Altec 755a & WE 274b tubes

For those of you who have read my blog, you will know how much I love the sound from the fullrange speakers, especially the 755a. This weekend, one of my friend Kkitkko has decided to upgrade his pair of Altec 755a in original cabinets with a nice pair of Western Electric 755a.

I have brought my pair of WE755a back home to Singapore. My previous spare pair of Altec 755a is with KY in Malaysia. Along the way, I have used the WE 10 inch speakers as a substitute plus a range of other fullrange speakers.

I have no intention of building a collection of speakers. Nevertheless, when coming across classic such as the Rogers Gold Badge LS3/5a and 755a, I just couldn't resist the opportunity. Following my "One in One out" policy, I have sold my other Rogers 15 ohms white belly LS3/5a in order to make space for the Gold Badge LS3/5a.

I have avoided collecting amplifiers bacause of the issue of maintainence. Speakers, on the other hand, are much easier to keep as all one needs to do is to run in speakers..

The Altec 755a sound very closed to my WE 755a with strong Mid, vocal and violin. In addition, it matches very well with my WE120a + 124b. I shall be packing my LS3/5a Gold Badge back to Singapore during my next trip as I personally feel that it matches better with the Leak TL12.1.

Currently, I am letting go my pair of Western Electric 10 inch fullrange speakers. Let me know if you are keen. In addition, since I have 2 pair of WE274b and one spare pair of Sylvania 274B, I am thinking of letting go either one pair of WE274b or Sylvania 274b. These are very rare NOS tubes as their prices are not cheap when comparing with ebay.

However, many of my audiophiles friends who has bought from ebay (single unit of WE274b at US$800 = HK6240 X 2 =$12,480) ended up buying very old and weak WE274 tubes. For me, this is pennies wise pound foolish as the brand old tubes are able to last 50,000 hours.

If one is listening to music at 3 hours at day, one WE274b tube could last for 16,666 days (45 years!). Once you have used the WE274b, you will not use any 5U4G...