Munich 2024

Western Electric owner Charles Whitener and Sales Director Trent Suggs together gave us a first look at Western Electric’s upcoming products. Dumb me failed to turn on my video until late in the presentation, but below you can catch a bit of Suggs’ presentation.

WE’s reference-level Series 100 will include a range of products. Pictured here is the first of the lot, the Type 100M monoblock, which is almost 14" tall and is expected to sell for $120,000. By email, Suggs touted pure class-A2/SET technology and zero negative feedback. Using ECC81, 300B, and 308B tubes—the towering 308B was developed in the 1930s—the 100M will offer 125 watts of fused SET outputs. You can choose between separate 4, 8, 16, or 24 ohm output transformers. The monoblock also offers autobias, active cooling (a fan, presumably), an analog edge-lit meter, a built-in phono stage, and a 12V trigger. The new 308B output tubes have a life expectancy of 25,000 hours, which is quite long. Available in three finishes—black, nickel, and champagne—the amplifier is due in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025.

Appearing briefly in the video are the forthcoming 85A preamp / headphone amp ($4999) and 88A 20W SET amplifier ($5999). Due later in 2024, the 85A offers headphone loads selectable via transformer selection, both 1/4-inch and four-pin balanced outputs, a dual-mono DAC that decodes PCM up to 32/768, vacuum-tube output on both the main outputs and headphones, 12V trigger, and that analog-edge lit meter. Tubes are 6SN7 and ECC81. The headphone amplifier is specified to output 1.3Wpc single-ended and includes optional 32, 150, 300, or 600 ohm transformer blocks.

The 20 W SET 88A, which ships later this year, is touted as “the more modest sibling” of the current 91E integrated. Designed to work with the 85A preamplifier, it has fixed and variable single-ended inputs, 4, 8, 16, and 24 ohm transformer outputs, a 12 Volt trigger input, analog edge-lit meter, autobias, and an ECC81 / 300B vacuum tube complement.