| |
A23 loudspeaker »Hommage
à Ken« with fullrange unit
LM 755
Index
July 2014
|
| ![](A23_Bar.jpg) | | | | | | | Hommage à Ken
Timelessness.
Consistency. Imperishability. The antonyms to that
are: Ephemerality. Fickleness. Momentariness. Terms
of the first category are those who stay in peoples mind, quickly forgotten
are the latter. To meet the requirements of the first category, certain
qualities that define the difference are essential. Finding products of
this specific quality on the one hand and to manufacture them on our
own on the other hand, has always been the main philosophy of
Auditorium23.
In
1996 we displayed the loudspeaker »Morgane« at the
HighEnd Show in Frankfurt, which - controversial to common technical
expertise – was manufactured with a lightweight cabinet and
fitted with a coaxial-driver made in the 1950s by the German enterprise
Siemens.
We
received the plans of this cabinet from Ken Shindo. It was the
friendship with him that gave us valuable insights into long forgotten
knowledge of loudspeaker construction.
In
the beginning of our collaboration it was nearly impossible to find speakers
that could fulfill the requirements of tube amplifiers with output
of 3 or 5 watts. Popular solid-state components at those times didn't
require drivers of high sensitivity. To actually communicate the
special characteristics of Ken Shindo's gear, we began – also
with his support – to develop our own speakers with
the urgently needed parameters.
![](xMorgane.gif) In
an environment of modern competitors »Morgane«
succeeded at this show as “… une des plus belles
ècoutes de salon “ in La Nouvelle Revue du Son.
This loudspeaker concept demonstrated our wish and ambition to reveal
the richness of early High Fidelity and how a sometimes misleaded
belief in progress prevents our focus on historical qualities.
Ideally,
the cabinet of the »Morgane« ought to be fitted with a Western Electric
755 driver – at those times a pure utopia in Europe. Very
hard to find and always at collector's value. The internet didn't yet
exist and successful worldwide search on international sales platforms
was not possible.
20
years later – Wishes come true!
These
days a newly evolved awareness for the art of developers from the beginnings
of High Fidelity motivates certain companies to develop replicas
alongside the originals. Excellent remakes by LineMagnetic from China
at affordable prices paved the way for the realisation of concepts
which for long had been kept in our drawers.
Almost
25 years later we still had the chance to ask Ken Shindo for his permission
to use his construction plan with the now available LM 755 driver,
which was granted. His sudden death caused us to devote
this speaker to him and consequently we named it
»Hommage à Ken«.
The
development and realisation of the concept - supplemented by further
insights on our part that derived from the manufacturing of speakers
over the past years – lead to the result that we are
fortunate to have started over again with this project. Our electronic
references are well known. In the phase of development we listened to
the speaker with these references most of the time.
The
cabinet is a so called 'backloaded horn' and in the image above is manufactured
of solid cherrywood. Other versions are possible, whereas the
density of the wood must always be considered – not all
lumbers are adequate.
With a total height
of 105 cm and 40 x 50 cm in width and depth this is not a
small loudspeaker, but the volume is needed for an ideal
adaptation of the driver. The physical properties of the WE
755 replica are perfectly maintained in all parameters by
LineMagnetic. The
extreme complex and costly magnetic Alnico-structure, the thin pole
plate, the 'overhanging` wound voice coil (manufactured for the first
time by WE and a feature of all drivers of the 7 series), the accurate
and well considered large conception of the spider in a wisely produced
basket with little windows, the flat course of the membrane, built as a
one piece dome-construction out of the cellulose-pulp
– properties which Western Electric accurately elaborated in
the 1940s. More than
a few consider the WE 755 to be the best fullrange driver. For
Line Magnetic this was reason enough to turn their attention to this
driver in the second series. Line Magnetic started with a popular
field-coil driver as well, variable by DC-supply, which offers a lot,
as e.g. the variation of the electric parameters, but it just never was
a 755 type as conceived by Western Electric.
As with
our speakers »Hommage Cinema« and
»Hommage 22A« you again will find fabric covered
side walls. The careful tuning of driver and cabinet and the sonic
performance confirm, that the replica of the WE 755 is one of the best
fullrange drivers you can purchase. With the appropriate and context
based electronics, tonal results are achievable that one would not
expect from a fullrange driver. We believe, that we have fulfilled the
requirements of the categories quoted at the beginning." | | |
| | | Our Hommage-speaker
line includes | ![](Vign_755.jpg) | | ![](Vign_Cinema.jpg)
| | ![](Vign_HORN.jpg)
| | ![](Vig_4181.jpg)
| »755« | | »Cinema« | | »22A« | | Coming next »4181« | | | | | | | |
| | |
| | | |
|
|