Western Electric 755, TA 4189A

Click pic to enlarge. right, Vincent's NAD's. Next to WE, beauty and the beast...

Home Visits (22-1): Western Electric

Letter from Hong Kong (22-3): icefox sends goodies

Regular readers know that when I was in Hong Kong, my friend icefox often acted as my taskmaster, making me work hard. This man knows virtually everyone, especially the ones worth knowing (not at all in the majority). He knows almost all the WE players in HK and the greater Guangzhou area and is a constant source of good information. He recently sent me the videos below, which I hope you will enjoy. Much of the music will be unfamiliar but I think that's not so important.

Note: Although I am not in HK, icefox is, and that was where all this info was related to me via wechat.

HK: Vincent's WE 755 We have met Vincent before. Not so long before I left HK in 2018 I chronicled his WE systems and Altec 604 (here). He has changed from the Altec 604 to the WE 755. In this video, however, unlike before, he's not using the WE 133 replica amp (using all genuine parts) but an NAD 3020 (or 3020A). In the video, the NAD is in the back and the WE133 in the front are not used. Bluetooth was source and speaker cable Belden 9497. I of course asked which NAD is better and he said there is not much difference. As for the heart of the matter, most importantly, icefox said "...(this is) the simplest nice sounding WE system I have ever heard...this combo puts a lot of big but poorly executed WE horn systems to shame!" and that's a lot coming from him! icefox said:"... the 133 sounds nice too but when you consider what NAD 3020 could do, it's such a gigantic bargain vs those expensive tubes that one requires to operate the 133..." And now, he even said this!!!!!!!! "when you have a WE speaker, the WE amp is not mandatory!" The Cabinet Now, this is very important. I have heard plenty of 755's, from Alnico WE and early Altec's to later ferrite Altec's. It is still the most iconic fullrange. But, often the sound is sub-par. In my experience, most, if not all, modern cabinets do not sound good (just as in the case of Lowther). If it's MDF, you can just totally forget about it. To avoid the trappings of a bix, some use open baffle, but that has its own can of worms. In this case, Vincent's are housed in original Altec 618 cabinets (literature at bottom), which is a solution adopted by many. But, as icefox says, not all 618 cabinets are created equal (many are DIY's of widely varying qualities). Vincent's apparently are particularly fine specimens.

Taipei: Mr Han's WE TA-4189A 台北韩先生 He is an acquanitance of icefox. I have even less info on this. Suffice to say, this is a pair of fullrange Field Coil WE (power supply at bottom of article), driven with WE 94C amps, fed by Studer A730 directly, no preamp. This is Mr. Han's second system, his main being WE 15A (not available this time).

China: Foshan (Guangdong) 佛山西电镖 This is the WE Replica of the fellow who makes close replicas of WE stuff, including Vincent's 133. Think along the lines of Line Magnetic.

Well, I cannot thank icefox enough for these footages, which I hope you will enjoy!