A Reprint from January 1997, Vol.20 No.12America's oldest and largest subjective-review audio magazine. Subscription rates: $35 US (US and Canada) and $120 US (foreign).

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S A M ' S S P A C E

stocking staffersYou can't stuff a pair of the "new"Western Electric 300B tubes into a sock,but their beautiful cherry-wood presentation box will look splendid under thet r e e .

"They must give you the box becausemaybe they feel bad about having tocharge so much," said my friend FrankHuang, of Audio Outlet. This is whatthey do with expensive moving-coil cartridges, too.

The Western Electric 300B tube willset you back a cool $800 per matchedpair. Or you can buy individual, unmatched WE 300Bs for $350 each anddo without the wood box.

Generally speaking, amps that use the300B tube are marvelous musical instra-ments that transcend hi-fi. They sound soimmediate and alive that certain editors,accustomed to churning out reviews of"proper hi-fi products," have said they"hate it" when they hear sound like this— so immediate, so alive [and so damnedmusical—Ed\.

Shit! How do you recommend a 9Wamp when most speakers you recommend guzzle SOW or more? What doyou say about the mediocre measurements—the gobs and gobs of second-order harmonic distortion?! You dismisssuch amps as expensive tone controls,and go on to review the next solid-statemuscle amp —you know, the brands thatare "improved" every year and yet curiously never manage to sound as good asa 40-year-old Quad II.

The Quad lis will go away. Sadly. Too

1 The amps put out the second-order distortion, not thecubes. Use the 300B in a push-pull design, and you'llcancel much of that second-order harmonic distortion.But is the distortion what you like?2 Memo to Stan: "Stan! Quad promised to make 600pairs of the gold-plated limited edition amps. That doesn't prevent you from producing a 'regular' edition. You'vegot the new tooling. Golden Dragon is producing aKT66 replica. Do it. Keep the Quad II going!"

Sam Tellig

For the moment, the

Western Elect r ic 300B

clearly beatsmost of the other

300B tubes I have

on hand, hands down.

bad single-ended triode won't just, ah, goaway too .2

Heh-heh. I love to see journaHsts, editors, and pubhshers in a pickle. Not tomention speaker manufacturers. ("What ifeverything I've designed is wrongT')Amphfier manufacturers, too—a numberof whom have been so taken (shaken?)with the sound of the 300B that they'veordered secret stocks of Western Electrictubes. For "research."

For the moment, the Western Electric300B clearly beats most of the other300B tubes I have on hand, hands down— both in my Gary 805C referencemonoblocks in the hstening room andthe Gary GAD SE300B 9W wonders —the "musical instruments" (tee-hee, JohnAtkinson, Ken Kessler)—in the livingr o o m .

The Western Electric tubes significantly improved the sound of my Gary805C amps, even though the 30013 has adriver mbe. I didn't have to strain to hearthe di fference or even let the 300Bs"break in." The soundstage opened up.The sound became more focused, moreimmediate and ahve. The resolution oflow-level detail improved, too.

Perhaps the Western Electric tubeswill have some serious competition fromAsia or from Eastern Europe. I'm set to

receive some new 300Bs from Ghinanext week—said to be killer tubes. Butthey won't be cheap, either. And theywon't be Western Electrics.

Mikey Fremer will tell you to dropeven more on a new moving-coil cartridge, from which you might get 1000hours of use. I bet you'll get much morethan 1000 hours of pleasure from a set ofWestern Electric 300Bs, and with mostsingle-ended amps you'll only need onepair.

Life is short. This is God's tube. Go fori t . S

©Stereophile—Vol.20 No.12

Western Electric300B tube

Western Electr ic 300BEditor:We are delighted with Sam Tellig's efhisivepraise of the Western Electric 300B electron tube and greatly appreciate Stereopkyscommitment to exposing its readers to areview of produas that reproduce musicthrough thermionic devices.

Mr. Telhg alluded to several issues in hisreview that invariably surface when tubeamplifiers are auditioned: tubes vs transistors, single-ended vs push-pull, right vswrong, and negative feedback (the latter isgreat for servo-motor controllers). Brevitydoes not permit a full treatment of all of theissues, but a few things can be said abouttubes vs transistors.

1997 marks the 60th anniversary of theintroduction of the 300B, and the 125thanniversary of the founding of WesternElectric. The 60-year (68 if you begin withthe 300A) product life cycle of the 300Brepresents one of the longest in moderncommercial history. Why? Decades beforehigh-fidehty products appeared in the consumer market. Western Electric, through itsBell Laboratories division, had been developing high-end audio equipment. Theimpetus for this activity was the result ofwork accomplished during the 1920s thatultimately produced one of the most significant changes in the film industry: talkies!Western Electric invented the synchronizedsoundtrack in 1928 for the release of theWarner Brothers film The Jazz Singer.Revealing its commitment to quality reproduction of high-fidelity music and sound.Western won, with few exceptions, theAcademy Award for sound technologyevery year from 1928 through 1958. In1958, the anti-tmst division of the US Justice Department forced Western to divestitself of the professional film and soundbusinesses (a subject for a later date). The300B, as well as other electron tubes, wasretained for use in telephony applications.

In 1929, the electron tube developed foruse in Western's amplifiers for theatersound was the 300A. Subsequently, the300B was issued in 1937 with only minorimprovements. No expense was spared during this hey day of cinema, because of theunl imi ted funds ava i lab le to WesternElectric and its Bell Laboratories Divisionduring the era of the AT&T monopoly. The300B, a sahent part of this new technologyby necessity, because of its function as theamplifier, was required to perform withmusical fidelity, signal integrity, and longlife. Bell Laboratories learned early in theirresearch efforts the importance of therequirements of faithful reproduction ofmusical harmonic integrity. During thisgolden era Western also developed thecomplete audio system chain: microphones,mixers, recorders, push-pull amplifiertopologies, loudspeakers, and equaHzers.

Strangely enough, but at no surprise tothose of us who appreciate music reproduced through electron tube, the transistor, even though developed by BellLaboratories in 1947, was never advocatedfor music reproduction in Western Electrictheater ampHfiers.

We have come to this really arrogantconclusion: When tubes are removed fromthe chassis, the amplifier becomes nothingmore than an expensive power supply.Amplification is performed by the tubes.Although circuit topology is important, thequality of the tube is infinitely more important. I am always surprised when I hearabout the purchase of a $10,000 amplifierwith a pair of $70 tubes: a true misallocationof financial resources.

Yes, Western Electric made measurements on its cinema amplifiers. These weremade with stringent standards and limits,but they were electrical measurements, notmusical ones. Empirical measurements withelectronic instrumentation will identify certain limited specific electrical characteristicsabout audio amplifiers, but cannot conveythe complex nature of how that amplifier,or, for that matter, any audio component,may reproduce a musical signal with complex harmonics. A bottle of 1966 Mon-trachet is a wonderful experience for thepalate and the soul, but the finest spectroscopy instrumentation, electron microscope, and pH analysis will not lead one tothis revelation. In fact, THD measurements, in the case of negative-feedback stabilized amplifiers, may be an indication ofthe magnitude of ambience lost rather thandiminished distortion. For years audio engineers at Bell Laboratories have beHeved thatelectron tubes best reproduce music. The earagrees. Someone recently asked me thequestion: "Have you ever heard a bad-sounding tube amp?" Nope.

After having just returned from AES inNew York, I was nonplussed at the increasein the number of manufacturers offering[tube-based] equipment to the professionalaudio industry. As the current state of theart in digital audio leaves much to bedesired with respect to faithful reproductionof musical harmonics, apparently the professional audio community is embracingthe use of electron tubes in an effort toremove the harsh glare from digital audiosignals.

Happy to agree with Sam, we are obviously under some bias. When recommending the Western Electric 300B overthe competition, we believe there are objective reasons as well.

Authenticity seems to be a driving forcebehind the acceptance of the WE 300B, butthere is more to the story than mere cachet.Without exception, there has never been anelectron-tube manufacturer with as strong acommitment to quality as Western Electric.

The tubes are produced in clean-room conditions, utilizing an unsurpassed level ofpurity, quality of materials, and workmanship, both now and historically. The extensive processing required for each part of thetube is absent from the manufacture of

competitive 300Bs. The filament-core composition and coating chemistry, both stillhighly guarded trade secrets by WesternElectric, are critical to the long life enjoyedby the WE300B alone. With proper care,the 300B vdll give not only 1000, but40,000 hours of life! This life technologywas developed many years ago by BellLaboratories because of the challenge ofunderwater transatlantic cable needs, whichobviously require long life. The WE300B ismore expensive than the competition, butcurrent wisdom has revealed that it soundssignificantly better and lasts from 10 to 20times longer than anything else available.The WE300B also enjoys the longest warranty available in the business. There areWE300Bs still in use today that were manufactured in 1939. The WE300B is "oftenimitated but never dupHcated."

The newly released tube is deHveredwith a test certificate. All test results on eachprintout are unique to the tube delivered.Test results are accurate and repeatable to0.5%. The test set was designed by twoWestern Electric test-set engineers having acombined WE engineering experience ofover 40 years. Both the quality of the tubesbeing tested and the routine caHbration ofthe test tube set are subject to BellLaborator ies ' audi ts.

Finally, we would like to point out thatthese tubes are 100% made in the USA^both with respect to assembly and sourcematerials. The tubes are constructed at theWestern Electric Kinsas City Works inLee's Summit, Missouri, by a staff including15 veteran WE electron-tube line manufac-

mring people. Most of these employeeshave been involved with electron-tubemanufacturing at WE since 1962.Fortunately, all the original tooling criticalto the WE300B manufacture had been preserved. This has allowed us to re-create thegenuine article.

Charles G. Whitener, Jr.President, Western Electric Audio Products

sales@westemelectric.com/www.westemelectriccom