"Nobody is going to believe what we're hearing from your Westminsters with this Western Electric internal wiring," said Ron, "it's hard to put into words how good it sounds."
A spool of vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire being photo bombed by a vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifier hot-rodded with Mr. Yazaki-san's 'real sound' modifications.
Ron and I just spent Sunday morning and a good part of the afternoon rewiring my Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers with vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire from Mr. Yazaki-san of SPEC Corporation fame, who had told us about how remarkable this vintage Western Electric wire was musically, and how it allowed the "real sound" of recorded music to come through in unparalleled fashion.
I had already tried the vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire as speaker cables, and I was impressed with their performance, being rich, detailed, colorful, dynamic, and just incredibly beautiful in the way they played music. Then I rewired my beloved Duelund CAST external crossovers with Western Electric WE16GA wire and was blown away by the improvement over the already very nice Neotech wire in my crossovers. The sound became much more coherent top-to-bottom, the highs became more natural, the low frequencies became more balanced and natural, and the sense of recorded space really opened up.
Vintage Western Electric WE16GA as wiring in the Duelund CAST external crossovers, and as speaker cables.
I've been dragging my feet a bit on rewiring my WRSEs internally with Western Electric WE16GA as it's a big job, and secondly, my system was sounding so great I was afraid to disturb the balance. However, I was convinced I should go forward with rewiring my WRSEs internally with WE16GA after I heard what Ron's highly hot-rodded Klipschorns sounded like after he rewired them with the magical vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire - they were phenomenal!
In fact, I was so impressed with Ron's Klipschorns I very much wanted to build a 3rd reference system based on Klipschorns in my second spare bedroom. They are the perfect horn speaker for a relatively small room because they fit in the corners up against the wall, so they make the most of the space. Klipschorns may very well be one of the ultimate horn loudspeakers for a small room, especially after they're hot-rodded, and then rewired with WE16GA. I've got an inquiry in to Klipsch about buying a pair. We'll see what they say.
Vintage Western Electric WE16GA as far as the eye can see. From the Dual Concentric drivers, to the Duelund CAST crossover, through the crossover, from the speaker cables to the amps, everything is vintage Western Electric wire. Even the vintage Mac's are wired with Western Electric internally. Yes, it is really, really, good.
Back on topic. After taking a very deep breath, I took out all the screws that hold the back of my right Westminster in place. I proceeded to remove the superb Panatela interior wiring (gulp!), and then began to solder in the vintage Western Electric WE16GA in its place.
First I ran a continuous length of WE16GA from the ground on the Dual Concentric driver out to the ground on my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifier. If you're not utilizing that 5th ground binding post on your Tannoys, you should really give it a try, it makes a very meaningful difference.
Here you can see the vintage Western Electric WE16GA coming from the WRSEs Dual Concentric driver to the Duelund CAST external crossovers in one uninterrupted length. That's also WE16GA wiring in the crossover.
I soldered a pair of Western Electric WE16GA wires to the high-frequency connections on the Dual Concentric driver, and then routed them out through the cabinet to the external Duelund CAST crossovers. I then repeated the exercise by soldering a pair of Western Electric WE16GA wires to the low-frequency connections, then routed them out to the Duelund CAST crossovers, after which I put the back of the Westminster's cabinet in place, and snugged up all of the screws.
WE16GA is used to wire the Duelund CAST crossover, and from the crossover to the MC30 monaural amplifier the speaker cables are made of Western Electric WE16GA.
Here's a view of the crossover from the other side, with Western Electric WE16GA wire going from the crossover to the MC30 monaural amplifier as speaker cables.
The rest of the view, with the WE16GA connecting to the MC30 monaural amplifier as speaker cables.
I then repeated the drill for my left Westmonster loudspeaker.
View of vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire that goes from the Dual Concentric driver, through the WRSE cabinet out to the Duelund CAST external crossover.
As before, I routed a continuous runs of vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire from the LF and HF Dual Concentric driver connections out through the WRSE's cabinet to the external Duelund CAST crossovers, as well as a continuous run of WE16GA from the driver ground to the McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifier's ground.
WE16GA from the Duelund XO to the Mac - part 1
Above is a view of Western Electric WE16GA wire as speaker cables going from the Duelund CAST crossover tot he MC30 monaural amplifier that you can see in the photo below.
WE16GA from the Duelund XO to the Mac - part 2
After everything was double-checked to make sure I got everything wired correctly, I fired up the vintage Mac electronics so Ron and I could take a listen to the results.
Mingus Ah Um 45 RPM from Analogue Productions.
We listened to a variety of albums new and old, from the superb 45 RPM Mingus Ah Um, to my ratty old album's Stairway to Heaven ...
Stairway to Heaven
... The Rolling Stones 45 RPM single reissue of I Can't Get No Satisfaction ...
I Can't Get No Satisfaction
... and Simon and Garfunkel's The Concert In Central Park.
The Concert In Central Park
With Ella & Louis in mono 45 RPM from Analogue Productions to top things off.
In each and every case we were completely blown away with the transformation brought by the vintage Western Electric WE16GA on the music. As Ron said, "Nobody is going to believe what we're hearing from your Westminsters with this Western Electric internal wiring, it's hard to put into words how good it sounds."
There's nothing about this vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire that suggests why it would be so superbly musical, after all it seems rather ordinary with its strands of tinned copper conductors, a fabric covering, and rather modest appearance. Yet it is capable of most astoundingly musical performance of any wire I've ever heard. It is rich, detailed, throws an enormous soundstage, has truth of timbre, has gorgeous tone color, allows you to play music loud without stress, has an incredibly convincing portrayal of beat, rhythm, melody, and with dynamics that will blow your mind. It also is very evenly balanced from top-to-bottom, with bass & treble sounding particularly natural and 'real'. Or as Mr. Yazaki-san would say, "Real Sound".
Ron's right, it is hard to put into words how good the vintage Western Electric WE16GA sounds, and it may take me a while to come to grips with what I'm hearing from it and be able to articulate it adequately. You can forget all the standard audiophile descriptors, as while the WE16GA is good in normal audiophile terms, it is doing things musically that are so far outside the audiophile realm that it makes it hard to describe how powerfully it affects the listener.
I hope Ron gets a chance to comment too, it was quite the experience to hear the transformation to the "real sound" of vintage Western Electric WE16GA in my Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers.
Western Electric WE16GA
My system is now wired from source to amps with Belden 8402 microphone cable interconnects, and from my vintage Mac amplifiers to the Dual Concentric drivers in my Westminsters with Western Electric WE16GA. The combination of those two sounds like magic in my system, and pretty much just blows me away with how musical it is. Did I mention that both the Belden 8402 and WE16GA are inexpensive?
There is some bad news though, as Mr. Yazaki-san is completely sold out of WE16GA at the moment. If that situation changes I'll let you know.
Thanks for stopping by!
