Tag: tuning horns

Western Electric 13a feet that count…..

~ 13Audio ~ 1 Comment

The we13a needs good feet to support the mouth. These are like originals supporting the horn at the exterior sides of the mouth. It’s strange that when you support the 13a in the middle of the mouth it affects the sound. Actually when you listen to a pair in stereo one being correctly supported and the other not you immediately hear the difference. It’s like putting a central tension point. The mouth is 62 inch (157,5cm) side and the wood is about 1″ thick and it’s supporting a great deal of the horns weight. So that kind of all puts a lot of pressure on the centre of the mouth. When supported at the exterior there is no flex at all. 13audio make the appropriate legs to support the mighty 13a.

All fun….

Preparation works

~ 13Audio ~ 1 Comment

Here the 1st steps to install a full size western electric 12a and 13a system. Yes that’s 2 x we12a and 2 x we13a for one lucky listener….more as we build this. Next weekend the whole thing should be singing. This is the very 1st home installed 12a and 13a system in Europe, well there is only one other one in the world that I know of…..Silbatone graced us with the 12 and 13’s at Munich some years back.

Here all will be tuned to stay and for playing long long sessions.

I say? All fun….! Yes that’s true!

Brackets with angles reference 13810

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Here we have the western electric reference 13810 bracket proudly produced and used for 13Audio horns. It is an exact replica of the original part made so many years ago. Yes it’s solid cast iron and ensures a solid and secure fixing of the throat to the wood sections of the horn.

This bracket was used for both the 12a and 13Audio horns. It is used and seen and mentioned Here.

Notice in image below that it has a very slight angle. This angle corresponds exactly to the expansion angle of the horn at the very 1st wooden section of the we13a.

The expansion rate of the 12a is not the same yet they used the same bracket? So it does not fit exactly….how’s that! The 12a has indentations at the connecting point where these brackets are used. The indentation (see image of 12a below) is not parallel to horn build but slight off. This allows the use of the 13810 bracket on the 12a like 13a. The flanges of the throats take this into account…detail detail….The truth is in the details….

Images are seen here of bracket aside a calibrated 90 degree angle square, bracket is fresh from foundry and machine house.

The last time these were produced was back in 1925/26…..

Also can be noticed is the woodwork on a 13Audio and the side sections that are juts over 1″ thick, this is yet another important detail….! More later about that.

All fun.

Big "Very Big" Horns in the Home enviroment

~ 13Audio ~ 1 Comment

There seems to be a lot of buzz and talk about the large Western Electric Horns, some saying they should not be used in anything less than a theater, others stating that the glue used in the originals give a better sound…the talk goes on and on…but many of those making the comments have no such system they live with; they have at best random experinences on which they feel that universal comments can be made…well I had to get my own hands on experience of the 16a versus the 15a debate. I have had a good share of listening WE horns in various installations around the world. Some very good others not that good. What I have learnt enables a decent appreciation of what thay can and cannot do. But it takes a long while to get things setup just like any high caliber system. So I am am now on a 15a setup period to see what can be made of them, and in the end the values of the 15a versus the 16a…I have at hand two amps, Single end and Push Pull (300b WE tubes), two preamps, passive preamp, and all the caps and coils it takes for the xover (even if my favour goes to series…) and needless to say adequate power supply for the feild coils and upstream sources that suite the challenge. This setup is 15a with original 555 drivers, 597a tweeters from GIP,  WE4181a 18″ field coil woofers, Tunger power supply, full range, 6db on top and bottom, WE300b single end (WE171a tx’s), EMT 139a phono and EMT927 turntable.