western electric Archives - Page 2 of 2

August 7, 2022

SUT: The Moving Coil Step Up Transformer

Black magic. Voodoo. These are the usual replies when asked what’s inside one of the small silver boxes kept near my turntable. The answer doesn’t stray too far from the truth, because the passive step-up transformer, or SUT, offers such a marked increase in the level of performance from an moving-coil cartridge as to be considered supernatural.

September 9, 2022

The Horn Project: A Design Interview with Fern & Roby

There’s something nostalgic and mysterious about horn loudspeakers. Despite, historically, their industrial build quality, brutalist design aesthetic and domestically imposing dimensions, they nonetheless evoke a sense of wonder and awe with their sonic capabilities.

March 30, 2024

Analog Adventures in the time of The Absolute Sound

One autumn day, it was the ’60s, I was in primary school and with my parents we went to the store of the big company where my father worked. My parents purchased a mono system from Lesa with built-in turntable 33 RPM, 45 RPM, 78 RPM and flap needle. it would be my first turntable for years. One day my mother said something that got into my blood – “…Remember Stefano, better one steak less and one more record."