5 grand for one comp. driver ?

[RacerXtreme]

Almost $5,000.00 for one Western Electric 597A compression driver?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

Did these sound that good or are they just incredibly rare - or both?

Now I want one..........


Guy

[Richard C.]

$6070.00!!!

Well, common sense would tell me that there must be a Western Electric museum somewhere that would put this on display for all of us to enjoy! Can't think of any other sane reason to pay this much!

I would like to see Western Electric history, from the beginning - Westrex Sound, etc. I worked at KC works for almost 18 years in manufacturing, and I still feel sad thinking the way we have gotten away from products with a "normal" 20 year service lifespan. We had the vacuum tube lines there, too. I would love to have video of that giant carousel turning around - welding the glass, evacuation, firing the getter, etc. There are Western Electric history pages on the web, and I wish it would include pictures and text on all the older technologies that started with Bell Labs. Good times!

Richard C.

[Richard C.]

GM,

I have looked at many of the Western Electric history sites, but Looking at my monitor is quite a bit different than "actually" being inside an old museum. There is even a certain smell to this old equipment that makes it even better.

By the way I have one of the original WWII beachmaster high power (250 W into 9 drivers mounted on a box with short horns - 10" long w/6" dia. mouth). These were supposed to be used to direct the troops as they made a beach landing. You may have heard of this "big voice" horn array?? The 9 drivers have the US Navy anchor & D-173246 as a part number.

Richard C.

[RacerXtreme]

Woah........ that's a lot of $$ for a compression driver..................

[GM]

Greets!

They are very rare now and there's folks willing/able to pay whatever it takes to own one. When you consider what it would cost to replicate one, even $50k is dirt cheap.

WRT performance, field coils have much more 'tuneability' and when incorporated into the amp's ckt. as the early designs were, it creates a true speaker 'system' rather than the two separate, highly disparate 'systems' tied together with an LCR network we use today. 'Progress', ain't it great?

WRT early W.E. history, there's tons of info on-line, just Google Western Electric, Bell Telephone, AT&T, etc., to get a pretty comprehensive history, then read the referenced books, articles for more details.

It's a pretty interesting tale of one of corporate America's early 'turf wars'/greed. Lots of details, some pics on sound system engineering too, but you have to disect patents and gain access to Bell Lab's tech library's archived papers to get to the 'meat' of it.

GM

[RacerXtreme]

Hi Richard,

Do you have a photo of that WW II beachmaster ?

It sounds pretty interesting......

c-ya

Guy

By the way, some guys on the JBL Heritage site think that W.E. driver will go for $10,000 - $12,000.

[Richard C.]

Guy,

See my new post where I want $50,000. for it and not a penny less! HA! I have it all taken apart to clean the spider webs out of the driver throats, but I could post some close up pictures. These drivers are interesting, but they sure don't look ANYTHING like HiFi on the inside. The phase plug is solid, so ALL the sound has to go out around it. The blast shields look like check valves that close under a sudden explosion.

Richard C.

[RacerXtreme]

$7300.00 so far.

OMG......................

[Richard C.]

RacerXtreme,

Where will it end??? I guess I need to ask even more for MY WE drivers. And to think, I only paid $65.00 for 10 of these drivers (one spare)! And they are even mounted on a neat WWII sheetmetal box, with 9 metal horns. I bet they "ring like a bell" - maybe because they each look like a bell. I have the original wooden carrying case, too.

I'm feelin' a little down, today... Not even one offer to buy my old Western Electric announcement system.

Richard C.

[GM]

Greets!

Yes, I'm aware of them, but only from an early '60s mil-spec annunciator catalog. Thanks for sharing the details!

GM