Amp pairing with Tannoy Turnberry?

@mmcgill829

Thanks for sharing your genre and sound preferences. Now that you mentioned, you’ve already heard HPS with Kensington and really liked the sound; that makes HPS an easy choice for Turnberry’s. Keep us posted on your journey.

If you’re ever step into my neck of woods (Houston), feel free to stop by for a taste of Accuphase/Tannoy sound. I stream most of the time so there won’t be any shortage of Jazz musicians :-)

I have the Turnberry speakers and the Primaluna amps (although not together) and I think the speakers are best used with warmer sounding types of tube amplification.  I am not a fan of Primaluna amps, but I've never heard the NAT amps so I cannot recommend then either.  The NAT design looks interesting, and if they are available in your price range, they might work out.

For warmer sounding amps (something that would complement the Turnberry), I would look for amps run will 6L6 or KT66 tubes.  I would tend to avoid KT88 amps because the tendency to have a "hard" or "brittle" sound might exaggerate the slight tendency toward sibilance of the Turnberry.  Of course a 300B pushpull or single-ended amp will have the right tonal qualities, but, the issue would be sufficient power.  I personally don't listen at very high volumes so my compromises would be in favor of low-powered alternatives, but, this is a personal decision.  

These days, not that many amps are made with KT66 or 6L6 tubes because they have a lower output than other similar tubes making it harder to sell in a market driven by output specification.  But, to me, they are the best sounding tubes of tetrode/pentode types.  I also like EL84 amps, which are often the tube of choice in lower cost amps, but can still deliver lievly and punchy sound without being thin tonally.

For a specific choice, I would suggest looking at a Synthesis A40 amp (KT66).  It not only sounds fantastic, it has a built in DAC that is no slouch.  

I correct what I said above.  I meant to say "I have heard the Turnberry speakers and Primaluna amps"  

For warmer sounding amps (something that would complement the Turnberry), I would look for amps run will 6L6 or KT66 tubes. I would tend to avoid KT88 amps because the tendency to have a "hard" or "brittle" sound might exaggerate the slight tendency toward sibilance of the Turnberry. Of course a 300B pushpull or single-ended amp will have the right tonal qualities, but, the issue would be sufficient power. I personally don’t listen at very high volumes so my compromises would be in favor of low-powered alternatives, but, this is a personal decision.

These days, not that many amps are made with KT66 or 6L6 tubes because they have a lower output than other similar tubes making it harder to sell in a market driven by output specification. But, to me, they are the best sounding tubes of tetrode/pentode types. I also like EL84 amps, which are often the tube of choice in lower cost amps, but can still deliver lievly and punchy sound without being thin tonally.

This is a very good point. The Tannoy horn tweeters can get a bit sharp up top, especially on some vintage pop / rock vinyl. The KT66 / 6L6GC has a sweet sound that is a good complement, but the current hifi amp market largely ignores these tube types. I often use KT88 / KT120 amps on my Tannoys, but sometimes wish for something a tad sweeter.

I wish it were more common to see really nice modern amps (auto-bias circuitry, large transformers, premium parts, no 12AU7’s) made with MULTIPLE push pull pairs of EL34/KT66/6L6GC to hit say ~ 100 Watts.

My experience with EL34/KT66/6L6GC is years ago on Kensington SE (93dB). I had a few vintage amps restored, which used these tubes. Good for 20 - 35 Watts per side. Really sweet sound, but at the end of the day that's not quite enough power for me. I listen loud. Sure 8 Watts can get loud on SOME material, but the dynamics will be softened/compressed and you'll start to hit hard clipping on more dynamic recordings. 

@mmcgill829 We have a number of customers using Tannoy loudspeakers. From what they report, its apparent that you benefit from more power on that speaker- 60 Watts being a good minimum, unless you have a smaller room! One of our Tannoy customers has run both our tube amps and our class D amp on his Westminsters and reported good results with both, so apparently the speaker is friendly to both tubes and solid state as long as the solid state amp does not exhibit harshness.

Due to the efficiency of your speakers, unless you have a smaller room I would avoid SETs in particular. If you do get talked into one, here's something that you should know: To really hear the SET at its best, the speaker should have enough efficiency to avoid using more than about 20% of full power of the amp. Above that power level the higher ordered harmonics show up on transients, causing the amp to sound 'dynamic'. But its really distortion masquerading as such due to how the higher orders interact with the human ear. Dynamics should only come from the signal and not the amp! Larger SETs also make less bandwidth entirely on account of the output transformer; its very difficult to make an output transformer for an SET that has 'hifi' bandwidth and handles more than about 7 Watts!