Westrex speakers

[andywin]

Hi Dave

Thank you for your recollections from your time at Westrex and for filling in some gaps in my knowledge.

The drivers are stamped 2390E so I would assume the 2090C's were used to develop the transducer




Below is a pic of one of the drivers with the diphragm removed, clearly showing the absence of a phase plug and added foam for damping.

[dave fenner]

Hi Dave,

It's wonderful to hear about this stuff from someone who was actually there .

Were these drivers & horns ( 2080 & 2090, etc. ) made on the premises ( at the "Works" as you put it ) ?

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to fill in some of the details.

Difficult question. Westrex certainly had quite large manufacturing capacity but mostly for electronics. There was a trend to buy from outside specialists but they modified parts that they could do better, always something modified. Perhaps they were buying from Altec, you guys could tell me in which ways their units were differant. They were quite secretive about suppliers, even with us employees. They also had license agreements. For instance US Cenury projectors were made in London under licence sold as the Westar but the most vital precision part (the 'crossbox') was changed to their own better design. Possibly a similar thing was done with the speakers? There were some very good speaker manufacturers in UK at that time (and now, e.g. ATC).

The competitive Kalee HF drivers type 379 were US made, they have physically interchangeable diaphram but housing and magnet were differant, they had noticably inferior performance to the Westrex.

This posted in good faith but may not be strictly accurate; it was a long time ago!

[andywin]

I was a field engineer at Westrex, my patch was NW London. I left to set up my own company and Westrex were my main Distributor, so I was often in and out of the Works at Coles Green Road. The following paragraph is not for the squeemish.

Most UK cinemas using Westrex sound and projection equipment were on a lease plus service contract, the gear was owned by Westrex. During late 60's cinemas were fast being converted to multiples, bingo halls or bowling etc, so masses of equipment was being removed. Having no storage space they put large skips behind the works. These were daily filled with 2040 40 watt tube amps (best ever), 2080 bass drivers and 2090 drivers and horns, and sold as scrap. Bass bins were broken up on site. Crying is allowed.

One day when visiting I saw lying by the skip a 2090C driver complete with Book Radiator. I grabbed it and remarked to the warehouse manager (Mr Bill Diamond) 'pity there is not a pair'. 'Wait',we are having a clear-out' he said and went inside and returned with another, which was obviously a prototype, having a rough looking makeshift bracket for mounting but otherwise identical.

I beleive these speakers as shown here were intended to superceed the original Acoustilens model, I cannot be certain but few if any were sold, in which case they are extremely rare. The only ones I knew of were owned by a very few of my fellow engineers. The guys that had them were the cream of the West End sound men, like Gorden Isaacs and Billy Bell. I heard them on a system consisting of a pair of 2040's, a Decca FFSS cartridge and tone arm. I never heard before or since such gorgeous quality from vinyl. But I must say the best systems I ever heard were the circa 1954 4 track mag Cinemascope movies with 3 Westrex bins with cellular horns. Its all gone backwards since. It is no surprise to me that efficient speakers sound far better, its the tight control by the huge magnets and small accurate gap, and stiff ouput of the transfomer coupling, damps overshoot and flapping around.

Back to the Book Radiator; I do still own the original prototype. At one time I pondered copying the perforated sheild and the Book 'pages' and offering them as conversion kit for 2090A. Too old to bother now. I am not familiar with the type number 2390, my memory is fading but as I recall the original horn driver was 2090A (24 ohms) and 2090C (15 ohms and no phase plug) but I could be wrong.

Hi Dave

Do you have any recollections as to the function of the perforated shield with its polythene domes? Was it to modulate the HF response, dampen any resonant buzz from the diapfagms, or was it for some other purpose?

[Steve Schell]

Fantastic thread, due in large part to the contributions of Dave Fenner! I have heard my share of horrible disposal stories on this side of the pond, often involving that awful (gasp!) Lansing prewar field coil gear. Inevitably it is out with the old, in with the new, despite how badly the new sucks.

The Westrex and Western Electric London drivers have always appeared to be upscale versions of the Academy-approved Altec Lansing designs of the 1940s-1950s. The consumer Acoustilens 20/80 systems were the pro drivers shoehorned into home cabinets, just as the Altec home systems were during the same period. I've always wondered whether the British systems were built under license from Altec Lansing, or whether the technology was simply borrowed. In any event the gear was very good, mostly blowing away pretentious modern stuff.

The Shindo system borrows heavily from the Westrex 20/80 Acoustilens system, though the drivers have been converted to field coil operation. In my experience this is a worthwhile thing.

Andywin I have seen pictures of at least one other example of your system with the inverted compression driver, so these were evidently production items.

[andywin]

Fantastic thread, due in large part to the contributions of Dave Fenner!

I'll bow out now then.

[dave fenner]

Hi Dave

Do you have any recollections as to the function of the perforated shield with its polythene domes? Was it to modulate the HF response, dampen any resonant buzz from the diapfagms, or was it for some other purpose?

First in reply to others about origin, I should have said, it is fact that all the 2080 and 2090 drivers had transfer label 'Made in England'. I dont know where or by whom, maybe Vitavox or BTH or even Goodmans?

As you may know, if you put LF power to an unmounted bass driver, no loading to control it, it will likely bust the spider and surround. An HF pressure driver with no horn will do the same, fly to bits. Thats why they are tightly bolted up with a gasket. Failure of these drivers is often result of blown seal. If HF diaphragm was left bare with no horn load it would only be able to work at low level without damage. The name Book Radiator is the clue; you cannot slam shut a book however hard you push, you are working to push out the air. Thats what the leaves are for, to load the thing so it has some work to do. The perfotated shield holds the leaves in place and restricts overshoot.

This may be likely reason crossover frequency of these units was raised to 1000hz (Acoustilens was 675 i think, cinema horns were 500).

[HCSGuy]

I'll bow out now then.

NO! - It's your job to find more cool stuff Thanks so much for sharing pics of your find; It's so much fun to see what creative minds have done...

[Steve Schell]

Aw jeez andywin, please don't be that way! I intended no slight whatsoever toward you, and do appreciate your sizable contributions, including your pictures, descriptions and the origin of the thread. I suppose I could have stated things in a better way. You need to understand that when the Lansing Heritage site founders encounter an original source such as a Westrex field engineer we get a bit weak in the knees. We started off a dozen years ago studying the enigmatic Jim Lansing, who died in 1949. Finding original sources to document such a person is not easy, though I have spoken with more than fifteen people who knew him. More often we speak with people who have heard such and such from so and so and often the stories disagree.

Mr Fenner, I eye such a thing as a compression driver turned around and used as a direct radiator with suspicion, for the reasons you have outlined. It appears that the engineers' goals were to achieve a relatively uncolored sound at living room levels, and I suppose they succeeded in this. This was the era of congested-sounding midrange horns; thankfully we have made some progress since then. One well known studio engineer here in L.A. is well known for having used Altec 1" drivers turned around as tweeters in his monitor systems over the years.

[dave fenner]

Aw jeez andywin, please don't be that way! I intended no slight whatsoever toward you, and do appreciate your sizable contributions, including your pictures, descriptions and the origin of the thread. I suppose I could have stated things in a better way. You need to understand that when the Lansing Heritage site founders encounter an original source such as a Westrex field engineer we get a bit weak in the knees. We started off a dozen years ago studying the enigmatic Jim Lansing, who died in 1949. Finding original sources to document such a person is not easy, though I have spoken with more than fifteen people who knew him. More often we speak with people who have heard such and such from so and so and often the stories disagree.

Mr Fenner, I eye such a thing as a compression driver turned around and used as a direct radiator with suspicion, for the reasons you have outlined. It appears that the engineers' goals were to achieve a relatively uncolored sound at living room levels, and I suppose they succeeded in this. This was the era of congested-sounding midrange horns; thankfully we have made some progress since then. One well known studio engineer here in L.A. is well known for having used Altec 1" drivers turned around as tweeters in his monitor systems over the years.

I second you about andywins contribution, his pictures are unique and rare.

Re your remarks, the point is that this is not a bare diaphragm. Be that as it may, fact is Westrex's unit rating was 30 watts continuous and it is clean all the way. I suspect it would bust without the 'book' but wouldn't want to risk trying it (around £50 for new one, still available from Lansing!). I can assure you acoustic output is plenty high enough in a small hall (but probably wouldn't survive for todays pub gig levels).

[Mr. Widget]

Just purchased a pair of vintage Westrex speakers this past weekend and couldn't stop playing the all day yesterday.

I am astounded at how good they are. They are definitely a lot better than my old 4333's and are certainly the equal of my Array 1400's and in some areas are better.

What is unusual about the in that the mid/hi horn driver has been reversed.

So, now that you've lived with these amazingly pristine and undoubtedly amazing speakers have they become your primary system's speakers?

I do wish you were a bit closer... I'd love to hear them!!!


Widget

[andywin]

So, now that you've lived with these amazingly pristine and undoubtedly amazing speakers have they become your primary system's speakers?

I do wish you were a bit closer... I'd love to hear them!!!


Widget

Over the last couple of months yes they have, but I have set up my system so that I can switch between the Array 1400,s and the 2326A's with ease. I also have been using one of my BTH K10A's ( in it's original cabinet ) for mono replay and have now decided to have either a matching cabinet made or a pair of cabinets that follow the design principles of the Westrex cabinets, only a little larger as they need at least 7 cubic feet for optimum peformance.

My secondary system has a choice between Isophon G3037 and Philips 9710M full rangers.

As for distance, If your'e ever in London, I'm only 20 minutes away by high speed train.

Andy

[pde2000]

ive just discovered westrex were in business with celestion and vox. the 30928 12" is identical to the early celestion g12, famous for guitar amps. some of celestions g12's were made by westrex and some of the vox amps also (voxac100.org.uk). of course i cant tell which came first the cinema speaker or the guitar speaker, but my grandad rated the 30928 so highly that its all he listened to at home and he had no shortage of other equipment to compare it with. then again he was a heavy drinker. lived into his 90's tho. sorry i wasnt actually there with him on his job, my dad took little interest and became a vicar.

[Fort Knox]

If theirs Un'ckd Liveliness.... and one note bass...
Why not hookup a Bose 901 Active EQ....
You could call it the DD68000...

[pde2000]

If theirs Un'ckd Liveliness.... and one note bass...
Why not hookup a Bose 901 Active EQ....
You could call it the DD68000...

what?

[hjames]

If theirs Un'ckd Liveliness.... and one note bass...
Why not hookup a Bose 901 Active EQ....
You could call it the DD68000...

Daytime drinkin' ??