Tannoy Westminster Event @ Walrus - meet up

The Kensingtons were disappointing, I'm sure they should sound better. Very dark and congested, quite hard to pick musical threads out of the mix. Plus, as they got louder they seemed to get worse. Front end was either a Notts Hyperspace or a McIntosh transport and DAC, into a McIntosh 275 power amp, so I would have expected it to sound much better. Something not quite right with the set up I suspect.

The Westminsters, OTOH, were bloody amazing, even in the tiny upstairs space. One of the handful of truly world class speakers I've heard. If I had £15K I'd buy a pair immediately. A proper loudspeaker, one of those hi-fi experiences when just about everything else you've ever heard sounds artificial and wrong.

-- Ian

 

Hi Dean,

The Westminsters were on the ground floor room, about 3.5m x 4m, we sat about 2m away from them. The first thing that strikes is the sheer size of these beasts. They are BIG, measuring 1.6m high x 1m wide and weight about 104Kg each. They are very well made from solid Walnut, so I suppose the weight shouldn't be a surprise. The standard of build was simply fabulous.

As for the sound, it was simply amazing. I don't think I've heard a better pair of speakers. As Ian says, truly world class. The surprise, for me at least, was how well the bass was controlled. It was like there wasn't any. No overhang, no boom, even though the room was way too small and we felt that we should have been sitting about 2m further away from the speakers.

We (Ian, Neil, Thorsten and myself) were there for over 4 hours listening to a variety of music and they played everything well. The speakers never felt loud or strained, regardless of how high the volume was and at times it was loud enough to drown T's dulcet tones (only joking T). These speakers allegedly go down to 18Hz but unfortunately we didn't have any tracks to test the really low bass. What we did have sounded great, whatever we played. The scale and dynamics were truly awesome and the sound so natural. If I had the money, space and a less "normal" SWMBO, I'd buy them and drive them with Ian's Leak very happily. With 99db sensitivity, Leak's 10WPC should be ample. Source first?, wait til you hear these and then try to argue.

The prestige range of Tannoys come with fine adjustments of treble (+-2db I think), which we briefly played with along with the supertweeters and I think the effect of these was only apparent on a couple of tracks. Generally we didn't notice or paid attention to these tweaks.

I understand why the Japanese buy so many of these. I wonder how they'll sound in a large room with more space around them.

The Kensingtons were in the basement in a slightly bigger room. The first thing I noticed was how loud these sounded. The bass was boomy, almost like I was at home. Ian has summed these up well. I don't know why they sounded so average, perhaps a synergy/room thing. The build quality of these was also very good. Neil did spot some Valhalla .

I'll let Ian and Thorsten list the source and amplification.

 

Hi,

The Kensingtons sounded okaish, but as others have said, they where clearly exciting room modes badly and while the system downstairs had obscenely expensive MacIntosh gear to drive it was not all that good.

The Westminsters reminded me a lot of the time when I had Tannoy Monitor Red 15" in corner Yorks. Anyone hankering for the sound of the TWR's but without the money, look for 15" Monitor Red or Gold Drivers and build a corner York. Buddy of mine did:

http://www.izzy-wizzy.com/audio/

What I noticed as well was that both Tannoys lacked that sense of openess and immediacy which I get from boxless fullrange systems, on the plus side the TWR (and my own old Tannoys) can play as loud as you want without showing the least strain, which non of my prized fullrangers do, so as usual, a question of compromises.

But I think i will keep my pair of Monitor Golds that I havbe lying about after all and keep them for the day I move to Africa with my wife. As we will have a huge house there I'll make one room ready for music with drivers set into the wall, there will be one pair of tannoys and probably a collection of modern and vintage full rangers, including Supravox fieldcoil and Goodmans Axiom 80.... Should be fun.

Ciao T

 

Well I'm a little bit disappointed that Walrus told me that the conditions were far from ideal (rooms too small), so I decided not to go to London for hearing these speakers even if I had the possibility to get a very cheap ticket.

 

Hi Neil, Ian, Thorsten and Dev,

Thanks for the write up. I'm really disappointed I didn't get down to this. I would bought some records with some trouser flapping bass.

The Westminsters sound like my type of speaker. Not cheap but that's way it goes. They have the sensitivity that will more than suit my amps. I have seen some Tannoy horns before and the build is of high quality.

Did they use any other amps or was it just the Mac?

Interesting comments about the Kensingtons.

Has anyone had any experience of the other speakers in the Presitge range? There are or were some recent Tannoy Prestige Series GRF Memory HE which retailed at around £5500.

http://www.tannoy.com/Default.asp?Id=4133

The corner horn idea sounds interesting.

SCIDB

 

Hi T,

Perhaps these DMTs would fit the bill. 15" DCs for well under £3k (I think).

Dean, I was hoping T could list the exact models but the amps and CDP feeding the Westminsters were Shanling I think. The Macs were feeding the Kensingtons.

I think davewhit2 on HFC uses Prestige Turnberry. You can try to PM him for details.

 

Hi,

Downstairs system was a monsterous £ 14K Mac CD-Player/Preamp box and a Mac 275 Amp. Sounded okay, but to my ears quite ordinary.

Upstairs system used the Shanling "Omega Drive" CD Player into a Hoerning integrated SE Amp with Vaic 302B Valves, around 15W into 8 Ohm (funny, Amp and Player where both Real HiFi products!).

Vinyl was I think in both systems via Tom Evans Phonostages, downstairs was (IIRC) NA Turntable with a Music Maker, Upstairs SME 10 with a Lyra Helicon.

I think the upstairs system had much better sounding components than downstairs which together with the room problems may have disaddvantaged the Kensingtons a lot more than neccesary.

Ciao T

 

Hi Titian,

Walrus were telling you the truth, the rooms were far from ideal, but the Westminsters still impressed, Kensingtons didn't.

 

Small Tannoys are not especially good IME, and not worth going after. These are drivers that require large cabs to sing. FWIW, I think they work well close-in - and in Japan that, for lack of space, is how they are often employed. Massive corner cabs and point source can be a viable option (just) in a ten or even less tatami room.

 

Did the Westminsters work with decent rock?
I mean, did they pump?

 

Depend on your definition of decent rock Leonard. We played a variety of music and it was all played well, but we didn't play any hard rock (by my definition, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin etc.).

Try and PM sideshowbob and Robbo. Perhaps they remember what else we played and whether the Westminters "pumped". I think they did.

 

Dev, sell you bimmer, you know you want some sir
I take these are not like all the other D/C's I've heard serious big full and fruity. But actually pretty good then? T.

 

IMO they are the best I've heard. As far as I know everyone we met there liked them except Thorsten, who liked them but wanted more.

BTW, I also like other DCs such as TD12s. I know they are not your cup of tea.

 

Hi Dev

if you need to you can borrow this

 

That's hitting below the belt S&M.

 

I never took you for a leather man Dev ;-)

 

Dev,
I realise the other liked them, however are they still big and fruity (I know the TD12's arn't but they sent me to sleep).
What would you say, they do for you Dev, you just haven't heard before sir?
S & M is being his usual mischivious self, he's such a scalwag

 

Abbreviations:

SM = Stereo Mic

S & M =

 

S & M will do me just fine thankyou Mr P ;-)

 

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