The sad thing is the Tannoy were much too big for my desk ....
I sold the Tannoy because i had decided to try headphones too.... After few years of desesperation with 9 pairs of headphone, even if each one of them were modified with success, not one competed to my satisfaction...Not one... 2 Planar, 5 dynamic or even my 2 Stax...
Then i decided to go back with speakers, but owning no more my two pair of Tannoys, i sold them a good amount of money few years ago ... :) At this time i did know NOTHING about acoustic and small room acoustic...i bought for 50 bucks very good speakers( but not at all on the same quality level than Tannoy concentric dual gold for sure) Mission Cyrus 781 , the top of the line of Mission speakers...
I was so annoyed by each one of my 9 headphones, and dissapointed by the Mission speakers at first , i decided to try room acoustic and begin to read...
I read articles, study some books, and enter in two years almost non stop listening experiments each day ( i was retired) and acoustic experiments in my first dedicated audio room...
I did not have much money though, then i experimented with what i had in my basement, homemade materials ONLY ... i devised two set of acoustic control : passive one, and active one, material passive treatment with a balanced ratio between reflections/absorption/diffusion and active mechanical control of the zone pressure distribution around speakers and listeniong position... I even used a foldable screen as a kind of "acoustic lens" behind my listening position... I even used mechanical crossfeed between speakers and some oriented crosstalk to improve my S.Q. by Helmholtz method ...
All that was so successful, that the inferior Mission speakers in a room dedicated to them and around them surpassed for my ears the Tannoy experience in my past living room ... The Tannoy are superior design over the Mission, no doubt, but alas, i owned them as most people owned speakers without even knowing anything about acoustic then using them way under their true potential in a non-dedicated room ...
No speakers beat the room where they work for the better or for the worst, it is acoustic science that decide...Not the price paid for the speakers or even their mere good design ...
Then suddenly i was facing the obligation to sold my large house one year ago...
I closed the audio room with despair i spend 2 years to fine tune with my ears, with 100 Helmholtz resonators mechanically adjustable homemade... i was sad to the brink of depression... i called my room grid of resonators : "a mechanical equalizer"... The soundfield was almost a surround field very enjoyable, even if my Mission were not able to go under 45/50 hertz and the tweeter was not the best there is... Anyway my 9 headphones were crap compared to my Mission speakers/room and even my Tannoy never reach their optimal anyway because they were used in a living room then they could never compete ...
Then i was sad and even quit audiogon ( health reason too) ...
Out of despair because of the lost, i begin to modify a last promising headphone : the AKG K340...It was my last hope to acoustic heaven...
A miracle happened after 6 months of listening experiments and insatisfaction at first , a new dac, a new amplifier, new cables and 6 internal and external modifications to put them on their optimal level: they go where i never think possible, they beat my speakers/room in quality, because of their acoustic internal properties...i will not speak about it too much here, I described why in another thread...
To answer your question, i am more happy that i ever was, because i now own the best audio system i listened to in my life, thanks to Dr. Gorike a physicist founder of AKG who make this hybrid headphone with an acoustic patent .... The 5 resonators inside the shell/cup play the same role inside the headphone shell creating a dual acoustic chamber that my grid of Helmholtz resonators distribution did in my speakers/room... This was the only headphone hybrid with 5 resonators helmholtz style on the market for the last 45 years ...
This is why now i dont need speakers...
No more room to tune , and tuning a room ask for 6 months of non stop listening save if you pay 100,000 to an acoustician to do it ...I am happy over anything possible and listen music more than ever, no more paying attention to sound acoustic...
The soundfield is 3-D out of my head, recording dependant and i feel the bass organ with my body because of bone resonance as with a sub... The K340 is the best headphone of AKG and today for the used price an unrivalled marvel... But if you are a beginner and think to use them right out of the box as ordinary headphones, without optimization, forget them, they ask for a lot of work... AkG terminate them because they are too costly to make , and their complex design is too hard to figure out by the average passive consumers, and they are more difficult to drive than Hifiman He 6 because they are not only hungry they are picky... Thats my story...
I dont need speakers now and i did not want to do another acoustic room because even if successful , it was very long and hard job... Most people put speakers in a living room and they think thats great... They are wrong but they dont know better... And no speakers company will dare to say the truth if they want to sell speakers to the average passive consumers ... ALL SPEAKERS NEED A DEDICATED ROOM UNDER ACOUSTIC CONTROL TO SOUND AS THEY ARE DESIGNED TO BE PERIOD ...
My best to you...
or 45 year? what spk do you have now?
