The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

It appears that a Russian audiophile is enamored of the (really excellent) horn used in the VV 8-35, 8-36, 8-10, 8-9, 8-8, and that little Canadian machine. He is now producing excellent copies and offering them for $2,999.00/pair.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Electri ... 1448515594

Why are these so expensive? Am I missing something here?

Victrolaboy wrote:Why are these so expensive? Am I missing something here?

He's tapping into the market for early Western Electric audio equipment. Those folks pay mega bucks for speaker horns and early WE drivers. Notice he comments on other "WE" procucts.

The price would have to be down around $200 to a viable product line for Victrola/HMV restorations. I have a 163 cabinet that could use a horn.

A friend of mine calls them audio-fools, but they are pretty serious about that stuff. I had a Credenza about 10 years ago that I found out behind someone's house up in Minneapolis. It had a brass reproducer, but the cabinet was shot. The doors were gone and the horn was full of grass from the lawn mower. She gave me the machine and I cut the horn out of it and it sold for almost $500 to one of these guys. He called me and we talked for awhile and it was pretty interesting. I talked to him one other time years later. He couldn't believe that I was leaving the Western Electric amp in my Brunswick Panatrope and I could tell it just really bothered him that I wasn't interested in parting it out thinking it was a waste of a great amplifier for him to play his music through. He had a pair of horn drivers that came out of a theater that he said he gave around $25,000 for and I said "So you have the best sound that 1927 had to offer?" He kind of ignored the comment, but that's kind of where I'm at on it.

I used to know a kid that said there was one of those auditorium Orthophonic Victrolas out in Portland in his high school. He said it sounded pretty good, but it was sort of like hearing sound coming out of a cave. He saw my Credenza and right away described the thing to me. He played records on that machine in Portland and had no idea why the speaker was so huge! He really didn't understand it was a horn until I showed him pictures of what those horns look like. It makes me wonder if that thing is still out there. But, I'll bet the WE guys would go nuts for a big horn like that one!