Comments on Tannoy Kensington SE - Room size

Chasas1, thank you for your very kind words. I have taken delivery of my Tannoy Westminster Royal SEs and I have to say I am totally blown away by their sheer musicality. I plan on writing them up for Positive Feedback as soon as they are fully broken in (6 months they say!).

These speakers have reinvigorated my music listening in a way that I could have never imagined. I've been getting up early in the morning around 4AM and listening to them before I head off to the office around 6AM. A couple of nights I actually put my alarm clock next to my listening seat in case I fell asleep listening, which I did, spending the night with music playing.

Here's a link to a couple photos of them out on my Picassa web album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffday

More to come!

Kind regards,

Jeff

I heard the Kensington SE's with Shindo 20watt GM70 tube SET Mono Blocks. Wonderful! Jazz and Chamber music sounded dynamic and life like. When we put on some more complex classical orchestral stuff the sound seemed to get clogged up, congested and lost a some of the air on top. Why would that happen? Thanks!

Jetrexpro,
That's exactly what was happening to my Kensington SE's, on higher volumes or with high dynamic range recordings, when I was using 25/35/55 Watts/ch push pull tube amps. They still sounded really great to me, so it took a while to catch on. Recently upgraded to Rogue Apollo monoblocks (250 Watts/ch, 1500 Watt transients) and it's a whole new level of dynamics and distortion-free/compression-free music :)

The Kensingtons can yield incredibly clean and life-like full-range dynamics, provided you've got the power available. Their 93dB efficiency is high in a relative sense, but even then it'll still take a good bit of power to get the life-like dynamics.

Mulveling,

This is very depressing to hear because I could have become a Tannoy devotee. I absolutly love these speakers. But I have a Pathos Twin Towers (30 watts)and have no plans to change amps and I listen to alot of Classical Orchstral stuff. If anything I may want to build my own SET amp at some point so I really may need to go it another direction...sadly! But I wont give up on Tannoy till I have a chance to hear Tannoy with my Pathos TT this way I'll know for sure.

Yes, the orchestral stuff (a small segment of my LP collection, but a highly enjoyable one at that) is incredibly demanding. You'll need either lots of power or very high efficiency speakers (upper 90's at least). Perhaps someday, go for a 2nd system with Tannoys a high-power PP amp? Or, go for the high efficiency Tannoy Westminster SEs, assuming an accommodating room & budget :)

I do so love the midrange of the Kensington SE. It has a certain "magic" to it that gives me chills. I think it might be due to the Alcomax/Pepper-pot driver used in that model and the Yorkminster/Canterbury/Westminster. The Tannoy tulip-waveguide speakers are also excellent (I've heard Glenair 10, 15, and Dimension TD10), but don't have that touch of sweetness/honey like the Kensingtons.