJAS hifi systems inside a posh SoHo boutique. This was the main motivation to add it to my list of must-see places on my next NYC trip! 

Without further ado, here's what Tish and I experienced when we visited in mid November 2023.

OJAS @ Lisson Gallery NYC

Our dear friends Charito and Joey, whom we haven't seen for over five years, were in NYC visiting for a couple of days. On short notice, Tish was able to take a day off so we were able to meet up with them. Joey is an avid audio DIYer and was a frequent collaborator especially during the annual November Hifi Show when I was still based in Manila. He represents G.I.P. Laboratory in the Philippines. 

It was also timely that Devon (OJAS) Turnbull's HiFi Dream Listening Room No. 1 exhibit at the Lisson Gallery NYC was on its penultimate week. So Joey and I agreed that this was going to be our meeting place! 

Altec 756B + 32C + 806 + 23744 = mini 757

The WE756A is the middle child in the Western Electric series of wide range drivers introduced in the late 40s.

I've seen and heard a couple of WE/Altec 728Bs + a dozen or so pairs of 755As, but I've never heard a WE756A and have only seen one in the metal at a radio show many years ago. Although still quite scarce, its Altec 756B brother isn't quite as elusive.

Back: Blonde + Mahogany Altec Melodist 700A
Front L-R : WE728B, Altec 755A/pr. + Altec 756B

JP's Western Electric WE757A Remake

 

Those were the words of the late Walt Bender in Part II of his Olden Golden Components article in Issue 51 of The Absolute Sound (TAS) in the Winter of 1988. This was my first exposure to Western Electric audio equipment. I eagerly awaited TAS's promised feature of Walt's Western Electric-based audio system but that never materialized. I let my TAS subscription lapse and replaced it with Glass Audio, Sound Practices and Vacuum Tube Valley. 

My only encounter with an original WE757A was a single unit being tested on the tailgate of a Honda Civic hatchback at a ham fest in the early 90s. Keep in mind that this speaker system predates the stereo era by at least 10 years, thus, they were never available in stereo pairs.

KS12027 Horn

The KS12027 horn perched on top of my repurposed Altec 861 cabinet loaded with an Altec 414A woofer should actually be residing inside a ~ 4 cubic foot slanted cabinet with a Western Electric WE713C compression driver  bolted to its throat + a WE728B 12" woofer = Western Electric WE757A monitor speaker system.

I was honored to host this KS12027 horn and provide more modest accommodations for a couple of weeks courtesy of my audio preservationist buddy John Piro.

Altec 753C

Altec 32 Horn Nomenclature

This Altec 32 horn update was prompted by this must read article from Electravolt tracing how the Altec 32 horn evolved from the Western Electric 32A.

Altec 32A

Cast aluminum + longer throat

Listening Room - Minimalist no more?

Among the audio systems of my friends, this is the only set up that has no LP playback ability. Neither does the owner have interest in DVD-A, SACD or a music server/streaming device - only16 bit linear PCM sampled at 44kHz red book mastered CDs, period!

Azzolina Audio KS12024

Western Electric KS12024

Western Electric KS12024
Note: ~ 140° throat bend

The Western Electric KS12024 is a 2-piece cast aluminum 4-cell sectoral high frequency (800-1000Hz cut-off) horn with a 50°H x 40°V dispersion pattern. It was implemented in the Western Electric L-8  and L-9 speaker systems.

Western Electric L-8
from the Silbatone Collection

Parts Express 1" Horns and Waveguide Buy Out Specials

July was a hectic month - four 4th of July concerts with Harrisburg Symphony + two concerts at the Shippensburg Summer Music Festival. It was a welcome respite to receive an invitation from Joe Roberts to meet him at his mom's house in South Philly after I was done with all those gigs.

Leica II + Summitar 50mm f2
Ilford FP4+ in Kodak HC110

He gave me a tour of his old neighborhood, pointing out areas where he started his archeological expeditions as a kid. For lunch we stopped by this hoagie shop for really great Philly cheesesteaks. 

It was very interesting to listen to his recollection of South Philly as a kid, and how the area continues to evolve as people of different ethnicities, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds come and go.  

Before I-95 swarmed with rush hour traffic, I had to head back north with this box filled with horns from Joe. I didn't envision writing about 1" format horns again since I posted this blog entry last February. But after spotting the Azzolina KS12024s, it was hard to pass up this opportunity. Meanwhile, this post will focus only on the Parts Express horns.

Testing

I used Altec 802 1" compression drivers fitted with GPA 34852 16 ohm diaphragms mounted on top of Altec 614 cabinets loaded with 414A woofers (running full range) with the crossover below tying things together. All listening was done in stereo in the man cave.

High pass @ ~ 2500 Hz

I used these two horns as references and for the first time I was able to convince my wife, Tish, to indulge me with her sonic impressions.

Altec 32C

Tish and I love this descendant of the old school WE32A horn. She describes it as sublime.😉 

Emilar EH500

This is my favorite horn from the 70s. It was designed by Jonas Renkus who worked with John Hilliard at Altec Lansing. 

Parts Express Specials 

Round 1 

(deeper/longer exit Altec 802)

Parts Express: 299-2303

+

Altec 802

There is an ongoing thread at Hi-Fi Haven about cheap horns where this particular horn/waveguide was mentioned. Its specs are listed as a 600 Hz, 10" x 14" exponential horn waveguide with a 90° H x 40° H dispersion pattern, made out of heavy ABS plastic. Price: $12.88/ea.

Sound

Tish: Not bad, but not as lush sounding as the Altec 32C. It will eventually hurt my ears. 

JE: Tonal balance is reminiscent of the Emilar EH500. However the sound gets congested with complex musical passages (especially at higher SPLs) which can cause fatigue during long-term listening.

Community UC-1
part# 299-522
+
Altec 802

Dimensions: 10 3/8" W x 5 7/8" H x 6" D

Dispersion: 90°H x 40°V

Cut off frequency: 2000 Hz

Price: $4.48/each

 I had to DIY adapter plates to mount the 802 drivers.

Sound

Tish: Harsh and shouty👎👎👎

JE: Sounds better disconnected. What were you thinking J-Rob???🤣

Faital Pro revisited

Faital Pro STH100 + Altec 802

Dispersion: 80° H x 70° V

Dimensions: 7" W x 4 3/4" H x 3 5/8" D

Material: Metal

Price: $67/each!!!

Sound

Tish: I like this best among the three - easier on the ears compared to the other two, but not even close to the 32C.

JE: I am less impressed this time around despite the clean sound. It has less congestion, harshness and tizz than the B52/QSC clone 299-2303. But the presentation still falls far short of what I hear live. With the recent price increase, I can no longer recommend this unit.

!!!STOP PRESS!!!

Pasted below is a post by @ARX in this Hi-Fi Haven thread

Gentlemen,

Very interesting experiments with different types of horns and waveguides (the B-52 1" QSC clone is a waveguide), both vintage and more recent designs.

The 802D with the B-52 1" might not be an optimal combination. The original QSC PL-000446GP was designed by Mark Engebretson, former VP of Engineering at QSC, to be used with Celestion compression drivers. From the many measurements available online it's obvious this waveguide performs best with modern, pancake style compression drivers, that have a short exit instead of the deeper/longer exit of most vintage drivers like Emilar, Altec etc.

You might try B&C, Celestion, Beyma, BMS and similar 1" drivers.

There's much more to the underlying physics, but it should come as no surprise the EH-500 and Altec 32A/B do indeed sound wonderful with the vintage drivers. The gradual expansion of the wavefront from driver diaphragm to horn mouth is (almost) perfect. On the other hand, a pancake driver behind an oldskool horn, with a few exceptions, is unlikely to yield spectacular results.

Altec 802 (left) + Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8 (right) 

The only pancake type (short/fast exit) 1" compression driver I have on hand is a pair of Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8. This is a smaller magnet version of the SSD1800, which I got to know quite well in the attic. Hence, I had a gut feel that I was going to learn something important from @ARX. So the SSD1400-8 was pressed into service for another round of listening.

Round 2 

(short/fast exit Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8)

Parts Express: 299-2303

+

Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8

 According to ARX's post above, this is a clone of the QSC waveguide, which was designed to be paired with a B&C DE250 compression driver in the Econo-wave project at Audiokarma.

With the short exit R-H SSD1400-8 mounted, this waveguide was transformed. Although not quite on the same level, the sound now more closely resembles the Altec 802/Emilar EH500 pairing. The congestion I heard in Round 1 is gone with a substantial gain in midrange lucidity. Long term listening fatigue is no longer an issue since the sound has opened up with a nice airiness to it.  👍👍👍

Community UC-1

part# 299-522

+

Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8

This horn became a lot more listenable with the SSD1400-8 mounted behind it. It sounded even better crossed over @ 5kHz. Detailed and airy but the midrange isn't quite as vivid as the B52/QSC clone/299-2303. For the record, Community compression drivers are also short/fast exit (pancake) designs.

Faital Pro STH100 

+

Renkus-Heinz SSD1400-8

Sadly, this tractrix horn became unlistenable with the SSD1400-8. Probably a mis-match? Faital Pro 1" compression drivers look more like old school Altec 802s and Emilar EA/EC175.

Parts Express Horn Wrap

Two important lessons learned:

1. Thank you very much @ARX for enlightening me! Otherwise, I would have joined the ranks of fake news bloggers. 🤣

2. My preference for matching harmonically rich-sounding components will always entail a classic pairing of units that are long out of production and are becoming more unaffordable as the years go by...😞

Altec 32A, 32C, Emilar EH1210, EH800, EH500 and Faital Pro STH100

+ 

This is a cumulative report on horns I listened to and tested from May 2016 until the end of 2017. All the tests were done through the mono hifi rig using the above Altec 802 compression driver fitted with a GPA 34852 diaphragm + an Altec 414A in a repurposed Altec 861 cabinet running in full-range mode tied together by a 6dB/octave high pass crossover/EQ hinged at 2500 Hz. 

Temporary Hi Fi 2018

Set-up in the living room until I finish renovating the man cave

Altec 2-way XO Redux

This is an update on crossovers I use for the Altec 2-way speakers.

JEL N1600 Crossover

JEL N1600C + HF EQ
optimized for the 802 driver fitted with the original
16 ohm 20275 diaphragm