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Has to be one of the most unsettling and incomplete reviews I've ever read.
What is this product and what audience is it aimed at?
This new 91E is an integrated amplifier - with input switching / volume control and at least a phono preamp section. Maybe even some kind of digital processing - for Bluetooth?? However, it is integrated in another IMPORTANT way. It is NOT JUST a thermionic device- but at least in the phono section must have a WHOLE lot of solid state amplification going on. Discrete/IC-based??. And What other processing might the audio signal go thru before it hits the two driver and output tubes? None of this other "integrated" amplification is explained BUT you ARE listening to both. And if you are a tubeophile (NO disrespect implied) and bought it because it glows - is it even possible to separate out / listen to JUST the ECC81/300B's? And, "what in the digital world" is going inside to the audio signal - how about a much better explanation of it's digital input capabilities/limitations?
Some review wording makes no sense; "in essence this microprocessor-controlled stepped attenuator.......emulates a DAC". Huh! And when talking bout the back panel, its "third section contains Ethernet and USB inputs (both for firmware updates only)". REALLY...what and for what reason is there "Firmware" that I might have to update??? The review mentions some glass display panel for the selected input, volume level and twin VU meters. The would have been a benefit to actually SEE this display in action.
Mr Micallef spends the first two pages of the review creating an aura of the fabled Western Electric Company's progress through time, pioneering audio techniques and products that defined audio's early progress and includes some of its pinnacle products - the early cinema amplifiers like the 91A and CERTAINLY the 300B output tube. The aura then-off ramps to the development and implementation of this new 91E derivative. But what the new WE has done to the product seems to burst the aura, with this "review" letting more air out of it.
Makes me wonder what aura HR might have created and spun?
Charles
Follow Ups:
It's an absolute travesty that this has the fabled Western Electric name. It has no more relation to true Western Electric electronics than any other modern brand. All it does is mislead consumers into thinking they are buying something that it isn't.
Unfortunately I haven't read the review despite my being a subscriber for many decades. I moved recently and had no trouble notifying other magazines of the address change, but not Stereophile. You can't change your address through their website and the telephone number for customer service is well hidden. I finally got through but not in time for the November issue.
I never kept the print mags for more than a few months before recycling them. So when my subscription was up for renewal this time, I went for the digital-only option. It's cheaper than print and quite easy to read on a monitor (on a smartphone or tablet, forget it).
Might as well knock the new "classic" style speakers by KLH, Wharfedale, Misson, Monitor, Falcon, Harbeth, Spendor, PSB, JBL, Klipsch, etc. Or the new Garrard and Thorens turntables. Because they hearken back to well-loved models of 50+ years ago but are made with MODERN parts, materials, and engineering. And just maybe sound a bit better because of it? And just might prove a bit more long-term reliable than their predecessors? If this is a travesty, I'm all for it!
You can't change your address through their website and the telephone number for customer service is well hidden. I finally got through but not in time for the November issue.
The customer service phone number is on the masthead in every issue. Note, however, that it changed recently; the old number won't work. The new number is 800.666.3746.
Also prominent on the masthead--and unchanged for years--is my email address. If you'll drop me your address, I'll make sure you receive a copy of the November issue.
Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile
Thanks for the comments Salectric,
I think the word travesty is a bit harsh. Call up JA2, get a copy of the mag (he'd probably be happy to send you one) and read the review. The new WE folks did a really nice job with the presentation/casework -yeah, and it DOES have the logo AND THOSE TUBEESSS!
Putting myself in their boots, what would I do? Firstly - as they have done - I'd get the 300B's back into production, along with maybe some other vintage tubes using their new / best-ever technology. They did that.
Then, how about a product or two USING the tubes - and bearing the vaunted WE logo of course. Problem is, it's a CENTURY later. What "improvements" have occurred and how/should we incorporate them - if any??
SO, they "flips the dice and takes their chances". I'd do so with FULL disclosure of what I'm doing and why. And introducing "late 20th century alien (digital) technology" does allow for a response of TRAVESTY.
To mute that response and per a question I've asked, I'd surely make it easy to BYPASS whatever alien technology must be added to satiate (much) younger folks (I'm 76), and be able to get the audio signal from my antiquated analog gear right into the grids of those glorious 300Bs!!!
Charles
Just a brief comments on the passages you chose to quote.
"in essence this microprocessor-controlled stepped attenuator.......emulates a DAC".Your ellipsification here is misleading. Here's the quote in its entirety--and please note that these are Charles Whitener's words:
"Stepped attenuators have a lot less noise and superior channel-to-channel tracking ability compared to motorized potentiometers. In essence, this microprocessor-controlled stepped attenuator uses relays to engage each discrete resistor in circuit and is accomplished with software that emulates a DAC."As to the second point, obviously there are some solid-state electronics inside the chassis--for switching and control at least. There's even a DAC, for Bluetooth. Is there solid state amplification involved, as suggested in this post? That's not a determination I can make, but I have no reason to think so.
Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile
Edits: 10/08/22
Thanks for your input Jim,
Regarding amplification, from what I'm aware of - for a power amplifier, assuming that what I will call a "High level input" into it is around 1-2VRMS, then to power the speakers requires a gain of 20-30dB. The second paragraph of JA's measurements mentions a gain of 29.6dB. There may be some "apples to oranges" comparisons here but I believe we're in the ballpark.
The review's specifications section mentions that the amplifier has two tubes ECC81/300B. Again I assume this is per channel. A gain of 30dB for these together is not unreasonable.
HOWEVER - again from my experience with phono preamplifiers, to output a same "high level" 1-2VRMS requires in the neighborhood of 40dB gain for MM cartridges (with millivolt outputs) and maybe 60dB for MC cartridges (many? microvolts output). JA's measurements of what I guess was the total preamplifier/amplifier gain was 71.5dB (MM) and 82.1dB (MC). SO SOMEWHERE/SOMEHOW to amplify a phono cartridge, the 91E was picking up an additional 40 to 50dB of gain - and it's NOT from the listed TUBES - unless there are some lurking deep inside.
SO I reassert that at least in the phono section there is a LOT of amplification going on and that it must be solid state - whether discrete or IC-based is yet to be ascertained. And assuming this is the case, could there be other amplifying devices in the "chain" before, say, a signal enters a high level input and is then connected to the ECC81. And per an original question, can this "chain" be bypassed?
Thank You
is solid state.
Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile
~!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
Decades back, AR/Teledyne marketed a device called the SRC (System Remote Control) which one could insert into an analog stereo system to provide remote control for input selection, volume and balance. I owned one and it was reviewed in Stereophile
This device used the R2R-Ladder resistor array of an early DAC as a stepped attenuator for volume and balance. The designers found this to be the best way, at the time, to implement such an attenuator with precision and economy.
Everything old is new again.
~!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
A blast from the past.
Posted by John Atkinson (R) on October 4, 2014 at 10:52:34
In Reply to: RE: Ladder DACs for volume controls. posted by rick_m on October 2, 2014 at 07:24:42:
> Some are, or at least were, just R-2R networks and transmission gates so
> you could use them for four quadrant multipliers (one axis being digital,
> the other the "reference voltage" port) with a little biasing.
I always thought this was an elegant piece of lateral thinking: rather than
connect the DAC's voltage-reference pin to a steady DC voltage, you feed it
the audio signal The value of the DAC's internal resistor ladder is then
set by applying an 8-bit word to the data port.
I first knowingly saw it used in the Mark Levinson No.38 preamp from the
early 1990s, so I am astonished to learn that the Acoustic Research SRC,
which I used 30 years ago, also featured it. I believe that this kind of
control gives an improvement in S/N ratio as the volume setting decreases.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
Everything you wanted to know about resister volume controls.
More than everything, IMNSHO
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