Been a music(hi-fi)lover since i was about 14.The westminster royal he, has been by far the most important addition to the system. After too many years of changing(upgrading?) equipment based on magazine reviews and keeping up with the latest, the Tannoys have given me a new perspective on what can be achieved in the listening room.
I am enjoying music so much again.
Having tried many pre and power amps over the last year this is what sounds best for me.
Think what you could achieve using Both a high and low powered valve amp! Amp Matching is more critical with Tannoy Pepper pot wave guide equipped speakers. I find transistor amps accentuate the IMD though the horns. The treble sounds sweetest and more organic with low feedback or SE valve amps. Problem. the 15in woofer-mids prefer a higher damping factor than the horn tweeter and need big watts for bass headroom and life like impact. Solution. Run them with active crossovers. Then you can run the optimum amp for each driver. This is a long term project that I have been working on. Altec 260A inspired with variable damping and 200 w/rms @ 8 Ohms. Ongaku inspired SE with 45 w/rms @ 8 Ohms. Both amps use 2, 4-125A transmitter valves per channel that NEED cooling.These are very linear, long lasting, ultra-reliable and can pump out the required power using only 2 valves per channel. A near silent cooling system is currently being designed by me for these monsters. Dr Frankenstein would be green with envy! Frequencies are divided by an optimized custom valve crossover. Liberated from high frequency duties frees the Altec to strut it's stuff from Fs to 1200Hz where we can vary the damping factor to optimize balance between tight, life like, dynamic bass and vocal clarity. Lberated from the Achillies heel of SE amps, it's bass slam and impact. It shines at what it does best airy, sweet upper midrange and treble. This greatly reduces IMD and THD in both the amps and the speakers and those amps are running the speakers far more efficiently seeing a smoother impedance load with more phase and frequency linearity than with a "passive" [what an oxymoron!] crossover. This should optimize the spherical wavefront the Tannoys present to the listener that make them such a treat on good "live" recordings. It will also correct the dip in response @600Hz and 1600Hz largely caused by the 24 ohm [Westminsters have a dip in impedance response here] peak around the crossover and other consequences of the "passive" frequency dividing network. The system features a silver wired passive control unit with 30[soon to be 40] position stepped dual mono attenuators[currently on PC duties] XLR fed to an ECC33[have2 NOS matched pairs] valved gain stage then on to the active crossovers. All my life I have fantasized about building something like this. Looking at those big beautiful horns makes me realize what my next step in the evolution of my system will be. Can send pictures of work in progress if anyone is interested. Seasons greetings from Thermonicavenger
