Anyone have heard of Tangent RS-8 speakers

Yes I did audition them many years ago. I worked at a store that carried the RS-2 and sold a few pairs of TM-3's.
We did not carry the RS-8 but did get a good listen at a store in Watertown Mass.

The one thing all their speakers did was give a great big soundstage with front to back depth. Rare in those days!
Bass was lacking a bit, more of a "British sound" I would say.

As I recall they needed quite a bit of power to drive them. It is hard to say how they would stack up today. The speakers and all equipment have made great strides!
Hope this helps!

Thank you Ck. You're correct that technology has evolved to a much higher standard today. It was able to perform quite well back then one can imagine how well it can perform when it hook up to the best amp, preamp, source and cables today.

The Tangent speakers used the Audax bextrene 8" bass/mid. drivers These drivers were very inefficient(around 84db) and wouldn't handle much input(rated at 25 watts) but they were very musical with a punchy bass down to around 40-50hz. My memory of the Tangents is quite positive but that was a long time ago. The only way to determine how they hold up to more modern designs is to listen and compare.

Peak Audio here in Halifax sold a lot of Tangents. A friend of mine still has a pair but his current speaker is an older pair of spenders. Another friend is running his tangents with an older rotel intergrated and cd player 855. Very balanced sound. Very listenable. If you can get them cheap they are easy to live with. I remember when he brought the tangents over to try in place of my Angstrom references. Well, the tiny tangents smoked them in every way except bass dept. I dumped the angstroms soon after. I was using the nad 3020 at the time. Good luck.

Does anybody happen to know the fair price for an pair of RS-8, assuming at least 8/10 condition?

I recently finished a refurbish job on a set of the Tangent RS6's which use the same drivers as the RS8's, the Kef T27 and the Audax bass mid (two in the RS 6's in a two and a half way configuration and no lack of bottom end here). I was a dealer in the 80's and we sold many of the Tangents with NAD, Hafler, Michaelson and Austin and Bedini for amplification.

Sensitivity was low, in the 88-89 dB range if memory serves me right and thoroughly British in all respects. Plywood veneer cabinets, quality crossover parts and very decent drivers. I paid $150.00 for a set of RS6's in early spring from California.

I've searched for RS8's but yours are the first I've seen mentioned.

I owned a pair . They ran $1600.00 the pair and they were the best dynamic I had ever heard. The RS-8 was the only true three way they made, beautiful rosewood cabinets. One big disadvantage: the woofers were made by Dalesford, a 10"bextrene unit prone to voice coil damage if driven at high levels and no replacements available (or equivalent).Since then I have built my own speakers,and all have turned out superior to them.

I have a pair of RS6's. As far as I know they were the one of the first pairs here in Kitchener, ON (maybe Canada). They were shipped in from England. I purchase them in 1977. They have three drive units (Audax drivers HD20B25J) 1" dome tweeter, 6" bextrene cone mid-range, 6" bextrene cone bass and Teak finished floor standing cabinets. Rated up to 100 watts per channel into 8 ohms. If someone is interested I have the original packaging.

The original packaging?!? Amazing! The speakers are very hard to come by these days. Are you sure they are 6"? Mine are 8".

I have a pair of TM1's, RS6's and RS8's. They still sound great to my ears all these years later.

In my opinion, they are best with classical music. But, of course, I listen to rock, pop, classical, some jazz, etc. A very British sound indeed!

Tangent actually made their own electronics to drive their speakers. High current map and preamp - rated at 220W a side (impressive for those days!).

A friend has a pair of RS2's - they are the best small speaker that I have ever heard.

Gary

And as a last note....

One of the last things the original Tangent company was working on was the RS-10 model. It was never produced.

anyone know the sencitivaty on the tm3's

I a pair of RS6 I bought new in 1978 with the amp and preamp. I still have the original packing and boxes. They were very musical speakers except if driven hard they would blow the voice coils.

Both my speakers still work well. They sound very nice with classical and jazz. Hard rock not so good.

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