Western Electric 126 20A 124

 

Click all pics to enlarge. Above, a beautiful street photo of Eric.

Workshop Visit: Eric L encounters Western Electric 

It's not everyday that one can witness the sound of a vintage Western Electric Amplifier.

I went with my old classmate Dr. Lo to his friend Ray's Workshop for a listen. Ray was the designer of Monarchy Audio back in its hey days. when his Pure Class A Amps and DAC's were winning a lot of followers and accolades [Ed: see Footnote 1]. The W.E. amp had been sent to his workshop for a major overhaul and was ready for a brief hearing! I would not want to miss this opportunity of course.

 

It is said in the old days cinemas employed up to 20 of these units, and there were more than 20000 units produced, which, after dumping and attrition, are now probably all in the hands of avid collectors. This W.E setup is a rare duo mono setup [Ed: see Footnote 2]. On each shelf, the top is the phono section, middle part is volume control and preamp and bottom part is the amplifier. Some of the caps and resistors have been replaced and the volume knobs repaired. All the tubes were housed behind the shelf as you can see in the photos. Push-pull mode with 24wpc.

Setup was hooked up to Rayaudio CDP and Monarchy Audio Bookshelf speaker . We were set to play Teresa Tang's lately released CD with historic recordings that have been discovered recently. The sound was extremely seductive and one was drawn into the music completely; as Ray described it, it was like being doped. The richness, lushness; and the satiny voice was well presented yet not overly sweetened. All not mindful of today's HIFI standards; not chasing the wide and deep soundstage nor pinpoint focus - it's the musicality that shines, as expected. We then changed to his modified LS3/5A, and the sound became clearer and imaging improved but yet we missed the magic of the richness and layered bass.
 

 

Then we switched over to Ray's new DIY 300B monoblock - sound was definitely more modern yet still immensely musical and more analytical at the same time. Microdynamics of violin passages were well presented with excitement on the rise and fall of the bow. Teresa's voice was more focused albeit less magical than WE - it's no slouch at all. I prefer this amp to W.E. as a better all rounder.

 

 

 

There's no point in criticising the sound of W.E. though - one should admire the virtues and forget about the shortcomings - the music was extremely sexy and seductive indeed. Had a wonderful and memorable time even though it's a brief session only!

Editor's Footnotes: [1] HK based MonarchyAudio made some good products. I am not exactly a fan of its DACs, which I have experience with, but I do vouch for its anti-jitter (re-clocking) device DIP (I still have a Mk I), which to me sounds better than its affordable rivals at the time, Sonic Frontier's Ultra-jitterbug or Audio Alchemy's DTI; [2] Thanks to our friend icefox, the rack has been identified as, from top down, 126 amplifier; 126 control; 126 power supply, 20A, 124 power amplifiers.