Although the last post finished on my preference for accuracy in a stereo system , this post is about one of my systems that although designed to be as accurate as possible , does tend to lean a little way towards musical rather than absolute "master tape" accuracy.
Some less experienced audiophiles listening to my main system, can find it too analytical for their own taste, which usually tends towards the "beautiful" sound they consider "correct" . Some even find the sound of absolute accuracy a little harsh , this is usually reflective of the recording, rather than the system, as the very detailed and analytical sound of an accurate system quickly reveals any flaws in the recording technique.
For myself, I must have system that is capable of revealing the very finest recordings, rather than a system that makes everything sound "nice".
One of the advantages of using the DEQX digital crossover is the ability to have 3 different settings, this makes it possible to have one absolute setting and another two settings for less than perfect recordings, all available by remote control.
If I had to live with only one system this would be it, however the fact is most recordings are not well done and songs have to be chosen for their recording quality to sound good on this system.
With the best recordings, nothing else sounds as good, but 80% of recordings are less than optimal.
What to do when one just wants to put some music on and not listen critically? Fortunately I'm able to have 4 systems, and as I build preamps and power amps its convenient to listen to new designs on a variety of speakers.
All of my speakers are designated as studio monitors, and reasonably accurate with a load tolerant amplifier.
The exception is my pair of Tannoy 15" Gold Monitor speakers- these were designed back in the early part of the 20th century, and while they were classified as monitors then, these days the requirement for accuracy is much tighter and the coloration of the big 15" co-axial speaker does not classify it as a studio monitor .
The main advantage of the big Tannoy is its ability to fill a room with sound. Mine are used in a big room, in an open plan house and they have a remarkable knack of filling the whole house with clear concise music.
Quite a lot of the Tannoy coloration comes from the conventional cabinet design, they are mostly used in big , heavy boxes, and deliberately tuned to fill in the lower midrange with some cabinet "sound".
With a compression driver and crossover at 1000hz this is normally a good thing.
In truth a Tannoy Gold will sound good in just about anything, but with my penchant for accuracy I wanted to see if I could get it accurate without taking the soul out of the sound.
Straight away I decided to use a subwoofer as I believe it is too much of a compromise trying to get sub bass from a co-axial , and relieving the Tannoy cabinet of sub bass duties let's us concentrate on getting cabinet effects to a minimum .
I use a 100 litre cabinet constructed of two layers of heavy MDF , but more importantly inside the cabinet is a large cardboard tube a little larger than the driver, and about 30 mm thick. This is attached to both the front and back of cabinet so driver is actually in a round , very rigid sub-cabinet. This takes out any form of cabinet coloration, and The Tannoy is heard as it really sounds, with out the usual cabinet effects.
The tube is filled with very dense Belguim foam which helps to give a surprisingly good bass response which sounds clear, tight and articulate down to 50Hz.
I was quite surprised by this, usually the big Tannoys go into big 200+ litre enclosures, but the bass in this unconventional 100 litre cabinet is just about perfect to mate with the JBL active subwoofers which are switched to 50Hz crossover @ 24dB. The subs contribute very little to the music and only really come into play with genuine sub-bass.
Crossovers are standard passive Tannoy, I might investigate them one day, but they sound fine as they are.
The sound of these speakers is pretty much was I was hoping for- they are reasonably accurate, maybe not studio monitor but quite close, are still very musical, without that excessive "cabinet" sound the big Tannoys sometimes have.
They fill the room with sound, and are very enjoyable to listen to over long periods.
I tried many amplifiers and really think that tube amps are a must for Tannoys. They also will work quite well with low powered amps, but do struggle if louder volume levels are required. Around 30 watts seems to be minimum and I found that one of my lower powered push pull 50 watt Malbec amps, using rare 7027 pentode output tubes (similar to 6CA7, the USA version of EL34) , 6SN7 driver stage, octal 6H30 screen regulation, a tiny bit of negative feedback, and just a bit more of positive feedback, gave the sound I was looking for, for me, preferable to the sound of much more expensive and over-engineered SE amps.
JBL SLR4312SP active subwoofer
