SOUNDBOXES XIII: WESTERN ELECTRIC CABLES (1910s-1970s) FOR HIFI ENJOYMENT – UNIVERSAL ANTIDOTE TO HARSH SOUND?

             [revised with new impressions 19 Feb 2022] 

Appreciating HiFi listening and metallurgy – what’s the connection? It is all in the cables. Metallurgy is simply the science of moulding raw metal ores through heat and other scientific methods to produce improvements in their content, transmission capacity, quality and durability. This can be said of all Hi Fi cables. My purpose in this entry is to focus on the recent (roughly from 2015 to 2021) rediscovery of cables branded as ‘Western Electric (WE) vintage’. Many independent HiFi retailers have bought rolls, bales and cannisters of spare, unused (and used) and forgotten stocks of WE cables to make into RCA, Phono interconnects, power cords, jumpers, speaker wires and so on.

Why WE? A quick read of this exceptional commemorative centennial magazine published by WE in the US in 1981 trails many hints: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f0983034219c6086e8100ac/t/5f43c3ed50ded441fb4c2fa0/1598276634701/WE-1981-09-10.pdf. As a pioneering telecommunications company, WE paid meticulous attention to making durable, and as far as possible, weather resistant wires to ensure reliable telephone and other commercial signal transmissions. Most of their wires were made from copper, often alloyed with tin, some with silver. The shielding was made of cotton or vinyl. For decades since the 1880s, WE served as material subcontractor to the famous Bell Telephone Company when the two become twinned as a corporate conglomerate. As the 1981 article posted above showed, a small army of WE workers pulled the wires into usable form by hand. So you can say WE wires are ‘handmade’!

I have tried roughly three types of WE RCA. This is my amateurish hearing test with vintage amplifiers (especially the SANSUI AU-999, AU-7900 and PIONEER ) so it is completely subjective and unscientific. I have matched them to modern CD players like the BEL CANTO CD2 and MUSICAL FIDELITY M6CD or the older but restored DENON DCD1420 20 Bit player from 1987.

1910 WE

First up, the 1910 edition of purportedly silver alloyed, singled stranded copper wire that is roughly 18-22 AWG (quick guide to what this means here: https://www.workerscompensation.com/news_read.php?id=37101) Basically, the higher the AWG measure, the better it is suited for Hi Fi equipment. According to the Japanese retailer of this variant of the WE cables, it was ex-US military stock commissioned from WE. He added this photo to pique buyers’ interest. Of course, unless a historian or scientist investigates further, we may never know whether it was actually used in military signal systems either in peacetime or in combat.

This wire repurposed into RCA interconnects had minimal shielding (see photo of thin cotton shielding), so it added nothing to the very slight hum usually produced by vintage 1970s amplifiers when matched to modern speakers built in the 2000s. It did not intensify the hum either. But this wire cleaned up virtually all haziness to vocals recorded in analogue from the 1950s and 1960s. And where the vocals were recorded in the 1970s, and 1980s, the voices sounded so natural they could have been singing within mere metres/feet from the listener. The quality was natural, airy and extremely ‘unforced’. Sound stage was extremely impressive too, although if you want 100% precision of placement, try the 1960s stock of WE reviewed below. I got my friendly Singapore-based ‘indie’ online HiFi retailer on the CAROUSELL shopping site, Hifi.audiophile, to add more strands of the 1910 cables which he carried too, and the definition of voices, instruments and placement was reinforced to the point that I had few complaints about the soundstage. I can also say that the mid-range on all recordings became much more accurate and textured. And the sound decay was jaw-droppingly on par with cables that cost FIVE times more! But these 1910 cables truly are vocal specialists! Some remasters on CD or digital streaming do exhibit some harsh compression of their vocal ranges but not if you listen through these 1910 WE cables.

I particularly recommend playing the budget series of EMI (UK) ‘Compacts for Pleasure’ or ’Music for Pleasure’ series of budget CDs remastered from vinyl records. These were mass marketed throughout the 1980s and sold in large volumes. One of my favourites is this early remaster of British crooner Matt Monro’s ‘SOFTLY AS I LEAVE YOU’ CD compilation. The music was astounding for its clarity and the revelation of the clean upper registers of Monro’s voicing of difficult passages. Additionally, when he sings torch ballads such as ‘Love is a Many Splendoured Thing’, ‘Yesterday’, and ‘Portrait of my Love’, the quiver in his voice demonstrated a liveliness never heard on other cables. Play Paul Mauriat, Caravelli, Mantovani and Stan Getz on saxophone, you will obtain an equally awesome reproduction from these cables. Soundstaging and positioning of instruments are to drool over! The BEL CANTO player suddenly seemed like it was the complete equal of the very best vinyl turntable out there. Try playing the seemingly under-appreciated early remasters of Ray Conniff's 1950s and early 1960s vinyl recordings from the CBS and COLLECTABLES series of CDs and you will be rewarded with a time travel style listening experience. 

1940s WE – dubbed the ‘World War 2 US Navy Cables’

 

These were dubbed ‘US Navy WW2 cables’ because they were purportedly commissioned by the US Navy. Now how did these compare with the 1910 ones? These WW2 cables still brought out the best in remastered recordings from the 1950s through 1970s. Instrumentals sported a new shine since one could now hear the sound decay of each distinct instrument. The saxophone never sounded more beautiful. Violins were placed in an intimate studio setting. Vocals too compared very well with the 1910 cable cousins. But the downside emerged when I played jazz recordings from the 1990s, the WW2 cables lost out to the 1970s ones below in terms of sharpness of positioning of instruments and voices, but the warmth and detail in the overall sound were retained. I did however ‘cure’ this deficiency by downgrading my speaker cables from CARDAS and CRYSTAL CABLE to US$5.50 run of the mill copper cable from the neighbourhood hardware shop! So my verdict with the WW2 cable is that if you want to use them as RCA and power cords, consider using ‘cheap’ speaker cables – you will be astounded. My favourite test piece was the above-mentioned two Ray Conniff remasters. No longer are they poor remasters. These cables take you back to when they were recorded – regardless of your age! I must also confess that I had previously thought the Ray Conniff sound from the 1950s and 1960s belonged to my parents’ era and that it was uncool for their children to adore them – but these WW2 WE cables have reversed that opinion completely – Ray Conniff is an evergreen big band sound – on par with your Glenn Miller, Charlie Barnett, Ray Anthony, Syd Lawrence and Ted Heath!

1960s-70s – the ‘Modern’

Thirdly, I experimented with another two variants of the WE cables made in Nassau, New York in the 1960s, and in Plymouth, Massachusetts USA, in 1973.  I place the 1960s and 1973 cables side by side because to me, their qualities are remarkably alike, compared to their cousins from the earlier decades. This 1960s multicoloured WE RCA is 16AWG and multi-stranded, while also retaining the original cotton shielding. As shown below, it can also be shielded with the black and white striped pattern. The Singaporean local importer – Hifi.audiophile /MUSE Project – added plastic shields before terminating the RCA interconnects. He also offers these 1960s WE strands and the1973 WE cables as jumpers, phono cables, speaker cables and power cords. 

What effect did the multi-strand cables have? Matched RCA to RCA against the 1910s-40s versions, the vocals were equally magnificent in their revelation of natural timbre in voices. But when it came to instrumentals, there was a noticeable higher definition to violins, piano and saxophone while the soundstage was expanded just a little.

I completed my test setup by adding the 1973 WE version as speaker cables, and added a ‘flat copper sheet’ type power cord – also fashioned from WE stock – for good measure. This was also done for the purpose of eliminating the harshness of treble when matching the mid-range model of the Italian Emmespeakers Copernicus to my above-mentioned SANSUI amplifiers. For a few years I was resigned to the possibility that the COPERNICUS could only match amplifiers built in the 2000s, because of the harshness issue. The complete use of the WE wires from wall outlet to speaker cable to RCA interconnects eliminated 100% of the harshness – it really is that good! This also gives me the confidence to write a review of the COPERNICUS in the next round of SOUNDBOXES blog posts. You must try WE Hi Fi cables and power cords at least once – they will make a huge difference!

ALAN

December 2021, updated February 2022

[P.S. What about comparisons with other modern HiFi cables? For the moment, I will venture a guarded assessment based on tentative listening, pending deeper tests and detailed comparative listening sessions: the WE are the equal of KIMBER, SILTECH and the mid-lower level CRYSTAL CABLE.]

CARAVELLI AND HIS GRAND ORCHESTRA IN THE 1980S: INSTRUMENTAL POP SUPERSTAR, PART TWO

 

SONY-CBS and their Epic subsidiary in Japan consistently made a splash with a series of Caravelli compact disc releases throughout the 1980s including a few Caravelli album length CDs that were remastered faithfully from the LPs. While my Part One review started with releases around 1985 and later, let’s refocus on the years from 1982 to 1985. One of the first mass produced single volume CDs must surely be ‘THE BEST OF CARAVELLI’ featuring tracks from 1981-2 and the 1970s:

1		Begin The Beguine (Volver A Empezar)
2		Love Is Blue
3		Holidays
4		Theme From "Love Story"
5		Ou Est Passee Ma Boheme? (Quiereme Mucho)
6		El Bimbo
7		Let Me Try Again
8		Jet Stream
9		Dolannes Melodie
10		Penelope
11		Prelude A L'Amour
12		Pauvres Diables (Pobre Diablo)
13		Love Theme From "Romeo And Juliet"
14		Mr. Lonely

The contrast in musical styles across the years was simply quite stark: his versions of ‘El Bimbo’, ‘Love is Blue’ and ‘Holidays’ tracked closely the a-go-go pop styles of the 1960s and early 1970s, even while Mauriat was moving away from it already; meanwhile ‘Begin the Beguine’, ‘Pauvres Diables’ and ‘Prelude A L ámour’ signalled the maestro’s transition into a hippier 80s sound with lots of drum rhythms that tracked the pop charts.

A far better attempt to bridge Caravelli’s contrasts in styles was made in 1985’s four disc anthology grandly titled ‘ALL ABOUT CARAVELLI ET SON GRAND ORCHESTRE’. The cover design was even more elegant than the first ‘BEST OF’ on CD – this one featured the abstract sketch art of Lillies in pink outlines with dreamy watercolour streaks of green dispersed in every direction. The information booklet claims: ‘cover illustration by Hiroyuki Ishikura and design by Yutaka Musha’. With the exception of ‘Love is Blue’, ‘Penelope’, ‘El Bimbo’, ‘Begin the Beguine’, and ‘Love’s Theme’ from his 1975 ROCKIN’STRINGS LP, all the other tunes are slower reflective tunes or simply ballads. On the movie set, ‘Reality’ features an unusual female soprano singing a solo wordless chorus during parts of the song, adding to the ambience of the original romantic movie. The same technique also makes Caravelli’s interpretation of ‘Sandy’ from GREASE the musical memorable – in a typically French chanson way. ‘13 Jours en France’ is of course distinctive for its accordion led introductory solo – bringing back all that you want to cherish about romantic France. And one true gem is the pure string and piano interpretation of Irene Cara’s 1983 hit ‘Out Here on My Own’ that transforms the original in the tradition of a classic like ‘Les Feuilles Mortes’ (Autumn Leaves). Other rare poignant ballads include ‘Sister Carrie’ and ‘Sur Une Balancoire’ with their long flowing passages and discreet female choruses. It is simply amazing how Caravelli made do in this compilation with mostly strings, trumpet, saxophone and drums with minimal synthesizer use.

Disc ONE    ALL ABOUT LOVE SONGS

1.    Toccata

2.    Aranjuez Mon Amour

3.    La Reine de Saba

4.    Love is Blue

5.    Dolannes Melodie

6.    Penelope

7.    Rain and Tears

8.    El Bimbo

9.    Adoro

10. Jet Stream

11.  Aria

12. Music Box Dancer

13. La Lecon a Deux

14. Sister Carrie

15. Mr Lonely

Disc TWO   ALL ABOUT SCREEN THEMES

1.    Chariots de Feu

2.    Ragtime

3.    Theme from “Love Story”

4.    Jeux Interdits

5.    Reality

6.    Melody Fair

7.    Sandy

8.    13 Jours en France

9.    The Entertainer

10.  Theme from “ET”

11. Love Theme from “Romeo and Juliet”

12. Love Theme from “The Godfather”

13. Sound of Silence

14.  Plein Soleil

15.  Le Professionel

Disc THREE   ALL ABOUT YESTERDAY’S HITS

1.    Hymne A L ’amour

2.    Les Feuilles Mortes

3.    Tombe la Neige

4.    Begin the Beguine

5.    El Condor Pasa

6.    Dansez Maintenant

7.    J’attendrai

8.    Sans Toi Mamie

9.    Out Here on my Own

10. Nathalie

11.  Besame Mucho

12.  Io Che Non Vivo Senza Te

13.  Qui Saura

14.  Ou Est Passee ma Boheme?

15.  Last Waltz

Disc FOUR  ALL ABOUT WORLD HITS

1.    Memory

2.    Midnight Blue (Beethoven)

3.    Casablanca

4.    Feelings

5.    Holidays

6.    Ma Jeunesse Fout le Camp

7.    Sur Une Balancoire

8.    Love’s Theme

9.    Honesty

10. Tonight I celebrate my Love

11.  Love is Blind

12.  Mes Trente-Trois Ans

13.  Yesterday

14. Killing Me Softly with his Song

15. To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before

The 1983 LP and CD album that featured ‘SUR UNE BALANCOIRE’(On a Swing) [SONY Epic 35 8P-12] as the title track repeated the same formula of emphasizing consistency between 1970s and 1980s Caravelli. As the album cover suggests, this a music to accompany a holiday in the wide open spaces of the countryside. This album is not completely laid back however, it tantalizes your imagination with lightly disco songs and touches of soulful tunes from Broadway and Film:

Tracklist 

1		Sur Une Balancoire	2:48
2		Pressure	3:25
3		Pour Le Plaisir	3:37
4		Can't Take My Eyes Off You	4:05
5		Just an illusion	4:22
6		Flash Bach	5:47
7		Chariots Of Fire	3:33
8		Theme from ‘The Professional’	3:27
9		Ragtime	2:59
10		Sister Carrie	4:20
11		Memory	3:25
12		The House Of This Summer	3:13
13		Infernal Tempo
14		Nathalie

 

This album epitomizes for me the showbusiness sensibilities of Caravelli – he gives his listeners an intriguing mix of familiar and less familiar tunes and leaves a deep impression on you that he has made them his own. One rare, standout track, apart from the standards like ‘Can’t Take My Eyes…’, ‘Memory’, ‘Chariots of Fire’, the title track and ‘Nathalie’, is the disco pop tune ‘Just an Illusion’. While keeping a smooth jaunty tempo throughout, the female chorus and funky string and guitar leads tug your listening consciousness in an alternately shuffling and syncopated motion. Such is Caravelli’s creativity with pop!

Two other 1983 CD albums follow in this creative trajectory of building a memorable experience with strings, trumpet, piano, saxophone and drums with minimal synthesizer: MIDNIGHT BLUE and CARAVELLI PLAYS SEIKO. MIDNIGHT BLUE actually selects tracks from the 1981 LP ‘Ma Musique’, 1982’s ‘GRAND SUCCES’ and 1982’s ‘DEDICADO A AMERICA’, 1983’s ‘COMME TOI’ plus ‘Love’s Theme’ from 1975’s ‘ROCKIN’STRINGS’ LP. ‘MIDNIGHT BLUE’ is anything but a sleepy time collection – it showcases Caravelli’s skill in producing sweeping string passages that blend pop, classical and soul sounds.

The tribute to Japanese 1970s pop superstar Seiko Matsuda is a slight shift in gear towards a 100% mid-1980s style tempo with funkier bass, guitar and a string arrangement that dances around the melody rather than take centre stage in blending pop into classical. Indeed Seiko’s songs are very much like that – melodic with a beat, and amazingly her song titles translated nicely into chanson-like themes:

1. Jolie Petite Fleur
2. Un Cadeau
3. Parasol Blanc
4. Balcon Sur La Plage
5. Au Gre Du Vent
6. Les Amants En Plein Hiver
7. Au Petit Matin Transparent
8. L' Ile Bleue A Deux
9. Etude Pour Une Rose Sauvage
10. Jardin Secret
11. Demain Je Serai
12. La Chanson De Seiko

Once again, Caravelli interprets Seiko in a 1980s fashion with hardly any synthesizer – it is beautiful melody laid upon melody marked by pure percussion, strings and trumpet playing that respects the original songs by Seiko.

Caravelli shared a great deal of his creative genius with his fans by also reinventing standards from the world of French chanson for the 1980s – try ‘DOUCE FRANCE’ from 1985 on either the French and US releases or the SONY/Epic version from Japan featuring an enigmatic cover illustrated by perfume bottle and transparent floral scarf set against musical sheets and a fountain pen.

You can guess, this is a salute as much to chanson, and Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Gilbert Becaud etc, as much as it is about Caravelli showcasing his range of fusing elements of big band, Broadway musical grandeur, sentimentality and 80s pop. DOUCE FRANCE is indeed sweet from start to finish. ‘La Valses de Lilas’ opens up with a flourish of hard rock guitars, heavy pop beat, and saxophone solo before the strings subtly breeze into consciousness. This tune is of course better known in English as Michel Legrand’s composition ‘Once Upon a Summertime’ – and what a summertime it is, done up for the 1980s. The other mind-blowing rendition is of ‘Et Maintenant’ (‘What Now my Love’) which is given a refreshing insistent pop beat that puts drums front and centre of the arrangement before the brass, trumpet solo, strings take turns singing the main melody. This evokes a pop music ‘heartbeat’ that can sit alongside 80s ballads of the likes of Madonna’s ‘Crazy for You’, any ballad by Phil Collins, and certainly anything balladic by Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston. In tune with the new sounds, Caravelli reworks ‘La Mer’, ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’, ‘Hymne a L’ amour’ and ‘Que Rest-T-il de Nos Amours’ into mid-tempo string laden songs more at ease with an evening on the verandah where you sip champagne looking over the city lights. ‘C’est si Bon’ turns up an even bigger surprise with a big band sound that evokes a loud fashion parade or the entrée into a stadium sized concert. And one unforgettable tune is ‘Roses des Picardie’ where Caravelli conjures up the slow-motion beauty of ballet in the arrangement – beckoning the listener to be still in a fast-moving world, and just admire beauty.

A rare French/US market compilation titled ‘UNE HEURE AVEC CARAVELLI’ in 1987 tried to also capture Caravelli’s 1980s sound by joining tracks from the 1982-5 LPs ‘Grand Succes’, ‘Comme Toi’, ‘Sur Une Balancoire’ and ‘L’amour En Heritage’, with 4 tunes remastered to a very high standard from the fourth LP I mentioned. Although this might be considered arm-chair mood music judging by the CD cover, it is way more than that. I especially like the intriguing inclusion of three Latin tunes – ‘Melissa’, ‘La Colegiala’ and ‘Il Tape Sur des Bambous’ which reveals the maestro’s Latin colours – melodic, authentic, flavourful in a musical way. This satisfying collection is rounded off with a healthy sampling of tunes from the pop parade, musicals, and cinema.

Finally, the best of Caravelli’s other 1980s pop renditions are featured in a rare Japanese compilation from 2007 titled ‘CARAVELLI PLAYS ‘70s and ‘80s HITS’, released exclusively in the CDClub mail order sales catalogue:

1. Honesty

2. Can't Take My Eyes Off You

3. Love's Theme

4. Careless Whisper

5. Woman

6. Words

7. Lettre a France

8. The Never Ending Story

9. The Stranger

10. More Than This

11. L'amour en heritage (only love)

12. Flashdance...What A Feeling

13. Kiss And Say Goodbye

14. Comme Toi

15. I Will Survive

16. Do You Relly Want To Hurt Me?

18. Sweet Dreams

19. The Logical Song

20. La Leson A Deux 

 This collection was assembled from tracks taken off virtually all of Caravelli’s LPs from the late 1970s till 1985. As the title suggests, the scope of this CD unabashedly celebrates the pop music hit parade of the two decades. His rendition of ‘Careless Whisper’ cleverly follows Wham’s original arrangement while adding several soulful leads on the trademark saxophone solos and slowing down the tempo just a tad that makes this a Caravelli ballad. What is breath-taking is the way the maestro arranges the strings to play large passages without betraying the pop music ambience of the piece. The same pizzazz goes into his interpretation of the Eurythmics’ all-time world hit ‘Sweet Dreams’: the synthesizer is brought in only to provide the bass and rhythm, the strings, trumpet and saxophone ‘sing’ everything else. And the part where Annie Lennox goes into a wordless chorus in the original to simulate a dream-like state of mind, the saxophone blows hard and soulful in just the right measure to keep the listener rivetted. ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’ is surreal in Caravelli’s hands with the use of oboe to substitute for the original vocal lead by Boy George. ‘Woman’ and ‘Words’ are given very elegant trumpet passages in Caravelli’s remake to make them unforgettably instrumental. And I can go on with Caravelli’s take on Roxy Music’s 1982 hit ‘More than This’ as a dream song… Caravelli – the orchestral pop wizard – should be as famous as Mauriat for remaking 1980s pop music from here on!

ALAN

December 2021