Being a Russian by birth and inheriting all typical for Russian masochism I sometime visit the High Efficiency Speakers Asylum, laughing me sick tail off. Between the fresks in there patting each other and the mercantile cretins who pose themselves as a mix between Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein, sometimes some people come in there with real interest and they exposed to the best of AA can offer. It is funny but I well familiar with each manufactures, dealer or distributor that hangs out there and all of them admitted that the High Efficiency Speakers is infested with complete cretins. Still they are hanging out in there picking the little fish in the dirty water….

Today someone “Jimmy DIY” posted a question at AA:

Jimmy DIY wrote:

Why WE594A & 555 can be used under 300Hz but not Atec 288? They are apply the aluminum as the diaphragm but what made the difference? The diaphragm of WE555 even smaller than 288 so size seem not the reason.

I decided to reply and went for the further exploration of the WE-like myth. As it was expected the reply was deleted with 10 minutes. That is fine. I know very well the idiot who moderates the High Efficiency Speakers Asylum. I am not pissed that he vandalized some kind of post – I know his mind. Many years ago I proposed that this dirt’s children should be castrated as his genetic line should not have further opportunity on the Earth (courtesy to Marquez). If not, then they will grow up and following their heritage to deny whatever above thier comprehension will sit in the White House and do not vandalize the crappy posts on the internet forums but to vandalize the health of nations.. How wonderful would be if the Gorge W Bush's mother made an abortion when she cared hir peace of ….embryo?

Anyhow, since the subject I find is illustrative for horns, then here is my deleted reply (slightly extended):
 
It is a little unkosher question.  What do you men “can be used under 300Hz”? Everything might be used under 300Hz and there are plenty Morons out there who use 288 all the way down. The question is what kind Sound a driver produce and what Sound from THE ENTIRE SYSTEM a person get while the sub-300Hz 288 or WE is being used?

 300Hz require at least 150Hz Horn, a long horn considering the size of the throat. How many properly made 150Hz Horns have you seen? This is very important question as the sub 300Hz (150Hz mouth) is VERY default region to reproduce and it demands very “properly” made horn. No one make them, at least I did not see them among the AA-level crowd.  I assure you that it will be less then 150Hz horns than the mint WE594A drivers in people hands.

People out there stick the 300Hz drivers in smaller (for the given crossover point) horns, stick into the very badly and cheaply made horns, drive the channels with horrendous amplification, use those channels over overly too wide range (have you seen those barbaric installations with a single horn from 300Hz and the “all the way up”?), do not unload bass form the horns or have no idea how to ingrate the horns properly. However, the very same very ignorant people come to the public blogs and create fetish about beauty of those vintage Tesla, WE, RCA, Vitavox, Klangfilm, Telefunken, Goodmans, Jensen, Altec, JBL and so on.

In reality the noise that those people crate is a very groundless swelling. Those people do not demonstrate better Sound  (I heard many-many of those systems) and their “kinky” drivers are very useless in context of their installations. I mean the systems are based upon those “vintage” drivers but the system do not perfume well or even interesting. It is not particularly because their “unique” drivers are bad but because instead of using ears, brain and hands those people use eBay hype and they feel that if they place in some kind of a abstract random horn their “once a month on eBay driver” then the sound would be instantaneously commendable. Nothing could be further from truth and, Jimmy, do not subscribe to the foolishness that those Morons spread. Many vintage drivers have some interesting aspects but they were made to the very different level of demands. The good in those drivers is not that they were better but the fact that the engineers and technologists who made older drivers did not manage to learn the bogus knowledge that enslaved today’s generation of the speaker thinkers. So, the art of using some vintage solutions is not to bogus worshiping of rusty junk but embracing and utilizing what is good and navigation that “good” to where it should be. It practically never possible by using the vintage driver “as is” and as a result the people who suggest you to pay $5.000-70.000 for a vintage driver or speaker and promise you “nirvana” are juts ether fools or the audio gold diggers. There were some interesting half-ass solutions in the past but to make them work it requires a LOT of experience, the experience that cost much more then the price then you overpay for a pair of worthless vintage drivers.

So, could 288 be used under 300Hz? Let say 200Hz?  Remember a driver should be able to reproduce an octave below crossover point. Take a generator, put 100Hz to this driver and listen that sound. Should it could… if you will make it to sound well. Can the WE be used under 300Hz? Should it could! Did you hear that sound? Dose it sound like an asthma patient?

Could WE or 288 be used under 300Hz? Instead of spread theories about it you better to stop by in the listening room of the person who claim that it does? Most likely you will not have any further questions, however if the installation would sound appropriately (highly-highly unlikely) then it would not be because of the driver but because the owner of the systems made it to sound this way.  However, mostly the known to me vintage freaks do not spend any efforts. All that they know is not to crate and support the hype and paranoia. There is a vintage Altec forum somewhere run by an indomitable cretin Todd W. White. How do I know? I dealt with him. The Todd and the freaks surrounding his preoccupied with religion worshiping of Altec products. Try to show up in front of those people and very justifiably to point out any of any very objective limitation of anything that Altec does and those people go absolutely crazy. They will send letters to FBI informing then that you are a terrorist and you should be immediately put in Abu Grab Prison (am not very far in my ridiculing).

The point if that little writing to illustrate that the glorification of the reported qualities of the WE594A & 555 and many others things in audio derive from people’s ignorance, stupid faith-based initiatives and personal Moronity of the people who have needs to support those initiatives. Ironically those people also driver by fear, fear to be exposed publicly. Each time what you going to AA and ask questions in there do not forget that your post was approved by the very same dirt who contacted my business associates proposing them to fire me because I “sponsor Osama Bin Laden”. Finny that they did it because I refused to endorse some commercial hype that they spread at that time at AA….

In the end, I think if the Bush-mama did that abortion, then the world would be much better place to live….