Looking for opinions on Tannoy Prestige line.

Hi James, I have heard several members of the Tannoy Prestige family in different systems - the Turnberry, Kensingtons, and a couple of Westminister Royals. Being somewhat of a fan of high efficiency and dynamics, I compared them to Avantgarde horns.

The Avantgardes definitely sound more dynamic, but some among my group of friends thinks that the dynamics are exaggerated on the AVG's and the Tannoys are more realistic.

Where the Tannoys have it all the AVG's is coherence. There is no way to make a large multi-driver speaker like the AVG approximate a point source like the Tannoy dual concentric driver. This has attendant benefits on soundstaging and image size. The AVG's always sound too big and a tad overblown compared to the Tannoys.

The Tannoys have a warmer and more romantic tone than the Avantgardes. On every model I have heard, there is a rosy midrange coloration that makes the midrange sound fat. Not a good thing in my opinion, because I prefer my speakers to be more neutral - but certainly quite appealing with some types of music. According to one owner, this coloration is exaggerated with certain types of amplifier and can be "tuned out" by careful amplifier selection.

Tannoy makes and sells a super tweeter. If you do go down the Tannoy route, you should strongly consider getting one of these because it makes a hell of a difference to the resolution and soundstaging.

There is a lot better out there.

I have the Tannoy Kensington SE. It' the last speaker i will ever buy. There is always the Westiminster's though,
hmmmmmm......................

Dsholl1,

In your system thread you comment on choosing the Kensington over the Sophia 3. Can you give me any more details on why you chose the Kensington?

Thanks,

Disclosure: I retail Tannoy Prestige, Departure Audio.
You put it best in your original post - "I'm a little burnt out on hifi." Tannoy's are a final stop. IMO, It's not really relevant to compare them with other speakers. Other speakers will measure better, spec better, image better, etc. but that's not what Tannoy's are about. That big, fat, juicy, whole, gripping, emotional presentation of the music either gets you or it does'nt. The cliche that it's about the music and not the sound is really true in this instance. The magic is due,I think, to Tannoy's 80 plus years of refining the fundamentally correct dual concentric technology. There's something magic about a dual concentric done right that can't be replicated by other approaches.
My bias is that if you can fit a 15 incher, do it. Also try to spring for a model with the alnico and pepperpot. I demo the Canterbury SE's.